New Cohousing Community Set to Save Exeter Landmark

A pioneering new 'cohousing' community is proposing to save a listed building in the Pinhoe Road, Exeter, as part of a brand new development that they are helping to design themselves.

Located at the former site of the Honeylands Assessment Unit, the group are working with a developer, Aspen Retirement, who will submit a planning application in mid-June for a scheme known as ‘cohousing’.

The first members of the Cohousing Exeter group have begun co-designing their planned 37 future homes on the site of Honeylands House at Whipton which has been vacant for over ten years. The development will bring back into use the grade 2 listed building that dominates the site as a shared space where residents of the new homes will be able to meet, eat, take part in activities and socialise together.

In a bid to increase numbers of people keen to get involved, the group is inviting anyone over 55 who might be interested in this exciting way of living to come and find out more at an Information and Recruitment Event on Saturday 13 June in Exeter.

Individual homes will include one, two and three bedroomed units, all built to be highly energy efficient. There will be plenty of green space, a pond and various shared garden areas in which to grow plants and vegetables, perhaps to play boules or simply to sit and chat.

Rosie Hydar, one of the local people already involved with the group, said: "Cohousing is just a great way to live, especially as we begin to get older. You have your own home, designed to be accessible even if your health deteriorates, and you live alongside other people who share a wish to be intentionally neighbourly."

If plans are approved, residents will reach consensual decisions on how to develop their life together, managing the site themselves and developing a real sense of community.

As well as being good neighbours to one another, members of the group plan to become involved in the surrounding area and to welcome other local people to join them for occasional events in their communal spaces.

Anyone interested is welcome to the planned Drop-In event at St Katherine’s Priory, the community centre in St Katherine’s Road, from where there will also be opportunities to visit the site itself. The event offers enquirers a chance to find out more between 10.30 and 1.30pm or 2.30 and 5.30pm on Saturday 13 June.

Full details at www.cohousingexeter.com