Mikaela had lots of experience of co-ops in California before moving to the UK and getting involved in Stirchley Co-operative Development – a group of local people who are building an affordable and eco-friendly residential and community premises in the heart of Stirchley, Birmingham They are developing land on Pershore Road to house three local community premises along with a block of 39 apartments which will ultimately be known as Jessie Eden House.

Jessie Eden House at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/jessie-eden-house

Gung Ho Housing Co-op at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/gung-ho-housing-co-op

Stirchley Co-operative Development
https://stirchley.coop

Green Square Accord
https://greensquareaccord.co.uk

Nat describes her own path to communal living (she wishes that she'd done it years ago) as well as filling us in on the early days of Crabapple in Shropshire. The community at Berrington Hall celebrated its fiftieth birthday in 2025 so there's plenty to hear about the evolution of the place over the last five decades. It may no longer adhere to the ideas of B F Skinner as described in his novel Walden Two but it's still very much thriving.

Crabapple at Diggers and Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/crabapple-community

Crabapple on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/crabapplecommunity/

Walden Two
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two

Hockerton Housing Project in Nottinghamshire, UK is a community of five sustainable homes, with a co-operative business on-site running a range of educational and advisory services in sustainable buildings and lifestyles. Simon Tilley was one of the founder members and he tells us how the community works as well as supplying a lot of technical information!

Hockerton Housing Project at Diggers and Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/hockerton-housing-project

Hockerton Housing Project
https://www.hockertonhousingproject.org.uk

GreenPWR
https://www.greenpwr.com

Sustainable Hockerton
https://sustainablehockerton.org

Energy Local Clubs
https://energylocal.org.uk

Edinburgh Student Housing Co-operative is one of a whole new wave of co-ops that are now popping up all over the UK. Numbers of members can be huge and the population more transient than mainstream housing co-ops. But for many students they can be inspirational spaces that make them want something more from housing in their adult lives.

Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/edinburgh-student-housing-co-op

Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op
https://www.eshc.coop

Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op at Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/eshcoop/

Student Co-op Homes
https://www.studenthomes.coop

Claudia Lucrecia Marcos Sanchez Manrique and Ian Hare have gone from being key members of the UK Communities Conference organising team to carrying out a stupendous tour of intentional communities in both North and South America. Hear about some of their experiences and the contribution that these have made to starting a new project in Peru (https://elpiloteperu.substack.com/p/welcome-to-el-pilote).

Braziers Park at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/braziers-community

Twin Oaks
https://www.twinoaks.org

Cambia Community
https://cambiacommunity.weebly.com

Kalli Killa
https://facebook.com/KalliKilla

Huehuecoyotl
https://huehuecoyotl.net

Fundacion Darien
https://fundaciondarien.org

Chambalabamba
www.ecoaldeachambalabamba.org

El Juego
https://eljuego.community

Chaikuni
https://chaikuni.org/work/permaculture

Owen Jarvis is the Chief Executive of the UK Cohousing Network – an organisation which raises awareness of cohousing; supports developing groups; and lobbies government and other bodies. Owen describes his own journey from an urban community in his student days to five years at Findhorn and now... prumoting cohousing – a very particular type of intentional community.

UK Cohousing Network
https://cohousing.org.uk

UKCN Members at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/communities/uk-cohousing-network-members

LILAC
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/lilac

Chapeltown Cohousing
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/chapeltown-cohousing

Paul Sedgwick was three years old when he joined his first community... FAmilies BY Choice (known as FABYC) in south west London! He describes his own experiences and the evolution of that community over the decades that have followed. Now – at retirement age – he and his wife are members of Still Green, a project which is planning a senior cohousing community in Wolverton – one of the old towns within the new city of Milton Keynes.

Still Green at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/still-green

Still Green
https://stillgreencohousing.org

Lakshmi Piette Walker began her communal "career" at Lyn's House Community in Cambridge. But she didn't stop there. Now she's exploring the concept of Christian community at a global level and through her blog and podcasts is bringing those ideas to a much wider audience.

Lakshmi's Substack
https://lakshmipiette.substack.com/s/dwelling-place

UK Intentional Christian Community Directory
https://field-bird-0fd.notion.site/a992da4fb5e64cdc86dbce31e87fa460?v=92f282a5a21449b09c403720e721d059

Lyn's House
https://lynshouse.org