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Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:03**

[PVpost] Reuben Woods project This is an edited re-post of a topic that existed before the forums were hit by a virus in June 2005. Please feel free to add comments at the end, however if you are reading this soon after it was posted, it's likely that more 'old' replies will be added in the next hour or so and therefore please wait before replying a) to see if your point will be covered and b) to let the original sequence of posts make sense.

Thank you

This is the thread for talking about the Reuben Woods project.

Reuben Woods has an open letter to all PowerSwitch readers. It is an offer that may just change your life and marks the start of a very interesting project.

Reuben Woods writes:

I am writing this message in frustration of direction of where us peak oilers are going. Sally and I have drastically changed our lives since we discovered peak oil nearly 2 years ago. Despite having three children we sold our car and go everywhere on bikes, we are now the proud occupiers of an allotment and grow numerous veg in our garden. Sally has also set up an organic veg garden at our sons school. We distributed numerous copies of the end of suburbia around bristol and held a peak oil workshop last june. Around three years ago we began to look for a piece of woodland or remote agricultural land to buy so that we would have somewhere to get away to, away from the city and the consumerist society we live in. When we discovered peak oil our need went up for this solitary space as our minds tried to deal with what our children were going to live through. As we read more and more about how our lives would change after the peak and how the government would seize land and there was no point in running to the hills because we would be set upon by gangs from the city stealing our crops and terrorising us" we started to doubt our purchase of land.

I am sure that there are many readers of this site that have changed their lives in similar ways to us and are still feeling alone in their communities in a sense of action regarding peak oil. I am sure that there are many of us who have thought about the purchase of land and the self sufficient life but felt scared at the prospect of doing it alone. After much thought I would like to propose an Idea to Powerswitch readers. I propose that as a co-operative we could purchase a large area of woodland with water (river\stream\spring etc) and start to work together instead of waiting to convince our friends about the crash and waiting for a solution. I personally would like to establish veg gardens build a community space for us to meet and explore ways of producing energy and shelter. I would rather have spent my life exploring dreams of self sufficiency than waiting for an inevitable powerdown in the city.

I am sure that all of you would defend your food and familys in your homes so why would it be any different in the sticks. I think that if we could aim for an initial 20 people investing ?5000 each we could buy a large enough piece of land to start the first peak oil aware community. For example in scotland for ?80,000 for sale is 152 acres of agricultural woodland and grazing land fronting the river devon In Wales 101 acres for ?80,000 and recently 443 acres went in cumbria for 200.000. This is alot of money but if enough people commit then it could become a reality. I think that for a small investment we could all buy a piece of mind and work together for a sustainable future and a strong community. Maybe you could start a link for anyone interested in this idea with a disscussion as to what could be achieved in a peak oil community. This is obviously a very broad outlook on what us peak oilers could do with a piece of land but I think that there are enough of us now with common interests to make something like this work.

Kind regards
Reuben Woods

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:03**

Nice post James. I am very interested in this one. Can Reuben be contacted directly or is he going to be reading this forum?

Ben

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:04**

Reuben,

Good idea. I am certainly thinking of the self-sufficiency mode. I am fortunate to already live in the countryside and when push comes to shove could no doubt use some of the neighbouring land around me for subsistence. I am making big investments now in energy and water self-sufficiency whilst I still can and building sheds and outhouses to house domestic animals should the need arise. I am cashing in as many investments as I can at the moment whilst trying to limit my debt exposure. I have always grown a few veg but will rapidly expand my output this year. I am impressed by the permaculture" philosophy which I am trying to adopt to an existing home and garden. I would not in the past have classified myself as "green" or a "tree-hugger" but I guess thats what I've become.

As to setting up a distinct commune; I think that the disruption it would cause to my family would be too much. (I live in NE Scotland). As you can see I'm planning to stay put and as I've lived at my present home for 15 years and am well known in the area it would not be to my advantage to leave."

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:05**

We could improve on this if we linked together such projects across the country and internationally. Each community supporting the others in the nest work.. some communities could even produce things for other communities.

...

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:05**

A bunch of people running such a scheme will have a stunning advantage over everybody else. If they can find a really minimalistic and simplistic set of rules it will be even better. I think some inspiration can be found in the Swiss Eidgenossenschaft"

http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/swit/brudeng.html

This document was created in a feudal setting with dynastic families running the shop so it cannot be used "as is" but it can serve as inspiration."

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:12**

I think this is an excellent idea, where do I sign up

Eco~Village Network UK looks like it might be a useful resource for a project like this. In particular the skills page has a list of useful contacts for things like sorting out the legal structure of the group. I was interested to read on this page that:

It will make sense to look for land areas of more than 12 acres since you don't need planning permission for most kinds of buildings on a plot over this size.

Unfortunately I don't really believe that

I'd like to build an earthbag home but I think that could be because I'm part hobbit.

Kev.

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:13**

I think this is an interesting idea.

Do any details exist as to how unpaletable issues such as contracts, terms of ownership, transfer of money etc might occur?

Would you get an X by Y sized plot on the land for your money?

Or am I jumping the gun?

I guess you have two avenues for manging the cash - formal or informal.
Some kind of legal entity that looks after the money and such and is legally accountable, or you have one guy with a new bank account who collects all the money and places the offer and it's all done on trust.

One method is MUCH easier to do than the other, but how do people feel about parting with 5k on trust alone?

Try and pick a plot vaguely near a railway station when you're browsing good.land.for.sale.com, you don't want to have to DRIVE there.....

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:13**

fischertrop wrote: Do any details exist as to how unpaletable issues such as contracts terms of ownership transfer of money etc might occur?

Would you get an X by Y sized plot on the land for your money?

One way to do it would be to form an organisation (e.g. a society or limited company) that everyone would invest in. Investors would exchange their money for shares in the organisation and the organisation would use the money to buy the land. That way you would legally own a share in an entity that owns the land. I think you can probably define rules in the "articles of association" to cover eventualities such as people wanting to sell their share (i.e. they'd have to find a buyer and do it with majority consent of other members or something). The articles could also say that shareholders have the right to live on land owned by the organisation how much land they are entitled to etc. I think there are examples of this kind of arrangement around so if the project goes ahead it should be possible to contact people/communities who have done it and ask them about pitfalls etc.

Having said all of that I'm a programmer not a lawyer so it could be a load of crap

Kev."

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:14**

There is at least one well documented model of the sort of structures which could be created detailed on the Earthship Biotechture / Solar Survival website. This is from an covered from anAmerican perspective and within the American legal system in parts of Mike Reynolds Earthship books. The Sustainable Communities Initiative also cover some of the legal aspects of setting up sustainable communities in their localised (Scotland) earthship book and give pointer for advice.

In Scotland we also have the model of the community purchase of land (Eigg), Alastair McIntosh has written some well thought out articles on the subject of land, land reform, community and sustainable living.

It's becoming apparent reading a number of articles here and elsewhere that one of the big issues moving to a less centralised system, whether through managed or catastrophic change is land ownership.

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:16**

I've been looking for sometime at buying land - the one obtacle is obtaining planning permission to build a permanent dewlling, which can take years (which we don't have). The problem will be convincing the local planners. If the land is marked residential then it will unlikely have the requirements we are looking for, probably being brownfield without decent woodland and arable qualities, close to other residential (Wimpy style areas) and with strict guidelines on acceptable layout and house construction. If it is agricultural then the probabilty of obtaining permission to build homes on it is very low.

Land for sale with planning permission can be several times more in value than land without. e.g one acre of agricultural land can be ?3000 but with outline planning permission can be ?150,000 or even ?300,000 with detailed PP (this is definitely so in my area).

I'd love someone to prove my findings wrong though.

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:17**

The roundhouse that was (I think) featured on the real good life the other day has apparently been there for 8 years, and 2 years ago they were told to demolish it.

The Chapter 7 website offers planning advice for sustainable settlements.

To be honest I think I'd ask Chapter 7 for guidance, then go ahead and start building a home without planning permission (but don't tell anyone

) The authorities didn't even notice the roundhouse in Wales for 6 years, and they've not managed to evict the occupants and demolish it yet. In that case it was on national park land, might be different on private land. Tinkers Bubble got temporary planning permission in the end.

Post-PO the chances are that any settlement that crops up will only need to deal with planning inspectors who want to join or steal from them, not close them down

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:17**

I'd really like to live in a community, but are they all going to be in Scotland, Devon and Wales?

There are so many great people with these kind of views (community, not necessarily PO - yet) living here in Brighton and I'd like to think it would be possible to create an intentional community round here? But is that crazy talk - are land prices round here so insane that there's no point even considering it?

If we are looking to take care of only ourselves then a move to the lesser populated parts of the country makes sense, but it's clear as that we slide down the other side of Peak and others begin thinking the same, everyone in the country will end up in Scotland, Devon or Wales which doesn't help at all!

Maybe I'm just trying to have my cake and eat it? Perhaps the entire bunch of social / environmental / radical people who make Brighton so special will just desert the sinking ship of a big city and there will be little of interest left in the area. I don't care much for Sussex itself and all other things being equal I'd much rather live in Scotland or Norfolk.

I imagine that like many of us, I find myself contemplating a place I'd never imagined when I bought my house 3 years ago and envisioned being settled here rather than Wales. I would think that most of us are in large towns or cities - do we all intend to move to the above mentioned parts of the country or would anyone else like to stay roughly put and if so what kind of a different approach would that require?

Great to see this topic here - something that's going to be rising up the priority list as things start tightening.

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:17**

Thanks murpen, I think you're right. It's just having the courage and conviction to do it which I guess you would have in troubled times, especially if there were lots of you on shared-ownership land.

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:18**

Oooh! Guest was me on that nearly last post as I connected from the front page

Posted: **08 Jul 2005, 12:18**

There is more information on that roundhouse on their website. Tony Wrench built it for around ?3000, and also wrote a small (and very nice book) on the subject, it is available from him direct (see the website above) or through normal channel. It's a great wee book, detailing materials construction and the problems and gotchas which he found along the way.

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[PVpost] Reuben Woods project

[PVpost] Reuben Woods project

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