For many people another way of living has started with Diggers & Dreamers. Perhaps you're fed up with living in a little box. Maybe just by yourself. Maybe with your family. Just being a docile consumer alongside the billions of other docile consumers. And the combined outcome of it all is a wrecked planet.
Isn't there something more to life than this? Couldn't we have access to many of the best things in life without doing such harm if we were prepared to share more with our neighbours? Perhaps in an intentional community – that's a community that has come together by intention rather than by chance.
Believe it or not, many people have been living in intentional communities like this for decades. And it's not all hippy crash pads where nobody does the washing up! Diggers & Dreamers will open your eyes to the multifarious ways in which communal living happens in the 21st century. It's your way into the future!
Mikaela Raphael: Co-ops in Peaky Blinders Territory
Mikaela had lots of experience of co-ops in California before moving to the UK and getting involved in Stirchley Co-operative Development – a group of local people who are building an affordable and eco-friendly residential and community premises in the heart of Stirchley, Birmingham They are developing land on Pershore Road to house three local community premises along with a block of 39 apartments which will ultimately be known as Jessie Eden House.
Jessie Eden House at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/jessie-eden-house
Gung Ho Housing Co-op at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/gung-ho-housing-co-op
Stirchley Co-operative Development
https://stirchley.coop (https://stirchley.coop)
Green Square Accord
https://greensquareaccord.co.uk
16 Jul 2026
Nat Harlow: Crabapple Community at 50+
Nat describes her own path to communal living (she wishes that she'd done it years ago) as well as filling us in on the early days of Crabapple in Shropshire. The community at Berrington Hall celebrated its fiftieth birthday in 2025 so there's plenty to hear about the evolution of the place over the last five decades. It may no longer adhere to the ideas of B F Skinner as described in his novel Walden Two but it's still very much thriving.
Crabapple at Diggers and Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/crabapple-community
Crabapple on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/crabapplecommunity/
Walden Two
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two
12 May 2026
Simon Tilley: Life in Earth-sheltered bungalows
Hockerton Housing Project in Nottinghamshire, UK is a community of five sustainable homes, with a co-operative business on-site running a range of educational and advisory services in sustainable buildings and lifestyles. Simon Tilley was one of the founder members and he tells us how the community works as well as supplying a lot of technical information!
Hockerton Housing Project at Diggers and Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/hockerton-housing-project
Hockerton Housing Project
https://www.hockertonhousingproject.org.uk
GreenPWR
https://www.greenpwr.com (https://www.greenpwr.com)
Sustainable Hockerton
https://sustainablehockerton.org
Energy Local Clubs
https://energylocal.org.uk
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