A pioneering community-led housing development that will be truly affordable as well as sustainable was shown off to visitors.

Bridport Cohousing’s project Hazelmead, a neighbourhood of 53 eco homes, is currently being constructed in North Allington near the community hospital. They will be available to buy and rent from next summer providing a welcome boost in the affordable housing stock of the town.

It was shown off to visiting dignitaries and was described as a 'wonderful showcase of what makes the project and Bridport so special'.

"I think it is fair to say that you blew the minds of all those present," Bridport Mayor Ian Bark later told the cohousing team who showed the visitors round.

The idea of a cohousing neighbourhood is to give each household its own self-contained private home as well as a shared community space, as a way to counter feelings of isolation and recreating the neighbourly support of years passed.

Land was donated by a farmer who wanted the community to do something with it. Additional land was then purchased from raising loans.

In order to get the last piece of funding in place for the neighbourhood, Bridport Cohousing has a community share offer open on the ethical investment platform Ethex (https://www.ethex.org.uk/invest/bridport-cohousing).

The visit came after Cllr Bark hosted 32 mayors from all around Dorset for a civic day. He took them on a tour of the town, which included St Mary’s Primary and the West Bay Discovery Centre, to showcase community projects he is particularly proud of. The visit coincided with the ‘Great Big Green Week’, which is highlighting events around the town to raise awareness about what can be done to mitigate climate change.

At Hazelmead, the visiting mayors were given a talk about the project by Lin Scrannage, who has been a member of Bridport Cohousing for five years. She gave an outline of the timeline and how the organisation functions, its sustainability strategy and why cohousing is different from conventional housing developments.

She explained how the homes are being built to almost Passivhaus standard, which means they are highly insulated and have a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system, keeping heating bills very low. They will be triple glazed and have air source heat pumps for hot water and back up heating, and all the buildings have PV panels on the south facing roofs. The energy from these will be linked to a single microgrid on site - the largest of its kind to date in the UK.

"This is an amazing achievement for a community-led group,’’ Lin told the visitors.

Cllr Bark told Lin and the team later: "Thank you for all your hard work in making the civic day visit to the Bridport Cohousing site such a success. You managed to pull together a wonderful showcase of what makes the project and Bridport so special."