Latest news with #eco-village
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
June Walker obituary
My cousin June Walker, who has died aged 89, was a pioneer of permaculture in Malawi, where she lived for almost 70 years. As June put it: 'There are three principles: care for the earth and its people and share the surplus. Learn how to grow food without chemicals or money. That is all it is.' After a long career as a teacher and volunteer, June turned to her final calling after meeting Jeremy Burnham, a permaculture advocate based in South Africa. She became involved with the Permaculture Malawi group, a network of workers and specialists involved in promoting and training for smallholding farming systems, and soil and water health and stability. In 'retirement', June funded the Mkandwe Eco-Village, where villagers put these principles into practice. The elder daughter of Elsie (nee Tomkins) and Leo Bottrill, who both worked in banking, June was born in Blackley, Manchester, but grew up in the nearby town of Whitefield, where the family settled when June was two. A few years later, June's aunt, Marion, a Sunday school teacher, gave her a magazine about Africa and she set her heart on going there. June and her sister, Ruth, both attended Bury grammar school, and while there June met Brian Walker. While she completed a BSc at Nottingham University, he did national service in Malaya, serving with the King's African Rifles. By 1956 they were engaged and in 1957 they married. Their interest in Africa led Brian to Chikwawa, in Nyasaland (now Malawi), and June joined him there after a stint at Broughton high school for girls, Salford, to qualify as a teacher. Her voluntary work began with a mothers' and infants' welfare clinic at Mulanje. By 1961, the couple had settled in the city of Blantyre with their three sons. June taught chemistry in schools there, including the Sir Robert Armitage high school, while volunteering for Save the Children. Following independence in 1964, Brian became a civil servant in the government of Hastings Banda's government, and the family moved to the capital, Zomba (the current capital is Lilongwe). June continued to teach, worked with women in Zomba prison, and co-wrote The Malawi Cookbook (1974), to encourage use of local produce. Following a move to Lilongwe, June became a deacon in the Anglican church. In tandem with the Malawi council for disabled people, she established a tie-dye centre, training people with disabilities to live and work independently. She was appointed MBE in 1995. In retirement, as well as the Mkandwe Eco-Village, she supported the Mangochi Orphan Education Trust. Brian died suddenly in 2003. June lived the rest of her life by Lake Malawi with her carers. The Walker Thanthwe Trust has been established to support her legacy in Malawi. She is survived by her sons, Timothy, Christopher and Jonathan, two grandchildren, Gemma and Benjamin, and her sister, Ruth.
Daily Mail
16-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
How the residents of the King's dream of a picture-perfect, car-free eco village are happy in their glorious isolation … even if it will never be finished!
Looking down from on high, the drone's eye view is unflinchingly spare. Far below is a tiny enclave of brightly painted homes, their perfectly aligned slate roofs glinting in the hot spring sunshine as they cling together against the vast expanse of notably undeveloped scrubland beyond. Each house is chocolate box pretty, the palette of styles moves from Georgian townhouse to crofters' cottages, making the whole tricky to date. Down at street level, by a road connecting two former mining communities in Ayrshire, the task is made easier by a foundation stone unveiled in May 2011 by the then Prince of Wales. This, then, is Knockroon – Charles's fabled vision of an 'eco-village' filled with sustainable homes built from stone using traditional arts and crafts. Had things gone to plan, the drone might have captured a very different picture with the surrounding 70-acre tract of boggy farmland filled with a thrumming, largely car-free community of shops and small businesses, all within a five-minute walk of everyone's front door. Furthermore, the 770-home development would provide a chance for local apprentices to learn traditional trades and building skills which, hopefully, would result in an elegant estate of more classically designed homes and fewer soulless, carbon copies like those found on many modern estates. The first phase of 250 royally approved houses on the edge of the former mining town of Cumnock should have been completed by 2017, with the remainder following within 15 years. The whole project was intended to dovetail with Charles's acquisition of the 2,000-acre Dumfries House estate, which he hoped would become a motor of regeneration for the entire community. The sale of houses at Knockroon was meant to help pay back loans used to buy the estate and, as the first homes went up, the first residents would recall fleeting sightings of the heir to the throne buzzing about checking on progress. Since the initial flurry of construction, however, Charles's dream village has stalled. Just 31 homes have been built and not a brick has been laid in ten years. And while the landscape around this model village has barely changed in the past decade, a sprawling 156-home development of modern bungalows and villas, which do not conform to Charles's traditional ideas on architectural design, has been thrown up in the fields directly opposite, dwarfing what exists of eco-friendly Knockroon. Its green credentials were squeezed further by a new £64million 'super-school' for 2,500 pupils at the foot of the hill. The quiet streets around Knockroon have become a magnet for parents waiting with car engines running to pick up their children at the end of the school day. There was controversy when the charity watchdog confirmed that it was investigating a property company over the purchase of 11 of the homes. A Sunday Times investigation published claims that Charles ennobled the businessman and owner of Havisham Properties after accepting millions of pounds in donations from him. So much time has passed without progress that even Charles has moved on to a new job. The King must fear his Midas touch has forever deserted him at Knockroon. And given the catalogue of setbacks which have befallen the place, one might expect its residents to have become embittered. After all, what has transpired is scarcely the vision they bought into. While it undoubtedly takes less than five minutes to cover every street in a settlement so small the name doesn't come up on Google Maps, the only facilities are a café and a dental surgery. Remarkably, though, from the rubble of broken dreams, a deep-rooted sense of community has blossomed. 'It's unfortunate the way things have worked out but, selfishly, I'm quite happy here in glorious isolation. It's so nice and quiet,' said Pat Harris, 65, a retired physiotherapist. She has lived in her terracotta-coloured three-bedroom home in Darsie Brae, Knockroon, for the past ten-and-a-half years. 'It's small but there's a really nice community here. We have a book group and folk will organise things and text and see if others want to come along. 'And for the Queen's jubilee we organised a street party and we had a party at my house for the King's coronation and the neighbours came along for that. 'I was never a monarchist but when I look at the work and the impact that the King has had in the local area, it's incredible.' Liz Conquer, who lives on the other side of the estate on Auchinleck Road with her retired police officer husband, David, admitted there were frustrations: 'There is no hub in the community and no green space. I wouldn't bring up a family here, but we were looking to downsize and it's perfect for us. We absolutely adore the place, and the people who own their homes rather than rent, we go to concerts, we have a WhatsApp group. And we have created our own community, those of us who are invested in it. 'It is just a stunning place to live. It would be nice if it was finished. It doesn't bother us that it's not, but it would be nice if it was.' For Mrs Harris, community also means family, as her 88-year-old mother, Pat Wallace, lives on the estate too, as does her daughter, Rebecca, and granddaughter Penelope. Mrs Wallace was the second to move there in 2011 and she showed Charles around the kitchen in her flat. Her daughter said: 'There are now four generations of us here, which is lovely. It lets me keep an eye on my mum. My other daughter lives in Auchinleck, so her three children come here for breakfast and then we walk down to school from here, which is really nice.' Stone pots filled with flowers brighten the pavement outside her front door and a stone wall shelters her back garden. On the other side of the wall, a plot where the final houses in phase one were meant to go stands vacant. 'A lot of the promised facilities haven't appeared, probably because of the size of the place,' she said. 'There are supposed to be houses going into the area next to me but we'll have to see.' She sounded unfazed by the lack of progress. 'I just don't know that anything will happen. It was a great idea at the time, but the house prices were incredible for the really high spec,' she said. 'We have deep skirting boards, there are no visible cables or pipes, we have sash-and-case windows. I just don't think any building company could sustain just how well built the houses were.' Retired couple Liz and Andy Doole bought their three-bedroom, three-bathroom Georgian-style townhouse off plan after moving from Spain because, as Mrs Doole, now 75, put it: 'I was homesick and I was bored. We popped into the show home and realised they were being built to a far higher standard than anything else we saw.' She and her husband, now 79, moved in while the builders were still constructing homes around them. 'The gardens were basically still rubble then, but we loved the house,' she said. 'And we have the nicest neighbours.' A sense of pride pervades the place. The streets are spotless and each garden is an oasis of calm. 'We all do litter picking to keep the streets tidy. It wouldn't look like this if we didn't. And we got the vacant lot fenced off to prevent dog mess,' said Mrs Conquer. University lecturer Yiorgos Vazakas, who lives on Jimmy Boyd Way with wife, Diane, and his son, Markos, said they bought their house five minutes after viewing it: 'We haven't regretted it, even though we had some problems in the beginning with the quality of the build. But it's quiet and scenic and we couldn't have asked for anything more really.' They all concede that Knockroon's modest size means the dream of a car-free community remains just that. 'There are buses on the doorstep to Ayr and Kilmarnock and a train station at Auchinleck within walking distance, but we have a Blue Badge for my mum as she's limited in how far she can walk,' said Mrs Harris. 'I know it's been compared to Poundbury, but I think you definitely need a car.' Ah yes, Poundbury, the King's other eco pilot in Dorset. Now extending to more than 1,000 homes, it was constructed on Duchy of Cornwall land on the edge of well-heeled Dorchester and it has proved a success. More than 30 years after building work began, there are 4,100 residents, 180 businesses and 2,000 people working in Poundbury-based jobs, while the few properties for sale rarely hang around for long. Charles saw an opportunity to repeat the trick when he led a consortium to buy Dumfries House for the nation in 2007, hours before its antique furniture and artworks were due to go under the hammer at Christie's in London. The late Marquess of Bute – former racing driver Johnny Dumfries – was seeking £45million for the mansion and its contents and, until Charles intervened, a campaign to put the property in public ownership had raised nothing like that. He borrowed the £20million shortfall from his Charitable Foundation, now based at Dumfries House, and the plan was to repay the loan by creating a Scottish Poundbury. But by 2014, the cost of buying a three-bedroom house in the former mining towns of Ayrshire was cheaper than anywhere else in the UK at just £72,500 and many were failing to sell. The asking price for Knockroon homes, by contrast, was £250,000 – later reduced to £190,000. Buyers also had to sign a contract ensuring they stuck to Charles's vision, banning them from putting up satellite dishes or repainting the colour of their home. With few sales by 2014, Dumfries House bought back some of the houses to use as staff accommodation. Eleven more were purchased as buy-to-lets by the Havisham Group, which is owned by David Brownlow, a millionaire pal of Charles. He also owns the Knockroon café Da Vinci's, the village's sole focal point. The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator investigated Havisham over the deal after the Sunday Times published claims that Charles ennobled Lord Brownlow after accepting millions of pounds in donations from him. The matter led to Michael Fawcett resigning as chief executive of the King's Foundation. In January, the OSCR identified 'serious' failures in management of the charity, although the foundation said at the time the watchdog was 'satisfied with the improvements made by the King's Foundation in recent years'. Mrs Harris said house prices on the neighbouring estate have now caught up with where Knockroon was: 'They're very expensive actually – £300,000 to £400,000 for a three-bedroom home.' Having paused the project for review in 2019, the King's Foundation said last week it hoped to build up to 400 homes on the site with construction under way in the next three to four years. Executive director Gordon Neil said while the same build ethos and design code would remain, using local contractors and suppliers 'where possible', future development 'will benefit from increased outdoor space, which is a reflection of how the housing market has changed in the past 17 years'. In the strangest of ironies, thoughts of expansion may now face resistance from some current residents. 'People would get upset because there were meant to be so many more buildings around,' said Mr Vazakas. 'But I think, 'Why the hell do you want more people here? So you can have more trouble?' I am happy with this, how it is.'
