Introducing Cannock Mill Cohousing
We used to be ‘LoCo’ (London Countryside Cohousing) but now we have our wonderful site in Colchester we have become the Cannock Millers. The centrepiece of our scheme will be the grade 2 listed Mill which is our common house – we are already using it for meetings, which can move outside on a sunny day.
Building
We are building 23 homes – all to Passivhaus and lifetime homes standard, designed by our very own award winning architect Anne Thorne. These will form a graceful line around our beautiful, reclaimed mill pond. Water is an important feature of the site and the landscape design by Studio Engleback features rain gardens, ecopasserelles and rills as well as the usual fruit, vegetable and flower growing areas.
Group
We bought the site and now have planning permission. As a group we don’t have age restrictions but our current members are all in the 40 – 75 age range from a variety of professional and occupational backgrounds – a mixture of couples and singles. We are pragmatic rather than ideological – held together by the love of a scheme that feels ecologically and aesthetically right and a desire to have fun and shared interests as we get older.
Recruitment
We take the recruitment of new members seriously – a getting-to-know-you process that takes between four and six months. That is why we are recruiting now to fill the last 5 to 8 places before we go out to tender in March 2016. We expect to be moving in towards the end of 2017.
Closing Words
We are delighted with our site. Colchester is a town rich in history, culture and with good services. It also has fast rail services to London. Our Mill sits in the Bourne valley – an attractive wooded corridor leading down to the river Colne that has probably had water mills along it since Roman times – but is within easy walking or cycling distance of Colchester’s centre.
If you think this might be what you are looking for, we would be pleased to hear from you. An email to membership@cannockmillcohousingcolchester.co.uk will get things started.
If you want to find out more visit our website at http://cannockmillcohousingcolchester.co.uk/ and sign up for our newsletter.
Or look at our detailed plans on the Colchester Planning website http://www.planning.colchester.gov.uk/WAM/findCaseFile.do?appNumber=150492&appType=Planning&action=Search