Living Villages specialise in forming partnerships with land-owners and other developers, to help them realise a more sustainable and better designed vision for their land.

We are open to many types of joint-venture partnership, and actually prefer to operate in this way, as it can work well for both parties. We often work on an ‘open-book’ basis, providing our partners with complete transparency, like a true partner should.

Our expertise provides four key advantages to our partners;

1. Our eco-approach can help secure planning permissions, especially on contentious sites,

2. Our developments have proven that our ‘sense of place’ village designs and our low-energy houses command a premium over and above the extra cost. For example, our Wintles development achieved prices for the houses some 20-30% above local newbuild competition (excluding the affordable houses).

This ‘added value’ means our partners can receive more in land price and/or profit-share than through a more standard development.

3. Once built, our Living Village is one that our land-owner or developer partner can not only be proud of, but one that will increase the value of their neighbouring land for any future development potential to expand the new village.

4.  Our designs maximise building density and floor-area. By incorporating ‘rooms in the roof’ and up to 4 storey houses, we provide maximum floor-space whilst reducing building foot-prints to allow more green space.

We have been approached and are working with larger developers who not only see the PR benefit of adding our eco-profile to their marketing, but also see that by having Living Villages as part of a 1st phase of a larger regeneration, they can boost the land value of future phases.

We need to be involved before any detailed planning application is made, so we can help master-plan the village layout.  Unlike many housebuilders, we do NOT have standard concepts or designs that are applied where-ever the site, but rather we research local vernacular layouts, designs and local materials to suit each site, and evolve these into more contemporary designs that maximise sun-light and use of eco-technologies. This approach is invariably supported by Local Authorities and planning officers.

We also work in partnership with Housing Associations and Registered Social Landlords, to help deliver more affordable housing within our schemes, whilst still insuring these remain ‘low-energy’ homes. There is no doubt that this remains challenging, however we recognise social sustainability and affordability as vital ingredients to creating lasting sustainable communities.

Those interested in a partnership approach should directly contact Scott Black, our Land & Development Director, on 01923 271 910, or e-mail s.black@livingvillage.com.