The Battle of the Benders

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The Off-Grid web site is serialising Nick Rosen’s book, How to Live Off-grid: Journeys Outside the System In this excerpt Nick visits an off-grid community in Devon which is fighting a planning permission battle – on behalf of all of us – for the right to buy some land and build off-grid, low-impact houses. The public enquiry has just finished and the residents of the Benders are awaiting the fateful decision later this year. Now read on.

Land Matters: a question of permission

I contacted the Land Matters commune in Allaleigh, Devon, via an activist group that helps off-gridders and others win planning permission for their living spaces. I spoke to Charlotte, one of the main organisers, who had been living there off and on for three years.

There are many eco-communes across Britain, some of them relatively long-standing, like Brith Dir Mawr, Tinker