In the long run people who live in suitably built, sustainable houses save a small fortune on heat and electricity bills every year: an example of which can be seen by looking at the eco- village in Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary. This eco-village does more than promote sustainability; it is aiming to establish a sustainable community.
The eco-project entitled, “The Village, Building, Sustainable, Community” is a concept were there are homes, business and the community, as a whole live an almost 100% sustainable life. This eco-village has set up directly beside the town of Cloughjordan. While originally “The Village” wanted to be totally independent of all other buildings, towns or villages, planning restrictions would not allow this, so they settled for Cloughjordan. The idea of “The Village” is to build around eighty homes, twelve or so business and a community centre along with some plots to grow vegetables and cereals, as well as keeping a small farm to produce milk and some forestry; all this on a site which is sixty-seven acres in size. The way the land is used is important to the residence of the village as they want to gain as much out of it as possible: in order to achieve this they have set up a community land use plan:
“The community's land use plan is based on the principles of environmental and ecological diversity, productive landscape and permaculture. The eco-village has 67 acres of land which has three broad uses- residential, woodland and farmland”
John May
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