GROUNDHOUSE SHEPPEY UK PERMISSION GRANTED

GROUNDHOUSE SHEPPEY UK PERMISSION GRANTED

The Groundhouse team are working with Heidi and Sav to support their plans to build a new home on the Isle of Sheppey in the UK.  After an initial engagement with the project in 2015 on Groundhouse Start Up coaching and Jon Kalviac’s initial site survey, Heidi and Sav produced their own drawings from the original Groundhouse plans, adapting them to meet their family needs.

In December 2016 they secured full planning permission from Swale Borough Council for Groundhouse Sheppey. The application was rejected by planners in the council due to the status of the land, but was passed by councillors on the Planning Committee in a landslide show of support for the Groundhouse project.  The are now in the process of selling their existing home and we are helping them with Build Coaching to give them the best possible chance of realising their vision.  They do face a big challenge since they are doing a self build, but with limited scope to put in time themselves, instead needing to take on a freelance team from within our network and locally.

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I first met Heidi and Sav in Brittany, where they stayed to get a proper feel for the design.  From the start I sensed they have what it will take to do this build, and provide a good example of an earthship home in the UK.

This is another example of people aiming to self build a high quality home that aligns with the biosphere, 

More soon…

EARTHSHIP BRIGHTON CROWDFUNDING LAUNCHED

Brighton’s Earthship is turning to people power to prepare it for its next phase. The picture above shows the Earthship in 2003 during our first phase of construction…

The crowdfunding campaign aims to raise £20,000 for the vital upgrade of the building’s renewable energy and water systems.Visitors and organised school tours continue to pour into Stanmer Park to visit and learn from Europe’s first full scale earthship demo project.  It’s over a decade since we built the Brighton Earthship, and since then it has evolved into an award-winning eco community centre, that hosts education events, practical green building courses, and community activities.  The power and water systems now need an upgrade to enable all of this awareness raising activity to further flourish and expand.

The campaign can be found here: www.lowcarbon.co.uk/earthship-brighton

Earthship Brighton, located in the South Downs National Park, is an off-grid eco-building designed to get all the electricity and drinking water it needs from the sun and the rain.The Low Carbon Trust needs to raise £20,000 in 30 days to acquire a new ultraviolet water filtration system to purify rainwater for use inside the building, purchase new batteries to store electricity generated by the solar panels, and build a straw bale unit to securely house the new batteries.

If you have seen this amazing building first hand or are inspired by the work that has gone into and what it achieves now, then…

Please donate a bit to get the Earthship back up and running for the local community.

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