Reflections
after five years in
Successful Community of 50

For sale, 1974:- Ex-Friary in Suffolk - 100 rooms, plus 50 acres - Price 100,000 pounds. Also for sale 3 conventional houses, collective net worth after mortgage repayments of 25,000 pounds. Also available, a determination to find others (with another 100,000 pounds) wishing to exchange their conventional lifestyles for communal living in Suffolk.

We did it. We started advertising in January (in the Guardian and Observer) and, by June, thirty adults collectively owned OLD HALL. While keeping a large amount of space communal, we divided the rest of the building into 10 units (at 10,000 pounds) and 8 half-units (at 5,000 pounds) which left us enough reserves to pay for repairs, dry rot, livestock, alternative technology, etc. It was an exciting and traumatic experience getting it all together. Time was against us, for someone else already had contracts to purchase the Friary for use as a private school (he had already issued a prospectus and started decorating.) Eventually we had to submit a legally binding competitive tender - two of us supped whisky in the solicitor's office while our bids were opened and compared. Yet perhaps the school proprietor was our angel in disguise - the urgency compelled commitment and decisiveness and the common enemy welded us together temporarily but long enough to get us started. If we had been given the time to compare carefully our different attitudes and ideologies we would never have got going at all.

The adverts (costing a total of approximately 100 pounds over several months) mentioned the words 'socialist', 'ecological living', 'community/cooperative' and (regrettably) 'middle class'. Over 100 people replied from far corners of the UK and received duplicated information sheets. Meetings were held nearly every weekend. We set up a Housing Association. Many 'phone calls (another 100 pounds). A friendly bank was found to offer each of us bridging finance on the security of our houses. Lots of hard work. A warning by a solicitor that we cannot be certain of obtaining planning permission - we go ahead anyway. Finally, incredulously, we did it! Soberly, unbelievingly, we reflect, each of us, what we have done, what we are leaving behind, and what we are letting ourselves in for.

Over the months, we sold our houses (some took over a year), changed our jobs and moved in. The early pioneers made operational the basic services, some unused for years. The main headache was planning permission. The chief planner of the District Council advised us that we would have to seek planning permission to change the use to residential since the existing use was religious. He hinted that he would advise acceptance of our application, but that was no guarantee that his advice would be accepted by the planning committee. We chose to make an application despite considering challenging the change of use categories on the grounds of religious discrimination. Knowing that there was local opposition from some who regarded us as hippies or communists we invited the village to tea and scones to introduce ourselves. Dressing up for these occasions, we also gave a good account of ourselves at an open meeting called by the parish council to discuss our application.

After much delay, and with the support of the parish council, despite the obvious opposition of some villagers, we got our planning permission (which interestingly enough specified, amongst other things, that the permission was granted only as a 'community dwelling'). But that was not all. We had also been advised by the chief building inspector that we were regarded as a change of use under building regulations. This had enormous repercussions for we would be compelled to undertake fire precaution work of a prohibitively expensive nature (we were told that buying the place would be the cheap part). We were sweating over this for many months, negotiating with the inspectors as to how the rules could be interpreted for our unique situation - a very large community building. Their most common reaction was to try and categorise us as if we were a hotel. Suddenly we were out of our misery. The Department of the Environment had ruled that we were not a change of use under building regulations. At the same time we were warned that we would have to meet similar requirements regarding fire work under the Public Health Act.

Continued