Documentary film maker and author Nick Rosen argues that off-grid settlements in the UK could help create cheap housing, energy security and rural regeneration
At a time when housing in this country is facing multiple crises - of affordability and of supply
and, in the case of social housing, of funding and of allocation
- we need to be willing to embrace brave and new solutions. Off-grid settlements
- historically a fringe interest in the UK, although they have a long history in other countries, including the US - offer an important new alternative. They are important because they help solve three problems:
- Cheap housing – how to enable it
- Energy Security – how to improve it
- Rural Regeneration – how to kickstart it
What do I mean by off-grid? No mains utilities of any sort. That's a huge infrastructure saving on its own. It's about creating positive closed loops - for example, the local sewer network would have potential as an energy source
in my proposed 300-household communities, which would be extended to grow to 3000 over 5 years. They might not be brand-new communities. The first few would probably be bolted on to an existing village or suburb - with the active encouragement of existing residents, who would also be able to go off-grid, with the help of investment to reduce energy usage and develop local energy generation, saving money and increasing resilience in the face of an uncertain future energy market.
The new Localism Bill
, with its new powers of community planning and building will enable that. And the land would not currently have residential planning permission, which would be another cost saving. The sell-off in Forestry and British Waterways property should make it possible to buy land for little more than agricultural value, as long as the development is ecologically sensitive and the area is covenanted to remain off-grid.
Off-grid homes could be delivered for an average cost of GBP50,000 per unit. With much lower ongoing costs and growing a little of their own food, residents should be able to get by with much less money, so they will not have to work as hard.
But whilst off-grid living is almost mainstream in some countries, particularly in rural areas, and aspects of it - for example local energy generation - have started to permeate government policy
, too often attempts to pioneer off-grid approaches in the UK fail at the very outset - in terms of both planning and funding. The main reason given, and there are many others, is that ordinary people would not want to live in an off-grid home, where they would have access to at best 25% of the energy supply of a “normal” house (although that would be largely offset by better home design and insulation). They would not want to live in an off-grid street, where houses had to share their limited heat and power, and they would not want to live in an off-grid town or village, which would be constantly subject to shortages of water, power and other supplies.
Policymakers need to recognise that, whilst it may not, in the short-term, become a mainstream housing offer, it is an idea worth taking seriously and that on its own will make a noticeable difference.
I have written a book about the lives of people who already live off-grid – How to Live Off-Grid
. I know from first-hand experience it can work. I have visited individuals, families, settlements and whole villages, and the lifestyle is growing fast, although it would grow a lot faster were it not for the planning laws, which are about to undergo radical alteration.
I want to answer head-on the objection that nobody would want to live in off-grid communities. And it is not just some 'Good Life' style indulgence. I was invited to record a phone-in with TalkSport recently because their three million listeners, who tend to be male and from a lower socio-economic background, have been spontaneously talking about going off-grid. “I've had enough of this,” they are saying on the late-night chat shows. “I'm going off-grid.” At first it was one or two a month, my interviewer told me. But now it's a few every week.
I think I know why they are saying that, and it has little to do with the environment. I think we all know why many want to do more than shake their fist impotently at the TV screen. Increasing numbers of people are angry – scared and angry. They are angry about the bankers and MPs expenses and the Iraq War. And they are scared about losing their jobs, or their housing benefits or, when interest rates start rising, losing their homes. They no longer feel society is capable of guaranteeing them what they want – justice, accountability and security. Their skills may be rusty, but hundreds of thousands of them are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and their families if the opportunity presented itself to them. They know how to wire a socket, plumb a sink and dig an allotment.
There is another objection to off-grid settlements lurking behind the one I mentioned earlier. Namely, that it's a ligger's charter – the same laws that would allow a group of industrious, conservation minded settlers to grow their own community, would also allow a bunch of new age travellers to plague neighbourhoods with waste, crime and drugs. It should not be beyond the wit of lawyers and politicians to come up with a way of encouraging the deserving cases and preventing the undeserving ones. Isn't that what we pay them for?
Learn more about off-grid living at www.off-grid.net or by reading Nick's new book How to Live Off-Grid.