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Take a deep breath, you are about to begin constructing something beautiful, that you can forever enjoy and be proud of. You are also about to take a lead managing a multi-million pound construction project; and steer a multitude of households through conflicting priorities and difficult decisions. You can do it: there's thousands of fulfilled residents and neighbours in hundreds of successfully completed cohousing projects around the globe. But, for each group that gets to move in to their community, five fail to realise the dream.

Q) What is Cohousing?

A) A pedestrianised housing estate, common house used for regular meals, self contained units, no shared business, resident design input, non-hierarchical & consensus decision making.

People need community and privacy. Cohousing is a way for people to live together so that they can have as much community and privacy as they want. The concept is simple and immediately comprehensible. It is the way forward for human beings to live together in a safe, independent and caring neighbourhood. It is a revolution that is beginning now. We will no longer just choose a new house when we move, we will join a new community.

Max Comfort offers a wonderfully detailed (and at times very sobering) account of the development of Springhill Cohousing in Stroud...

1. How we got started

In 2000, David Michael successfully negotiated to buy 2 acres of land close to the centre of Stroud and on a steep, south-facing slope. He put down £150,000 returnable deposit from his own funds and began to spread the word about the project. By the Autumn of 2000 he had attracted some ten households, all of whom purchased 5,000 £1 shares in the Company intending to buy the land and chose which house type they were going to purchase. The choice was 5, 4 or 3 bed houses, and 1 and 2 bed flats. At the last minute the vendors asked us to go to sealed bids and we ended up paying £550,000 for the site. We exchanged contracts but David negotiated a long period to completion, which gave us time to gather the funds for the site purchase.