Research Findings

• There were many reasons why people were attracted to community living. Most common reasons were sharing resources, social benefits and mutual support. On the other hand a fewer number found it less attractive being concerned about issues such as lack of personal space and preference for an independent lifestyle.
• Clearly the most useful organisations from those listed on questionnaire are ‘Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT)’ and ‘Hockerton Housing Project (HHP)’ itself. Excluding HHP since we targeted people that already knew of us (although reassuring that we were considered so useful by those that had already contacted us), CAT was about three times more useful than any other organisation.
• A number of other specialist organizations scored well such as, e.g. Ecology Building Society and Co-operative Bank (eco-finance), AECB (eco-construction), Shell Better Britain Campaign (community support) and Chapter 7 (planning).
• The most concerning organisation scoring ‘not useful’ was ‘your local authority (e.g. agenda 21 officer)’, with nearly a fifth of all respondents. This may reflect a wide variation in ability, interest, and awareness of local authorities around UK in supporting sustainability. Some authorities are obviously providing good support, but this outnumbered by those not doing so. This must be a concern, since it is a key part of government strategy particularly at a local level, co-ordinated by local agenda 21 officers to facilitate sustainable development. People are obviously turning elsewhere for support!
• It was generally felt hat there is not an adequate support network of organisations for sustainable communities
• There was a general consensus that government at all levels is not doing enough.
• The publication that was found to be most useful was ‘Permaculture Magazine’.
• The services that individuals seemed most interested in HHP providing were a site visit to the project and producing a guidebook.
• In terms of a HHP site visit the most popular elements were ‘demonstration of homes’ and ‘tour of water and energy systems'.
• The website was considered to be a useful/very useful by over half of the respondents. This may indeed increase as more people get on line and get more familiar with using email and the internet. There is a great opportunity here for collaboration with partners to make the website more useful as a tool for obtaining information. It is expected that the website will evolve over time, but start with the most useful elements – ‘exchange facility with like minded individuals’ and ‘news updates about developments with other sustainable communities.’
• Organisations were interested in a different emphasis on proposed HHP services. Site visits were scored much lower, whilst a website much higher. This would make sense in that organisations can compliment each other easily over the Internet, by supporting each other through mutual links and reciprocal promotions.

Thank you for the opportunity to complete this questionnaire - I admire the work of HHP and wish you continued success.

Well done – this has great possibilities. The potential ‘out there’ is enormous – The Henley Center reckon on 15 million people at any one time want to live in a ‘community’ in the UK. If we can contribute in any way please let me know.

Good luck with this new project. It’s very worthwhile.

Until reading this (questionnaire) – I didn’t realize just how many groups and organisations there were, actively involved with projects such as yours. It’s wonderful. Please keep in touch.