Skelsmergh Holme House Farm eco co-housing plans approved

The farm's tumbledown buildings will be replaced by five eco houses

Five families have been given permission to build an environmentally friendly co-housing community on the site of a former illegal settlement.

The group formed a company to buy Holme House Farm at Skelsmergh in Cumbria.

South Lakeland District Council approved plans for five houses and the demolition of existing semi-derelict buildings and caravans.

One of the new owners, Kate Rawles, said they were not fully aware of the site's history before they bought it.

"It's very, very exciting to have a chance to reduce our own personal footprint by living in a carbon-light way and to look after and to enhance the wildlife of this beautiful place," she said.

The mix of older and younger adults, teenagers and small children will live in individual houses with shared buildings.

"I have been looking for somewhere to live more communally for a long, long time," Ms Rawles, 58, said.

The group also wants to manage the site's bio-diversity and plant more trees and hedges

The site was subject to enforcement action between 2010 and 2012 after a former tenant built a "ramshackle hamlet" out of recycled caravans.

Edward Steele, who leased the farm from its former owners, said at the time he had "created a lifestyle for people who don't want to live an urban life" and refused to clear the site and make homeless the 19 families who lived there.

The former farmhouse will be demolished along with all the existing structures

Another member of the group, Tim Moss, told councillors the homes would be sustainable, low energy and net carbon zero.

But they would struggle to achieve "wheelchair accessible, future-proof, multi-generational homes with space for home-working" with the council-imposed reduction in floor space, he said.

Planning officer Andrew Martin said the authority had "been generous about floor space".

It would be difficult to enforce eco living if different families moved in and did not use the extra space for sustainable purposes, he said.