Bridport Cohousing’s Hazelmead
Hazelmead: the UK’s largest cohousing scheme, a decade in the making.
Hazelmead is the largest completed cohousing development in the UK — 53 permanently affordable homes in Bridport, Dorset. This community led project, started in 2009, became a Community Land Trust in 2012. After a decade of fund raising, including purchasing the land, and gaining planning approval, they partnered with a Housing Association in 2019. Construction began in 2020 delivering shared ownership and social rent homes including six reserved for NHS staff. Designed by Barefoot Architects to near-Passivhaus standard, homes run on low-carbon timber construction, rooftop solar and a community microgrid. But Hazelmead’s ambition goes beyond the buildings: car-free streets, shared gardens and a common house were deliberately designed to grow the community and reduce loneliness through everyday social contact, while water reuse measures and habitat features increase flood resilience within the Dorset National Landscape. It demonstrates that a community land trust and an award-winning design team can deliver housing that’s affordable, low-carbon and genuinely rooted in place — with local people at the centre of every decision. A legally binding formula determines service charges, kept low through managing and maintaining the site themselves. social rent and variable shared ownership to a maximum of 80% ensures affordability.
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Why this matters
Hazelmead’s outstanding contribution to the countryside is that it turns a former farmland site within the Dorset National Landscape into a low-impact, biodiversity-rich neighbourhood that protects and enhances its rural setting rather than consuming it. The development adds native planting, shared gardens and food-growing spaces, car-free lanes, and habitat features such as bird boxes, all of which strengthen the landscape’s ecological value.
Impact
Hazelmead has had a strong positive impact on local communities, people and nature by creating affordable homes for local families, fostering a close-knit and inclusive community, reducing loneliness through shared spaces and resident-led design, and enhancing biodiversity through nature-friendly planting, growing spaces and habitat creation. Its low-carbon, climate-resilient approach also reduces energy use and supports a healthier, more sustainable way of living.
For 15 years, Barefoot Architects and Bridport Community Land Trust have worked together to pioneer Hazelmead – a community housing project that faces up to issues of affordability, loneliness, health, and environmental sustainability.
Inclusion and accessibility
Hazelmead has helped make the countryside more inclusive and accessible by delivering affordable homes for local people in a rural setting, with a mix of tenures and house types, accessible accommodation, and shared facilities that support intergenerational living, neighbourly support and social inclusion. Its car-free streets, pedestrian-friendly layout and communal green spaces make the site safer, easier to move around, and more welcoming for people of different ages and abilities, while the design also reflects a clear intention to create a welcoming, informal neighbourhood for families, couples and single people, owners and renters alike.
