The Threshold Centre Case Study

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  • The Threshold Centre
  • Cole Street Farm, Gillingham, Dorset
  • 20 individuals involved
The community, The Threshold Centre, was built on the Cole Street Farm in Gillingham, Dorset. Mr. White originally owned the property, but since his passing it has been converted into holiday cottages and a nursery school. It was then put on the market and founded by the local community and planning began. Each member of the community actively and closely engages with the architect and each other to discuss layouts for each members housing units and the plus affordable housing. The Threshold Centre aimed to provide an education into sustainable living with the cohousing residential element.  
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The completed development consists of 14 residences with further farmhouse accommodation for shared use of the community and 4 extra bedrooms for letting.  
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The community now uses biomass heating, served by a wood pellet burning boiler system, which provides hot water and heated radiators in all of it’s housing components. Rainwater is also collected and is used for things like laundry. In addition, all waste is collected and sorted for recycling by council collection, composting and/or delivered to disposal sites. Large PV systems are installed onto some of the south facing older barns to harness solar electricity. They treat their own water within the community; all water waste is treated on site using septic tanks inside two of the cottages. A bio-digester is fitted in each of the other houses to produce clean water for the site.  

A car-pooling facility has been put in place to reduce fuel costs, although many people within the community use bicycles. They share evening meals in the communal building, as well as sharing laundry facilities. There is an acre of land with raised beds for vegetable growing and fruit trees. The sharing of animal farming allows them to share free-range chickens for eggs and meat.  
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The Threshold Community was jointly created with the housing association Synergy, a leading housing association in Dorset.
 
http://www.thresholdcentre.org.uk/
http://www.thresholdcentre.org.uk/colestreetfarm/colestreetfarm.htm