Despite all the climate-change rhetoric, the reason there is only one very small ecovillage in the UK today is largely due to opposition from the planning system and the whole string of hurdles that lie in wait behind it (building regs, roads, SEPA etc.) supposedly guarding the countryside and the environment, but in practise guarding only the wealth arising from immense development land values (on average worth 33,000% more than agricultural land) created and maintained by an artificial scarcity which stems solely from a supposedly public service, the planning system itself. A technique, called ‘cornering the market’ which can never, by its own definition, serve the wider public.

Overpopulation is another fable co-opted in defence of the planning system (and other abuses). It is the bogeyman used to scare us into accepting desperate measures to curb this threat to our way of life. A vivid picture is painted of our being submerged in the struggle for survival. We will drown in a sea of people, gasping for the room to breathe, as the last square foot of inhabitable land sinks beneath the overwhelming tide of surging humanity. To people living in an already crowded urban environment, where others constantly impinge upon you as you move through the day – it is a threat that is only too believeable, given the noise, the lack of space, the tense, hustling, hassling atmosphere of the streets, so dominant in most cities today. Overpopulation is one big city, with nowhere else to go.

In reality however, 92% of the UK still remains undeveloped, open soil. Uninhabited maybe, but not un-owned. 67% of the nation is owned by the richest 0.3% of the population, with a further 27% of our land under government ownership in one form or another.⁽¹⁾ Landowners who as a result sponge up EU subsidies in excess of 100 million pounds per week, with yet billions more from the drip feed of zero-cost inherited land released onto the extortionate housing market. Banks, whose ability to impose debt upon us is founded directly on the widespread dependence these black market values enforce, will not loan to projects threatening to slit the throat of the goose that lays their golden eggs. This is fundamentally why for most people – wealth, power and contentment are always dangling just out of reach.⁽²⁾ Beneath these financial overlords, lobbyists for manufacturers of fittings and equipment continually distort and devise ever more building regs in favour of making their standardised products mandatory.⁽³⁾

So, what is the true situation?

In the early 1980′s the Quakers formed a ‘concern’ to investigate the housing ‘crisis’ caused by Thatcher’s blatant bribery of the electorate by fencing stolen public housing at knockdown prices. They started by calculating how many homes were needed, and then how much space was required to build them. Their findings are remarkable.

They granted every statistically ‘ideal’ family in Britain a detached home with its own garden large enough to grow some veg, and included space for pavements and roads for every home. This resulted in the plot shown on the left. It is considerably more luxurious than the flats and homes inhabited by many living in the UK today.

Then they multiplied these plots by the current UK population to see how much land was required to house the whole population is such roomy two-storey dwellings.

Here we have updated the figures and areas required to reflect the current UK population of 60 million:

• 2 adults & 2.4 children per house
• 60 / 4.4 = 13.64 million plots
• which covers 845,455 acres
• equal to 1321 square miles, which
• fits within a circle of radius 20.5
• or diameter of 41 miles
• (1321 divided by ∏ r²)
• add in extra roads = 44 miles

So with everyone adequately housed:

• Green circle – contains all houses, gardens and access roads
• Blue outer ring – space for schools, shops, factories, hospitals, parks etc.
• Shaded area – total required market garden growing area
• Dotted circle – current extent of UK built environment
• which leaves 92% of the UK still unbuilt

They also recovered government research showing intensive market gardening was far more productive of food per acre than conventional mechanised farming. They then calculated the area required (shown as grey shading) for food growing to sustain the UK population using such techniques.

In addition it can be readily grasped that regardless of the much quoted ‘problems’ of single parents or people divorcing or wanting to live alone, even doubling the number of homes still only requires a circle of 60 miles diameter, leaving a lot of questions still to be answered.

Land Ownership UK 2011

Source: who-owns-britain.com

The 27% shown belonging to the government includes all roads, public housing and buildings, parks, open water, forestry etc., and MOD property. The royal estates are included in the 67% privately held by the 0.3% of mainly hereditary, unregistered holders. When the House of Lords was emptied of hereditary peers in 1999, 97 of them were direct descendants of the Plantagenet Royal house, the last of whom, Elizabeth I died in 1603 – four hundred years later these same people are still at the pinnacle of wealth and influence.

The Land Registry records only properties that have changed hands since its inception in the 1930′s, and even now barely covers 35% (by number) of the properties in Britain. The last complete survey of UK ownership was conducted in 1872, compiled from parish tithing maps, most of which have now been lost or destroyed, leaving no record, nor means, nor even right to know who owns Britain today.

This leads to extraordinary situations, like the 1,500,000 acres of covenanted (i.e. unsellable) land the Church of England has ‘lost’ in the last 100 years. Or the thousands of extra acres receiving EU subsidies than the total the Ministry of Agriculture holds for the entire UK. See Kevin Cahill’s book Who Owns Britain for the full story. Likewise records show that in the 1600′s, some 60% of Scotland was Common Good land, nearly all of which has been illegally ‘privatised’ in the last 400 years. See Andy Wightman’s book The Poor had no Lawyers.

Serfdom is having no land of your own.
It takes most people most of their lives to buy themselves part-way out of that serfdom, by eventually owning their own home. All that effort merely to claim enough of your own to live in, let alone live from. Yet people will always reach to be free, even a little freedom at great price. After reading this you may come to see a new and better direction in which to reach for that freedom, not by denying others their right to be, but by actively reclaiming your own.

Asked to name the most overpopulated countries in the world, most people would probably come up with a list of places like India, the Phillipines, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, maybe even Brazil. These countries are surely teeming over with people, so much so that there isn’t enough room for everybody to get a decent living, every one of them crammed to the borders with poor and starving millions. Most would be rather surprised to find that the facts flatly contradict this impression.

Holland for instance is the most heavily populated country in Europe, with an average density of 1.84 people per acre, which is the same as an area of 1,423 square yards (a plot 37.5 yds {34.25 m} square) for each man, woman, child and baby living in Holland today. This is quite a bit more than most of them own at the moment!

Yet Brazil, home of decimated rainforests, shanty towns the size of major European cities, some of the poorest people on Earth in their teeming millions, an apparent glimpse of our possible future – has a population density of only 0.08 people per acre, giving plots of more than 817,960 square yards, nearly a square kilometre for each individual, or areas of 676 acres for the `average’ two-parent, two child family – more than enough to live on by most peoples standards. After all in Holland, squeezed into their paltry 0.294 of an acre, or one and half acres for the family, they seem to do a lot better than the Brazilians, in a lot less space.

Indeed by looking at the figures in the table above, you can see there is absolutely no correlation between population density and wealth per capita, with Hong Kong, home of some of the worlds most expensive real estate, and many powerful worldwide companies, far outstripping the rest of the world when it comes to overpopulation – yet you don’t see people cramming the borders trying to escape – in fact you see precisely the opposite, with boat people trying to smuggle themselves in, seeking a better life!

Here in Britain, we have an average population density nearly half that of Holland at 0.98 people per acre (5000 plus square yards each), almost identical to the 0.99 people per acre living in the Phillipines, home of Marcos, the shoes etc. another “poor, crowded” country. And yet even a densely populated island like Britain is nowhere near as crowded as you might be led to believe. And led is the operative word here. Ask who is leading who to believe such a blatantly flawed view of reality, and also why, the answers are interesting!

Where else do you have a right to be if not in the land you are born into? Where has that land gone when so many people must live like vermin in a cage, scurrying under the nearest piece of corrugated iron sheeting because they have nowhere else to go, no place to call their own, no right to be. Who denies them that right? It must surely follow as a simple matter of logic, that if there is enough space, enough land for everyone to live on their own private estates, and yet most people own not even one handful of earth, with many of the rest owning no more than their own homes, the king-size share of every land must belong to the remaining few. The table above shows the current distribution of land ownership in various countries – notice how little this changes between “rich” and “poor” countries.

Whoever owns the rest, and whatever gives them the power to force everybody else to the edge, and yet further, even completely off the land altogether, is responsible for the totally disproportionate distribution of land seen in every country today. The illusion of overpopulation as commonly perceived is the experience of living in the crowded fringes which border the great estates of the wealthy and privileged Great Dictators, whose fences encompass all as far as the eye can see, and beyond, closing off the land, shutting us out from our inheritance, our god-given right to be, here on planet Earth.

Of course if our Great Dictator were foolish enough to herd his entire population into even such a well-appointed preserve as the 62 mile wide city outlined earlier, it would be his undoing, for then the people would readily perceive the true scale of the deal, having given up 5000 square yards of their own, for a room and a half share in a small house in the neighbourhood. Something would need to be done! An intelligent dictator would thinly spread people all over the place, to avoid too great an impression of emptiness, but still cram most of them into towns and cities, to make sure all this talk about overpopulation is taken seriously. So everybody looks the other way for an answer, and with differing degrees of reluctance agree to curb the prodigious breeding rates of the poor and undesirable in as humane a way as possible, but do it, and as a matter of urgency. Encourage everyone to agonise over the moral dilemmas this creates, or try not to think about it too much, but above all don’t bother looking back over the fence.

That great fence marching across history, the land, every government and every attempt to ameliorate the injustice of our extremely unequal share in the gifts of creation, in denial of our common inheritance. We are each born to an ample share of this planet; whose air we breathe, whose water we drink and runs in our veins, whose food fills our tables, whose plants and minerals make our built environment, our possessions and the very fabric of our lives. We are woven from this planet, because without the planet we are nothing. And when all the pieces of the planet are owned, we are owned.

We have a window of opportunity to soften the coming storm by utilising the ease and power of our current technology to create a landscape independent of world gambling markets, artificially inflated housing costs and most of all servitude to trickster banks with their wholly imaginary money that so effectively enslaves so many today. But you will have to fight for what you believe.

A free man or woman does not choose to go into debt. All enter it unwillingly, exchanging freedom for security, at the price of subservience. To labour for others on terms you would not choose for yourself, but agree to bow to, as you feel you have no other choice. We all dream of being our own masters.

It is increasingly apparent that civil disobedience is required to get this log-jam moving, and time is running out. Better a planned elective disobedience than a panic-stricken, martial law enforced compliance as food and fuel become unaffordable for increasing numbers of desperate people.

No freedom, no progress in the human condition has ever been given, it has always had to be fought for: shorter working hours, votes for women, the end of child labour, slavery, starvation amidst plenty, the list is endless. Do not imagine that reclaiming the right to live on and enrich the planet you were born to is going to be easy, or welcomed by those accustomed to living at your expense. Despite the pressing need and obvious practicality of populating our landscape with productive self-reliant citizens, we are still herded into the urban reservations created by 600 years of enclosures, in enforced dependency upon the immensely profitable system of divorcing a person from the land that feeds, shelters and warms them and making them work to pay for these essential products they can no longer create themselves. Though it can be seen everywhere, the lethal emotional and economic cost of this is still not widely appreciated.

For those who have wakened from the dream – here is a tool for coming together and building the life-rafts to help create a future that holds more promise than the current insanity. It too is a gamble. but what have you got to lose? You will find attempting to comply with various regulatory and financial rules will likely prevent your village from ever being built, cripple it or delay it for years on end, exhausting motivation amongst your membership. Much depends on the skills, adaptability and determination of the people involved. The obstacles are overwhelmingly political and personal. The true roots of community are interdependence, shared work and responsibility, all characteristics that we have almost forgotten. It is so easy today in this country to walk away from anything too challenging to resolve. This is both corrosive of community, and one way or another, a luxury we will not ‘enjoy’ much longer.

The world is finite.

It is like a house full of people living in different rooms. Each room has slightly different standards of behaviour, but the one thing they all agree on is that the house belongs to the owner.

Because this landlord gives nothing in return for his rent, and because there is nowhere else to obtain the rent-money except within the house, those living there must devise ways of obtaining more than they need for themselves, in order to meet their rent. But in a finite world, filled to capacity, one man’s surplus is anothers’ shortfall.

In such a house, only two things can give. Either your neighbours’ share must be taken, or your own furniture and fittings must be ripped up and sold to the highest bidder, regardless of your future need of them.

What a terrible place to live! An atmosphere heavy with suspicion, mutual distrust and helpless self-interest must pervade this house. The occupants of each room view their neighbours with a jaundiced eye, knowing that to display weakness will invite attack and ruin – whilst within each room, the whole process is repeated in microcosm, as all vie for a higher, more secure resting place upon a dungheap heaving with fear and misery.

When those at the top of the pile in each room are vilified by their compatriots, they turn and point to their neighbours across the landing, saying, “Look! It is their fault! If they bought more of our wonderfully cheap washing machines and stopped flooding our markets with their underpriced spin-dryers we’d all be better off!”. Or else they cry: “If you tightened your belts more and took less wages, we could make our spin-dryers even cheaper than theirs! We must be more competitive!” Identical cries can be heard in every room.

So the hard-pressed roomates mutter amongst themselves about the price of soap, and curse the dark-skinned families living in the basement, saying if they didn’t keep having so many kids, they’d have enough of their own soap and then they wouldn’t be coming up here stealing our jobs by doing the washing up for next to nothing…..

And so it goes.

Meanwhile each week the landlord, who luxuriates in a penthouse suite in the attic, sends down his agents to collect the rent due. Of course, the full force of the law makes sure any defaulters are punished, and in extreme cases, evicted, R.I.P. After all, nobody can expect to live in his house for free. But the inhabitants are way too busy struggling with their immediate problems to stop and wonder where all this rent goes, or why they should even be paying it.

They have far, far more important matters to attend to. For here is a new inflation demand from the landlord, announcing yet another rent-rise, and there is bad news from the laundry room, whose `mad dictator’ has just brutally annexed the broom-cupboard, where most of the soap in the house comes from, threatening to bring everybody’s washing machines to a standstill. The papers and the TV are full of people talking about how it is our democratic duty to liberate the broom-cupboard, how we must defend our freedom (to the death if need be), by attacking those evil madmen in the laundry room – and are we not fully justified, for what right have they to stop us earning a living and paying the rent?

And so it goes…

But when the sky darkens and the prospect is war

Wha’s given a gun and then pushed tae the fore?

Aye, an’ expected to die for the land of our birth

We who’ve never owned one handful of Earth

Wake Up!

• Agree? / Disagree?
• Astounded? / Disgusted?
• Angry? / Don’t care?

Why not head over to the Hartwood forums and have your say here?

Communities, like all intimate relationships, have to solve the problem of preserving both closeness and
individuality. One danger is that the individualistic refugees from social repression who are drawn to
voluntary communities will be so bent on ‘doing their own thing’ that the community will fly apart into
anarchy. The opposite danger is that the community will be so insistent on total absorption into its goals
that personal individuality will cease to exist. Thom Hartmann – The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.

Whilst no structure can guarantee success, some will assist it better than others, or protect against the most obvious pitfalls. A well thought out skeleton will allow the body of a community to evolve effectively and organically over time, without losing the overall shape of the dream. It starts with its feet in the present, dealing with money, law and power as they exist, and uses the best of these to intelligently reshape concerns which should in time cease to be such: security, warmth, food, energy, shelter, health, trust, belonging; our true common wealth.

Just as there are fundamental body plans in nature, there is more than one way to frame a community. This suggestion is based in the desire to have no private ownership of land or buildings, whilst retaining the right of members to recoup their investment, or benefit financially from their contribution to the community whether they remain there or no, a mechanism which can also be used as a means of inheritance.

Hartwood in conjunction with the Bodhi Financial & Legal Structures working group investigated the many possibilities, seeking a structure that would encompass the stated goals of the ecovillage project within as simple, fair and flexible format as we could find. This document explains the structure we recommend, how it functions, and how it meets the various criteria for a proposed ecovillage and the legal framework presently existing in the UK. To make for easier reading the details of these correlations are mainly in the footnotes. Appendix 2 summarises the other options and the reasons they were rejected.

The structure recommended is a specifically defined form of Industrial & Provident Society (hereinafter referred to as an IPS), a legal form of co-operative first developed about 150 years ago to allow groups of people to combine resources to purchase land and build their own homes, more commonly known then as a Friendly Society. Hundreds of these were formed and many later merged to become the familiar high street building societies.⁽¹⁾ Although there are of course certain legal formalities that must be observed in the creation and running of an IPS, its stated purpose, precise structure and form of governance can vary widely, needing only clear definition in the constitution, technically known as the Articles of Association (hereinafter referred to as the ruleset). Although changes can be made to this ruleset over the lifetime of the IPS with the agreement of both sufficient voting members and the regulating body (currently the Financial Services Authority, hereinafter referred to as the FSA), this is generally an expensive and time-consuming exercise not to be undertaken lightly. Therefore it is of some importance that the chosen ruleset is fit for purpose from the outset.

To this end there exist sets of ‘model’ rulesets, previously accepted by the regulating bodies, which are used as the building blocks for the creation of any new IPS. Changes or additions to these model rulesets are (if accepted) charged on a sliding scale.⁽²⁾ It is also advisable to apply for registration under the guidance of a registered proposing body, who will guide you through the application process and make sure everything is in order. They of course charge for this and again a range of fees apply.⁽³⁾

At this point you are probably wondering what planet the authors are living on if this is their idea of simple structure and minimal cost! Trust us, every one of these possible legal setups involve heavy professional fees, registration charges and often massive running costs (see appendix 2). Although the IPS involves more work and careful thought to setup, once in place it is robust, cheap and easy to maintain.

It should now be apparent that the heart of an IPS is its ruleset. Apart from the required standard clauses relating to office holders, voting rights, quorums, frequency of meetings etc., there are some very specific options the Eco-Village project will need to specify and/or include to achieve a structure suitably tailored to its own requirements. Explained in more detail below, in summary these are:

• Dissolution clause ~ define the asset lock, ensuring perpetuity of communal ownership.
• Fully Mutual status ~ defines and guarantees communal ownership of all IPS assets, land, buildings, equipment etc.
• Par Value membership ~ defines the limit of individual liability for any debts the IPS may incur, and equalises the influence of share ownership.
• Core Principles ~ foundational principles agreed quintessential, non-negotiable aspects of the community’s aims now and for the future.
• Terms of Membership ~ allows internal decisions regarding behaviour and residency within the community to be backed with the force of UK law.
• Loanstock Issue ~ the heart of the financial setup – detailed below.
• Dissolution clause (for a model example of these please see appendix 1)

A major concern is to avoid the not infrequent scenario where a co-operative, property owning venture ends in tears with one person or small group remaining as the sole, or controlling member(s), and thus de facto owners of the co-operative assets, which then become privatised. This is accomplished by demutualisation.⁽⁴⁾ The solution to this is an Asset Lock. This is a clear statement of what is to happen to any physical and financial assets if the IPS should be dissolved. Usually stating that on dissolution of the IPS the assets can only be passed on to a similar body with similar aims, cannot be sold or kept for their own use by individuals. This lack of scope for private gain is crucial to the IPS’s community enterprise status, in turn relevant for funding applications, also any pension and local housing allowance claims. It expresses both a hope for the future and a core vision, that the land be available for its intended use in perpetuity.

Fully Mutual status

This is the technical term for the joint and common ownership of the IPS assets. Its legal form is a registered co-operative, which is a legal body which may own property, employ people, collect rent, raise loans, issue shares and loanstock and be sued by debtors.⁽⁵⁾ It is similar in many respects to a limited company, but one subject to democratic control by all its members, and thus seen as less attractive to commercial lenders because of the relative difficulty in forcing sale of assets to recover debts. This can however still be done, so commercial secured loans would have to be carefully considered because in the event of serious default, especially of a large sum, the community would likely be harmed, or even destroyed. The asset lock described above can only protect against internal threats.

The adoption of fully mutual rules is recommended as the structure they enable is open and democratic and because fully mutual status is simpler than it might at first appear. It allows you to be large or small and creates the greatest potential for self-management. It allows exemption from both Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax though you may be required to pay Corporation Tax and then reclaim it. Otherwise you only pay tax on interest gained on reserves.⁽⁶⁾

Par Value membership

This literally means face value, so shares are only ever worth what was paid for them and cannot be speculatively traded or change in value over time. Every member holds one share of equal value, often a nominal sum such as £1, though there are arguments in favour of a higher, but still equal share price.⁽⁷⁾ Every member must hold a share to qualify as a voting member. The value of the share also legally limits the extent of liability the individual shareholder is exposed to with regard to debts incurred by the IPS itself. This is a valuable protection should the IPS debts exceed its assets in a doomsday scenario.⁽⁸⁾ The share amount is repaid when leaving the IPS.

Some IPS’ decide against par value, e.g. Lammas, to allow greater share capital, defining the one member, one vote principle in their ruleset.⁽⁹⁾ Voting rights in all forms of IPS structures are restricted to one member, one vote by law. Other concerns with a non-par value setup include increased personal liability; greater tax liability; having two separate forms of investment to manage (loanstock and shares), and the fact that every shareholder is entitled to vote, whether resident or no.

Core Principles

Not so much a specific clause, as a range of rules spread through the general ruleset sharing a common purpose. A living community must be able to define itself day to day, year to year, develop and respond organically as needs arise. It is probably wiser to leave most such decisions to the ongoing governance of the community itself. Suitable mechanisms for decision making and dispute resolution, planning and policy will need to be in place, but that place is not here, ‘carved in stone’ in the ruleset. If at all, only those aspects deemed most fundamental to the nature and purpose of the community should be defined here. Those without which the community would no longer be recognisable. Each community must choose its own priorities.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the IPS can have an extensive set of ‘secondary rules’ which do not need to be approved by the FSA, and can be defined and changed by any agreed process within the membership. These would be the natural home for more detailed concerns specific to an individual community, flexible, adaptable and accountable.

What would perhaps be most useful under this heading are clear statements of responsibility. Which person, group or process is responsible for final arbitration, the limits of executive powers, the method(s) for decision making, to be decided by consensus or majority vote, if the latter, by what proportion etc. Maximum terms and frequency for office holders, etc. etc. All of these can as easily be dealt with by internal governance, more flexible and responsive to current needs. Each community must choose what, if anything, it considers sacrosanct and beyond expediency.

Terms of Membership

The fully mutual status requires that all tenants are members and all members are either tenants or prospective tenants. Fully mutual rules do not allow non-members to live in the co-operative’s accommodation so everyone is on an equal footing with shared responsibilities as landlords and tenants. The IPS can decide who can and cannot be a member.⁽¹⁰⁾ Anyone whose membership is revoked cannot remain a tenant (and thus resident) of the community. It is the community’s final sanction if all else fails, backed up with the force of UK tenancy law.

Such drastic action is inescapably destructive, yet even more so is inaction. It would be wise to have the path to it clearly defined as part of the core principles. By this is not meant the specific grounds which lead to it, but the sequence which must be followed in the event of such a dispute failing to be resolved by previously agreed processes. Of course it is to be hoped that such action is never required. But if things do go this far, it is to every one’s distinct advantage that it is dealt with promptly and fairly. We are part of one another and unattended, this connection quickly becomes gangrenous in a small community harbouring discontent.

The reverse decision, as to who should be allowed to join, is also determined by the IPS’s ruleset, individual decisions typically being made by the elected committee. Members join as prospective tenants who will be subject to a separate trial residency process, having their share refunded if unsuccessful.

Loanstock Issue (introduction and ruleset requirements only – see below for financial details)

Loanstock is a form of finance uniquely available to an IPS, which has many advantages for integrating the disparate wealth and circumstances of various potential residents. Unlike share ownership, purchasing loanstock does not give members extra status within the IPS. The ownership of loanstock is a quite separate matter from membership of the IPS. Likewise, non-members who own loanstock are not permitted to have any influence at all in the running of the IPS.⁽¹¹⁾ It is a purely financial transaction most like opening a deposit account. Because of its similarity to banking, there are restrictions as to how often loanstock can be issued, overall issue amount, purpose of the issue and how long a window the issue is available to subscribe to.⁽¹²⁾

Nevertheless this system of fixed term stock, paying set interest rates to a range of members, investors and supporters remains a flexible and well-proven means of raising targeted finance. It opens the door to a whole raft of opportunities for investment by members in their own future. In the ruleset it is required to declare the maximum amount of loanstock that will be issued by the IPS, how interest rate limits are determined and to formally reserve the right of early or deferred repayment if deemed expedient by the IPS.⁽¹³⁾

Finally, any necessary legal empowerment for the IPS to exchange internal currency into loanstock should be included here as this will be crucial in creating the equality of opportunity required to ensure as wide a range of potential residents as possible (see below).

Money is one more resource to be used wisely by a sustainable eco-community. It has and does take many forms, and integrating various types of money into the community allows all kinds of investment from hands-on labour to wads of cash to be valued fairly against one another. Again what is proposed here is only one possibility, albeit one that we think covers the widest ground. This is a seemingly complex proposal, but is in essence simple. It aims to value everyone’s contribution according to its merits, no matter what form that contribution may take. It aims to utilise the flexibility of exchange true money offers to allow the greatest freedom of choice to its members in how they contribute and how they benefit from membership of the community. Money is only a system of exchange, a tool that by itself can guarantee nothing. It can only facilitate choices and decisions defined by other processes, not create them.
First the forms of money involved:

• IPS Shares ~ Nominal fixed amount, not used as part of the finance plan.
• Loanstock ~ Fixed term, fixed interest sterling loans repayable on completion with interest paid annually or as a lump sum on completion.
• LETS ~ Local Enterprise Trading System. Also known as local currency. For more info see: http://www.letslinkuk.org
• Timebank ~ Banking system based on everyone’s hours being as long as each others. For more info see http://www.timebank.org.uk

It is envisaged that potential residents are of all ages, abilities and income groups. Some will have savings or existing homes they are willing to sell and reinvest in the community, others will have nothing but their skills or labour to offer. Some young children to care for. Some will be looking to retire, seeking a better final home than those currently on offer, therefore with greater needs and limited in the physical labour they can provide. A good balance of all ages and abilities is necessary to flourish.

It is assumed here that most or all of the physical infrastructure will need to be built from scratch. Others may take on pre-existing structures and choose to primarily retrofit and restore rather than create. Most will probably choose a mixture of both. In all cases work will vary from specialist to ‘I can do it if someone shows me how’, through ‘I know how to do it already’ to ‘I can afford to pay someone to do it for me’. Someone capable of paying for their home to be built will expect to recoup that outlay by owning the building. An individual self-builder creating a privately owned property will be willing to put in a lot of ‘unpaid’ work because they will end up with a valuable property. These outcomes will not be a possibility here because of the decision to avoid all forms of private ownership of land and infrastructure, so another form of recompense which acknowledges these inputs whilst retaining IPS ownership and thus the integrity of the communal structure is desirable.

This is where the true strengths of the IPS begin to show. Because the entire property belongs to the IPS alone the following possibilities emerge:

1. The IPS can employ both members and non-members to construct and maintain its property i.e. the community both built and natural.
2. All properties are rented by the IPS to residents and lessees (these could be other organisations/businesses). This rental is the primary source of income to repay loanstock, and these repayments must be spread appropriately (see table below).
3. Rents charged for living in IPS properties are eligible for local housing allowance, of particular help to pensioners and single parent families.
4. Money invested as Loanstock can be used to pay for materials and/or labour to build a home, then recovered, optionally with interest, when the loanstock is repaid.
5. Providing an exchange rate is established, construction work (both community and self-build) can be paid in sterling or with alternative currencies and optionally converted later to sterling, easing the cash burden in the early stages.
6. By use of loanstock and conversion of internal currency to loanstock, individuals who have invested work and/or money in the project can recover this as ‘real’ money over time, or after leaving the community, in addition to the benefits they enjoy whilst being part it.
7. Although everyone is a tenant, by virtue of membership of the Par Value IPS, everyone is also the landlord, empowered by group agreement to make all decisions regarding: maintenance provision, rent levels, provision of community facilities, land use and planning etc, etc.
8. Rents can at the communities discretion be paid in any mixture of currencies deemed necessary or desirable. In the early days this would of necessity be primarily sterling to replenish the loanstock fund, but could eventually become almost entirely LETS or time based if desired.
9. Rent may seem a strange weapon of choice as an alternative to centuries of oppression, but when it is remembered that the beneficiary here is your community as a whole and not some external parasite, and particularly when rent can be paid either in time, exchange or money, and thus directly transformed into the necessary labour, products and maintenance to both ensure the day to day functioning and enrich the experience of living in the community, simultaneously providing the regular obligation to contribute to the community (and thus your own wellbeing), its appeal will hopefully become more apparent.

It is thus seen that the IPS setup provides a great deal of flexibility to accommodate many differing scenarios ranging from effectively buying a house to live in, through ‘standard’ rental to effectively being paid to build your own home.⁽¹⁴⁾ Construction in this particular project is envisioned to be primarily self-build and carried out by members fit enough to do so in conjunction with volunteer labour in exchange for food and instruction. However the IPS can also pay external specialists if necessary, provide all bought-in materials (at bulk buy prices if well planned), pay wages for ongoing community jobs ranging from office work, animal husbandry, fuel wood supply, gardeners and maintenance etc. Through the medium of flexible rental all sorts of ‘public’ services can be provided, limited only by the willingness and imagination of the residents.

A more ambitious scope could see the provision of care for the elderly or infirm, fully integrated with the community, not shut away, accessing the considerable public funds spent on provision of care homes, schooling, or for the really dedicated, the rehabilitation of damaged refugees from our disintegrating society. Again, each community must choose what it is capable of and willing to embrace. The IPS can also build non-residential properties to lease as shops, venues, workshop space etc. leased to both residents and non-residents to supplement the village income and create a public fund which after loanstock repayments are complete can provide extra services, free meals in the village inn, drastically reduce residential rents – whatever is deemed desirable by the community itself. Empowerment of a kind long forgotten in practise.

So much for the dream, what about the practicalities? Like any large project, a well thought out plan is essential to success. Timescales must be realistic, likewise expenses and potential problems. The basic decisions must relate to desired size, location and natural resources of the community, proportion of work to be carried out by residents directly and whether existing buildings are desirable on site, this latter having an immense and disproportional impact on site price and hence loanstock requirements. A common complaint heard at planning meetings relates to distance from place of work and lack of available time away from work. Although not a ruleset requirement, there is a rather fundamental commitment issue here relating to the type of community being created which would be well to address in advance as it has a marked effect on the location and direction of the whole project. Basically decide whether you want a commuter village or a live-in one. Do you want residents to be mostly working somewhere else to earn the money to pay others to operate the community for them, or do you want people to mostly share work directly in the community, regularly interacting with each other?

Cash flow Forecast

As a financial plan, this must necessarily restrict its concerns solely to financial ones, whilst allowing that personal and political concerns will have a great impact on any schedules. So this cash flow forecast assumes that planning permission is not an issue, that the people involved have already worked through the preliminaries, are ready to purchase the site, know in outline at least what they want to create and are ready to go.

To avoid repayment problems the loanstock issues need to be carefully timed and distributed to enable a comfortable repayment schedule, with none in the early stages, phased repayments over a longer period, and some provision for early repayment of a proportion of the loans if possible. Because the total amount the IPS can borrow as loanstock has to be declared in the initial ruleset, it is worth being generous with your estimate of the moneys required. Work out a figure and then triple it! This does not commit you to borrowing the entire amount, but does avoid you finding yourselves unnecessarily under funded at a critical time. This limit only applies to loanstock, not commercial or private loans.⁽¹⁵⁾

Interest rates are chosen by subscribers within limits determined by the IPS.⁽¹⁶⁾ Amounts, purpose, terms and duration of each stock issue are all determined by the IPS itself, with the option to honour early repayment requests if the community agrees. Loanstock holders may decide to re-invest at maturation time if other stock remains available. It is easy for an IPS to offer interest rates substantially above commercial bank rates, especially in the current climate, but do remember you have to find possibly substantial sums from your own resources which will not then be available for development.

Loanstock can be issued for any fixed term, though usually a multiple of whole years: three, five, ten etc. In addition to choosing from a range of interest rates, subscribers can also choose to have that interest paid annually in sterling, or as further loanstock, thereby receiving it as a lump sum at maturation. Each issue can have its own interest limits, but must be defined for a particular purpose within the project. This could be on a house by house or individual area/project basis. The legal restriction here is that you cannot make repeated issues for the same purpose. So some canny planning is called for.
Other considerations here are limiting the total loanstock held by any individual, especially in any one duration. i.e. if someone wants to invest 100K you only allow them to take a spread of years e.g. 30K at 3 years and 30K at 5 years and the rest at 10 years. This would mitigate the tendency for all the short term loans being taken up first leaving only less attractive long term investments on offer. Higher interest rates can also be set for long term loans making them more attractive. Any early repayments should also incur some form of penalty, such as the equivalent cost of acquiring a commercial loan to replace the funds. It may be demand is so high that this is not actually necessary, but early withdrawal should be understood to be a special circumstance, not an option. Too many unplanned withdrawals will threaten the whole community and should be understood to do so from the outset, along with the fact that it is entirely optional on the part of the community as to whether they agree to this in each case. All these terms must be clearly set out on the application forms for the stock certificates.

Shown below is an example Cash flow Forecast for a medium project starting with no existing buildings on around 400 acres of mixed plantation and rough grazing costing £1.2 million. This of course assumes planning permission is achieved after purchase, or the owner is an idealist. After six years they have built around 52 homes and four commercial premises by the village green. This is funded by a total loanstock issue of £3,816,000 spread over 17 years, mostly in the early stages. Figures in red are outgoings. There is a mix of three, four, five and ten year issues with interest rates varying from 0% to 4%. Loanstock can be issued with a variable rate but this is not recommended for stable planning.

The spreadsheet used to produce this example can be downloaded here. It is in Open Document Spreadsheet (.ods) format, supported by free, open-source applications like Open or Libre Office. (Download from here). If you are wondering why we don’t provide it as M$ .xls, then perhaps asking the Bill Gates foundation why it is the worlds major funder of GM crop research in the third world, may help you join the dots…

Other Considerations

LETS as an internal currency has obvious advantages in removing the internal dynamics of exchange from the corrosive influence of external money supply, often used as a means of forcing people into unnecessary and unrewarding jobs. It enables self-valuing regarding supply and use of personal labour and services, independent of external money supply. LETS can easily be extended to the surrounding region, even nationally through LETSLink, extending exchange and increasing integration with the wider community.

Timebanking is perhaps best suited to community work, the chores necessary to make it all possible. By valuing everyone’s time equally and requiring community work to be ‘paid’ in hours, you avoid differential earnings being seen as an unequal contribution to community chores. By requiring a proportion of rent to be paid in hours, so many a month, a balance between people’s schedules and the community’s can be acheived, and a guaranteed pool of labour is always available for necessary tasks.

The IPS structure has a proven track record, provides a great deal of flexibility and the ruleset chosen defines exactly what kind of IPS you want. We have outlined here the main decisions which need to be taken – e.g. will it be par value? Fully mutual? What are the core principles which cannot be changed without completely dissolving the community? Who is responsible for what, and in what time frame? Do we want to include ‘sweat equity’? Each community must choose it’s own priorities. Care taken now to work through these decisions honestly and carefully will save lots of time and trouble in the future.

Some Useful Websites

• http://bodhi-eco-project.org.uk
• http://www.sci-scotland.org.uk
• http://lammas.org.uk
• http://www.catalystcollective.org
• http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk
• http://www.uk.coop
• http://www.cdscotland.co.uk
• http://www.businesslink.gov.uk
• http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk

1. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_society
2. Current charges are: Standard Model Rules: £40; 1-6 changes £120; 7-10 changes £350; more than 11 changes or completely original rules £950. Source: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/forms/ms_application_form.doc
3. There are a range of these and you can self-register, but no-one will point out any legal errors you make, only make you pay steeply to correct them so the expert guidance of the experienced is really valuable here. The most sympathetic we have found so far are Co-operatives UK http://www.uk.coop/economy/start-a-co-operative. Their basic charge is currently £120, which includes up to six rule changes from their standard Community IPS ruleset.
4. On a larger scale, this was the method used to privatise the High Street building societies during the Thatcher era, when many effectively bribed their memberships to vote for demutualisation with lump sum share bonuses. Once demutualised they transformed into small private banks owned by shareholders adrift in a shark infested sea of international investment. One by one they were swallowed and now none remain independent, all owned by larger banking groups. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_society for more details.
5. See http://www.catalystcollective.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=84
6. For a full description of the various options and consequences of various forms of legal setup see the excellent booklet How to Setup a Housing Co-operative produced by Radical Routes and downloadable from their website at: http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/publicdownloads/how-to-housing-co-op.pdf
7. Proposers for higher share values of £100 or even £1000 argue it shows greater commitment, provides a startup fund for promotion, and being returnable on leaving, can act as a help for those leaving voluntarily, and a sweetener for those who do not.
8. Should mismanagement lead to bankruptcy, then the standard processes would ensue – assets are seized and sold by auction, any personal guarantees or exposure to liability (i.e. your share value) pursued and the proceeds divvied up among the creditors in order of precedence, Government, Bank, everyone else. Loanstock holders will be third in the queue, along with any business creditors. Depending on the size of the debt and the state of development of the village, it is entirely possible the increased development value of the village would adequately repay the first two, AND EVEN EXCEED the remaining loanstock, leaving more than enough for the rest. An immense development value could in fact be created, but members would not be able to access that directly because of the dissolution clause, but would be able to reclaim any loanstock owing. They could always setup a new IPS to inherit any remainder, but meantime the piecemeal open sale of village property forced by bankruptcy would probably render the exercise somewhat redundant.
9. This method aims to circumvent the predictable demand for more money, more control arising from unequal shareholdings, whilst allowing greater share capital to be accumulated. See section(s) 28 & 30 in Appendix 3. By UK law the maximum amount an individual may hold in IPS shares is £20,000.
10. See sections 6 to 12 in Appendix 3, also How to Setup a Housing Co-operative (See note 6 above) pages 5 & 6.
11. Ibid pages 17, 18, 19.
12. Precisely because of this similarity to banking, loanstock is hedged around with various restrictions to avoid competing for savings ‘unfairly’ with banks, who as massive commercial undertakings are far too frail to compete with a group of eco-villagers struggling to put a roof over their heads, and are thus totally deserving of legal protection. The investment window is typically four months. Other restrictions are detailed in appropriate sections of this document.
13. All banks have it in their small print that they can just steal (return at their discretion) your money if deemed in their own best interests. These are lawyers handiwork after all! There is always risk, you just have to assess it relative to the potential benefits.
14. This is not quite the case of course. Selling your home, investing in loanstock, having a new home built for you and living in it, then receiving your loanstock back with interest comes close to having your cake and eating it, but you will always have to pay some form of rent, though this is very unlikely to exceed the cost of the house in your lifetime, and you cannot capitalise on any increased (or suffer decreased!) property value accruing over the years. For a self-builder your investment in labour will be recovered, your materials paid for, but again you will not benefit from accrued inflation and will always have to pay some form of rent. This though, is in return for security of tenure in a home of your own design, in a place of your own choosing, surrounded by a supportive community providing many of the necessities of life in return for that rent, which with the added flexibility of LETS and Time banking, doesn’t force you to be dependent on external employment to pay it.
15. An overall borrowing limit which includes both loanstock and any other form of borrowing can be specified in the ruleset if thought advisable to limit the community over extending itself. It of course quite legal to arrange private loans from members and other individuals without using the loanstock format in which case they would be subject to contract law and not IPS regulations. Lammas has raised in excess of £200,000 in such loans from its members on custom-drafted terms to purchase their land.
16. These are chosen when applying for the stock. Currently recommended rates are between 0% & 5% but the latter is exceedingly generous when banks are currently offering less than 1% to savers.

72. The Society may be dissolved by the consent of three-quarters of the members by their signatures to an instrument of dissolution, or by winding up in a manner provided by the Act. If on the winding up or dissolution of the Society any of its assets remain to be disposed of after its liabilities are satisfied, these assets shall not be distributed among the members, but shall be transferred instead to some other non-profit body or bodies subject to at least the same degree of restriction on the distribution of surpluses and assets as is imposed on this Society by virtue of these rules, as may be decided by the members at the time of or prior to the dissolution.

What type of legal structure would best suit an ecovillage development where the group has decided that none of the land and properties will be privately owned or sold for profit? Also required are equality in decision-making, and for all decisions regarding the property to be made by residents.

Professional fees relating to auditing, share issue and valuation can easily run to thousands of pounds annually. Because a village has substantial revenue and capital value, taxation can also take a heavy toll. Here is a brief summary of the other possibilities and the reasons they were rejected.

Charity
 Advantages – funding, no tax to pay, asset lock (i.e. the land is held in perpetuity for good of community)
 Trustees cannot benefit i.e. people making decisions about housing could not live in that housing or on that land
 Expensive external auditing required
 Increasing legislative burden due to extensive fraudulent activity in this sector

Company limited by guarantee
 Not equal (hierarchical) decision making and power structure built in.
 Expensive external auditing required
 Not tax exempt.

Community Interest Company (CIC)
 Individual investment is expensive and complicated. Shares must be revalued when selling.
 It’s not easy to withdraw funds, and there is high cost to managing it.
 Not tax exempt.

Limited Liability Partnership
 A private partnership for limited liability without Company auditing requirements. Aimed at private business ventures.
 No asset locks, non-democratic management
 Not tax exempt.

Mutual Home Ownership Society (MHOS)
 A Land Trust owns the land, NON mutual Co-op owns the housing. See CLT.
 Structure designed to share increased planning and inflation value amongst private homeowners
 Capital Gain’s Tax may apply

Community Land Trust (CLT)
 Can be a BenCom, CIC, Charity or Company Ltd. Each subject to specific restrictions accordingly.
 Heavily fenced in by legal and planning requirements see: http://www.communitylandtrust.org.uk/documents/howtoguide.pdf
 Must have open membership for everyone with an interest in the trust owned property and must demonstrate support from surrounding occupiers and stakeholders (council, EPA’s etc.)

Community Benefit Society (BenCom)
 Can be either a Co-op OR a charity
 Greater access to large grant-making bodies (seen as good PR)
 Must provide benefits to non-members in the surrounding community (only real difference from proposal outlined in this document)
 Must have unrestricted membership
 If charity subject to charity restrictions

Co-Operative
Ticked all our boxes:
 Allows social contract through core principles
 Allows collective/communal ownership
 Allows collection of rent
 Individual investment (Loanstock)
 Equality (with par value setup)
 Easy to withdraw investment (subject to Loanstock restrictions)
 Low cost to managing investment (no shares to re-value, minimal auditing)
 Limited liability (limited to share value held e.g. £1)
 Allows members to be paid and sweat equity to be converted to Loanstock
 Residents can claim local housing allowance
 Asset lock (i.e. Land held in common in perpetuity)
 Raising funds by bank and ethical investment loans
 Ethical/social nature
 Effective Tax exemption (interest earned on unspent reserves is sole tax liability)
 No external auditing required provided profits remain under £10,000 annually
 Low administration costs once set up

The Lammas project is a proposal for a “new build permaculture development of eco-smallholdings. The dwellings will merge with the natural environment that surrounds them. They will be highly innovative and earthy, using the latest environmental technologies combined with local natural materials. The dwellings will be unique, having been essentially created by the people living in them. The site will become a successful demonstration of low impact building and living. Each household will have access to 6 acres of farm land and additional common woodland. This will enable residents to substantially meet their household needs from the land and to produce surplus goods for the wider economy.

The settlement will, by the nature of its layout and legal structures, encourage a more sustainable approach to living. It will foster strong connections with the local and wider community whilst having its own unique identity. The settlement will produce a wide range of land based products. The settlement’s structure will be based upon the conventional village model, whilst allowing for a governing body that will ensure the low impact objectives of the project can be guaranteed in the long term.”

Their ruleset is the closest example to an ecovillage’s requirements we have found, and would make a sound basis for most rulesets, but cannot be adopted wholesale. They are using a different approach to tenancy, with the IPS retaining freehold ownership of the settlement’s land, but leasing plots to residents using very long-term agricultural leasehold agreements (999 years for an upfront £35,000 payment). Nor do they have a par value structure, they are embracing a large number of non-resident voting members and there are several other options that might not be suitable for other projects. To view the whole ruleset please visit:

http://www.lammas.org.uk/downloads/Lammas_Rules018.pdf

Now a couple of years old, this Hartwood howto remains a useful starting point, applicable to a wide range of scenarios. However be aware that due to pressure by the banksters (who see them as competitors for savings and loans) the ‘government’ is now going to abolish the tried and tested IPS structure shortly.

Also of concern is that the asset lock can be removed by sufficient voting members at some future date. Although in theory the regulating body is supposed to prevent this unless it can be shown to be in accord with the original intent – in practice they don’t bother their arses. Available to download in PDF format.

Financing, Owning & Protecting your land.

Cashflow spreadsheet model as used in above document.
NB. This is an Open Document Spreadheet. M$Excel usually pretends it can’t read it. You’ll need LibreOffice (free, community produced, open source office suite) to use it.

The Solas Project

1. The community is to be named Solas.
2. Solas is to search for 20 to 40 members
3. Each member is to contribute 5000 pounds before or on the 21st December 2011 (THE WINTER SOLSTICE).
4. Hartwood has provided a separate deposit account for holding Solas funds.
5. Members can join at anytime by paying 100 pounds towards their £5000 total, and agreeing to become full members of Hartwood.
6. All funds paid in to Solas may be returned to members before 21/12/11.
7. After this date, funds are committed to, and in the control of the Solas project.
8. The Solas project will use the amassed savings to buy a piece of land of over 70 acres.
9. Members will meet each month to define the the actual site, plan and constitution residents will agree to commit to at Winter Solstice 2011, have fun and get to know each other.
10. Gatherings will be hosted in turn in the different homes and areas where members presently live.

Decisions regarding Solas are to follow the method described below:

1. To be made by consensus at monthly meetings.
2. Solas meeting minutes to be posted on forum as soon as possible for non-present members to agree/object with.
3. It is possible to object to any decisions made in the previous month’s Solas meeting. Requests to reconsider decisions to be posted no later than one week before the next meeting. Any changes to decisions will be discussed at the next meeting.
4. Decisions are categorised as follows:
   1. finalised
   2. under discussion
   3. yet to be discussed
5. Potential new members will be informed of the body of decisions finalised, and can decide to join on that basis.
6. Develop hierarchies for ongoing decisions – not everything needs to be discussed (but will need consent) at general meetings.

Ownership of land and legal basis for Solas

1. Solas will be a trust or an IPS co-operative, whichever proves more suitable.
2. Solas (‘the legal body’) will own all the land and fixed property upon it. Members will not own any of the land, nor buildings, and will receive no payment for these assets should they leave.
3. Decision of all issues pertaining to the land will be based on consensus decision making by the Solas members (aka residents).

Land Use

1. Households who do not want land to work and only reside at Solas:
   1. These plots would pay rent for small plots for their house and leisure garden.
2. Households who may want land for a land based livelihood/business:
   1. Community consensus decision on the desired land use, location of plot, size, etc.
3. Households wishing to take on a lot of land:
   1. Community consensus decision on ability of household to carry out all the work effectively.
4. Communally worked projects:
   1. Households may have similar ideas to others about land based businesses.
   2. ALL households may want to communally own land for coppices, grazing, a barn, storage.
   3. ALL households may want to leave land to nature for it to be minimally or completely unworked.
5. Rents according to size of plots, possibly according to use of resources and other criteria)

1. Possibility of ideal land being in excess of our pooled savings of £5000 per household, therefore systems for raising money will be researched.
2. Funding may be sought from other bodies to make up shortfall between cash and cost of land, eg Radical Routes, family members etc.
3. IPS “Loanstock” will be considered:
   1. Loanstock to be repaid through monthly rents of acreage to community members.
   2. These rents could also be paid for by:
      1. land based businesses or livelihoods
      2. outside employment
      3. Work in lieu of rent
      4. LETS (Local Exchange Trading Systems)

Financial Issues

1. For members who may not make the £5K
   1. Solstice deadline may be extended
   2. Members who have fundraised little or nothing possibly not committed to or suitable for the project
   3. Loanstock will not be used to sub people for the initial £5k contribution
   4. Personal loans from one member to another are an option

Agreed criteria:

1. The further South and West the land, the better assumed the climate.
2. The land should be not less than 150ft/50m above sea level.
3. Close proximity to the sea for the further natural resources it would offer a fledgling community.
4. A sea loch was assumed the most favorable option.
5. Water courses necessary for various reasons : Drinking water, energy generation, to drive machinery, etc.
6. Mixed forestry
   1. Standing wood of harvestable age (30+ years for soft woods) an advantage for building materials, business plans, etc.
   2. Spruce plantations create acidic peat bogs beneath them, which will take time to regenerate to a useful state for crop growing.
7. Field nearby or next to woodland for immediate production of food and crops.
8. Generally, locations with climates less extreme or favourable micro-climates
9. Preferably with minimal midges!

1. All agriculture is to be carried out using organic methods
   1. Organic registration with the Soil Association may be considered by individuals in the future.
2. One of the main aims of Solas is to increase biodiversity for the good of the planet as a whole and to increase our quality of life within a diverse ecosystem
3. Only non-invasive species may be introduced
4. No chemical use accepted for community food production and individual plot use
5. No GM species
6. Ideally no F1 hybrids. Gifts (of plants and seeds) may be taken
7. No commercial composts to be used
8. An ethic of growing for the community first rather than aiming to sell should encourage people to care for the land and increase biodiversity.

1. Solas will actively minimise vehicle use.
2. Community vehicles will be fueled with communally grown oil seed rape or similar to replace fossil fuels.
3. Communal vehicles will be promoted with the aspiration to completely replace private vehicles within the community.
4. The community seeks to live off grid:
   1. Hydro, wind and solar power to provide electricity
   2. strictly no mains electricity is a goal of the community.
5. The ‘Hub’ area will have communal energy intensive facilities available e.g. a laundrette.
   a. Households are free to have and power their own using suitable renewable energy technologies that they have provided for their own domestic needs and by means which have been agreed to by the rest of the community
6. The community will generate electricity for a small grid in the ‘Hub’ area.
7. A specific “noise time” will be allocated for the use of power tools.
8. Following the statements above, the community seeks to minimise dependence on fossil fuels.

1. Production must not be maximised or in any way industrialised
2. No animals may be transported in fearful or cruel conditions
3. No animals are to leave the land for monetary benefit
4. No animal products are to leave the land for monetary benefit
5. Slaughter must take place on Solas land
6. If a community member benefits in any way from an animal or its products, that community member is responsible in its upkeep
7. Community animals must experience minimal fear and suffering during life and death

1. The community will be able to forbid unethical private livelihoods:
   1. Depending on their effects on the community
   2. Community permission must be sought before undertaking (what?)
2. There is allowance to make a private/personal livelihood off personal plots
3. There is a requirement for all members of the Solas community to work HOURS for the community
   1. It was suggested that the only fair way to equally divide community work between members of varying abilities and skills doing differing types of work (manual vs. mental for example) was to divide by HOURS – this was not formalised and needs further discussion
   2. It was hoped that a master carpenter’s hours would be equal to the goat milker’s hard worked hours
   3. What work each member does during their community work hours depends on: Skill, Ability, Preference, What is needed,

Rotations between duties

1. It was agreed that every member should get the chance to do every job/task
   1. For educational value
   2. For diversity of members capable of carrying out essential duties – e.g. to provide holiday or illness cover
   3. Every member knows something of the requirements for every job
   4. So every member is familiar with each aspect of the system they rely on or use
2. Community work on community land/resources is for the sustenance, NOT the profit of the community. Members wishing to use community resources to make a livelihood:
   1. Must seek permission of the community
   2. Something must go back into the community in exchange
   3. Must not jeopardise the community through debt or criminal prosecution

1. Community members will aspire to be:
   1. Honest
   2. Peaceful
   3. Mindful
   4. Responsible
   5. Respectful
   6. Supportive
2. The community will aspire to create a sanctuary to life and soul