2025 has been quite a year! After just 12 months of full occupation of our Hazelmead site, we are creating a community, looking out for each other, self-building our Common House, growing food, caring for our land, welcoming new residents and improving our governance. We have gained national recognition, won eight awards, were featured in a variety of media and been visited by individuals and organisations wanting to learn from our achievements. So read on to learn more and take a look at our new film about life at Hazelmead….
Community wellbeing
Our Community Circle has been supporting us to look out for each other and have organised a wonderful array of social events. Even though the Common House has been out of use for most of the year, we’ve had regular coffee mornings, shared meals and picnics, walks, celebrations of solstice and Samhain.
We have just started using the Common House for residents’ events and expect to see a growing calendar of activities in 2026, including meditation, yoga, qigong, sharing circles and children’s activities. We had a talk from the parents of neurodiverse children, are looking at ways to increase participation from new and younger members and improving the way we use sociocracy for making decisions and organising the work that needs to be done.
Food growing
Food growing has flourished again this year, despite challenging growing conditions. Encouraging wider participation, our gardening group has provided us with a wonderful range of fruit and veg, and the children have had a happy time planting seeds and delivering the produce house to house.
During the summer, our ‘adopt-a-crop’ system yielded broad beans, new potatoes, tomatoes, courgettes, sweetcorn and chard, while a good squash harvest has now been distributed to households. Winter crops, including celeriac, salad leaves and leeks are now coming on stream. Thanks to the numerous water butts around the site, stored rainwater lasted long into the summer drought, but ingenuity and co-operation was needed later in the season.
Our two allotment plots at Flaxhayes yielded magnificent crops of French and borlotti beans, heritage tomatoes, currants, gooseberries and Bramley apples this year. Apples were sweet and juicy, and we had three pressing events making gallons of delicious apple juice for our members.
Caring for our land
Our Love our Land group have been working hard in their weekly sessions to keep the site looking nice and our mowing group have kept our meadow and grass areas in a good condition for wildflowers and wildlife, as well as for sunbathing & games.
The mown circle in the middle of our young orchard was a summer hit for gatherings and picnics, and the winding paths and benches gave opportunity for peaceful walks and talks.
Thinking about the future, we started a permaculture design process with a year of observation and community participation. Our Environment Circle has also been encouraging better recycling and composting.
Building our Common House
The airtight basic structure of the Common House being completed, our members have put hundreds of work hours into the finishing phase this year. We focused our efforts on the internal spaces and everything is now insulated and air tight. Guttering is in place and we are now looking at water storage. The team from Barefoot Architects helped finish the cladding on the outside of the building and the sanding of the internal woodwork in the main hall
The main hall is now almost 100% complete, bar lighting and electric heaters, and the floor is finished. We’ve got paint on the clay walls, the woodwork has been sanded and we have fitted the doors. The kitchen, pantry and toilet are at the stage of fitting out and floor finishes. In the coming weeks, we will be prioritising the veranda and decking so that access to the Common House is safe and easy.
We’ve been preparing for how we will organise community meals in the Common House by writing health and safety policies, delivering training for food handling, piloting bulk buying of dried goods, and investigating local food providers.
We have now reached agreement with our partner, Bournemouth Churches Housing Association (BCHA), to lease a storage space in the South West flats which will act as a community laundry from early next year.
Health and safety
We’ve had a big push on health and safety this year. Risk assessments and mitigation measures have been put in place. These include new road signs and lines at the entrance, working with families to keep kids safe, and addressing household parking needs. We installed a defibrillator and drew up procedures for residents to share their In Case of Emergency details and Next of Kin information with a neighbour.
New residents
The first resale of a BC home has been successfully completed, and we are pleased to have welcomed a new resident family into the community. Having decided that BC do not have the resources to buy or operate the proposed guest suite, plans are underway with BCHA to make a two-bed flat available to eligible member(s) and we hope to welcome more new resident(s) in 2026.
Raising the national profile of cohousing and winning eight awards
Our final award of 2025 sums up our achievements on the national stage this year. We were awarded the Community Land Trust Network (CLT) Lead Goose Award, as the organisation that contributed most to the profile and progress of the CLT movement by consistently showcasing the possibilities that a CLT can bring to communities.
This award is inspired by the well-known ‘V’ formation of flying geese where the front goose takes the lead and the others follow in their slipstream to save energy. When the leading goose gets tired it drops back and another takes its place. In this way, every goose is a leader at some point in their long, arduous migrations.
Bridport Cohousing has certainly taken the lead this year – look at all the other prestigious awards, national media interest and visits we have received over the year:
- Winner of Healthy Homes – the Pineapples Award which celebrates great places to live, work, play, shop or learn.
- Winner of the National Royal Institute of British Architect (RIBA) Award, the South West & Wessex RIBA Award, Client of the Year and Sustainability Awards, recognising Hazelmead’s safe, sociable, accessible, sustainable and affordable homes.
- Winner of the Housing Design Award – used by Homes England to raise the quality of its delivery programmes.Whole Energy System Innovation Award 2025for our microgrid operator, CEPRO, recognising the Hazelmead microgrid which integrates our homes with solar energy and battery storage, reducing grid imports by 60% and delivering 15% cheaper energy bills.
- Architects Journal article: Hazelmead: a DIY utopia designed by people, for people.
- Country Life online Magazine article: Affordable, sustainable, rural: How a group of volunteers embarrassed the government and built some of the best new homes in the country.
- BBC online news and Radio Solent articles: Could co-housing scheme be template for future homes?
- Housing Design Award film
- Institutional visits from the Duchy of Cornwall, Dorset & Cornwall Councils, an architects practice, the London and National CLT Networks, Diggers and Dreamers editorial board, Blueprint Magazine, Placemaking Resource and the RIBA Journal.
- 36 individuals joined our six Hazelmead monthly tours.We have made a number of presentations to interested organisations and groups.
- Hazelmead’s sustainability features of community food growing, green energy, zero carbon house design, natural build of the common house, swale water system served to inspire and educate 30 students on a practical sustainability course who also got stuck in and helped prepare some of our veg beds.
Looking forward to 2026
Our key ambition for 2026 is to finish our Common House and bring it into full use, both for our members and for the local community. This is a huge challenge as our resources and energy are not what they were at the start of this 3-year-old self-build project. A Common House is at the heart of every cohousing project – it’s the place to gather, socialise, eat together, have fun, keep fit and so much more.
After such an outwardly focused year responding to award judges, media and visitors, we plan to spend more time on strengthening the community itself – deepening ties, having fun, looking out for each other and improving our sociocratic functioning.
Our thanks to everyone who supported us this year
Our members and shareholders
Bournemouth Churches Housing Association
Hazelmead Community Energy Barefoot Architects
Community Land Trust Network
UK Cohousing Network