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Eco village resubmits plans

Posted: 17/03/2008

A group who want to build a sustainable, low impact eco village in Wales have resubmitted plans to Pembrokeshire County Council. The original plans for the greenfield site close to the village of Glandwr, near the Preseli hills were refused last year after 90 objections.

The Lammas Project have modified their proposals, and has posted the detailed plans on it's website so that worried local residents can study the projected scheme from the comfort of their own homes.

The development is now projected to consist of 5 smallholdings, a terrace of four houses and a Community Hub, which will be at the centre of the ecovillage and will be surrounded by the smallholdings.

Inside the hub will be a part-time shop selling produce from the project. There will be a hall from which courses in topics such as permaculture, renewable energy, traditional welsh farming techniques will be run. The hub will also house the office, a kitchen for producing value-added produce, and a toilet/ shower block for the campsite.

Pembrokeshire Council has a "low impact development" policy drawn up to govern such developments following a protracted dispute over the infamous turf roofed roundhouse which was built without planning permission at Brithdir Mawr, near Newport in Pembrokeshire.

The policy requires 75% of all household needs to be met directly from the land. Lammas co-founder Paul Wimbush said they had spent five months re-working their proposals which now included 150 drawings and over 1200 pages of detail.

He said the nine dwellings and community hub building on 76 acres of mixed meadow and woodland would be built from straw bales and other locally sourced natural materials. Water would be supplied from a spring, electricity from a hydro-electric generator and fuel from biomass crops.

He said each small holding would operate a land-based business, such as making linen shawls from flax, breeding compost worms as well as supplying vegetables, fruit and traditional farm produce.

"We made the whole application electronic and we had the idea of putting it on our website so that people can see what we are talking about," he added. "We are saying 'have a look for yourselves, we think it is good, what do you think?'."

Council officers raised concerns that some of the structures and potential traffic generation of the initial application were not low impact. The latest application will be studied by council planners before going before councillors at a future date.

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