The Threshold Centre
Cole Street Farm
Cole Street Lane, Gillingham, Dorset SP8 5JQ, UK
The Threshold Centre is a unique, pioneering sustainable education centre and cohousing community, which aims to demonstrate a way of life which is more green, more affordable, and more neighbourly. Cohousing, which combines small, self-contained homes with shared facilities, is a key part of this: for more information, click here.
The Threshold Centre shows how to achieve major cuts in the three main aspects of domestic carbon emissions: food, travel and home energy. Ways that this is achieved include:
- A community market garden and local food sourcing
- Car pooling, on-site work and social activities to reduce car use
- Shared energy systems: biomass heating and photovoltaic electrical.
Having operated on a pilot basis since late 2004, the Threshold Centre has now won planning permission and grant funding to create a cohousing scheme at Cole Street Farm with fourteen dwellings, seven being affordable rent and shared ownership with a local housing association, plus a common house with shared facilities and guest rooms, green energy systems and a community market garden. For more details, click here.
The Threshold Centre is unique in being the only sustainable education centre in the UK which includes a cohousing community, and also unique in being the first UK cohousing scheme to be created jointly with a housing association. The Centre runs regular workshops on cohousing and other subjects: for more information click here.
The Threshold Centre is a non-profit community interest company: to see more about the constitution and view the latest Management Report, click here.
Latest News
Click here for a current opportunity to join the Threshold Community.
The courtyard garden at Cole Street Farm
Architect's impression of the new scheme
