Where are the alternative / eco-friendly places to live in the UK?

[Tunicate]

I'm going to move sometime next year and trying to find places that are a bit more alternative. Birmingham is a consumerist desert - or at least the bits I can afford are, and I'd rather not live in a big city. I can pick anywhere really as I can get work most places, but I'd like to put down some roots somewhere there are at least a few like-minded folks.

Need to go and check out places now before I apply for jobs. South Devon looks interesting and I can just about afford the cheaper parts. Maybe Suffolk coast. I like Lancaster.

Where else should I consider? Anyone live anywhere good?

findhorn foundation is quite alternative and on the beach. North east of Scotland is gorgeous and comparatively cheap. On the other side of findhorn is raf kinloss though so quite a varied community. Depends how alternative you want. May be worth a look.

Stroud - best farmers market in UK

Frome

Stroud is good.My friend ahs just move dthere.

Is Frome? Though they do have some quite "green" initiatives at th emoment.

Stroud! Stroud! Stroud! Moved here a year and a half ago after one afternoon visit when we just totally fell in love with the place. Right in the Cotswolds, fantastic people, arts and culture but close knit community feel, gorgeous cafes FANTASTIC farmers market.
Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol, Swindon and Cardiff all easily accessible.
Hour and a half on train to London.
Could you ask for more?

After escaping from somewhere very similar to 'Lentil Hill' I would say beware...

Some of these people are alternative because they reject part of society in some way or society has rejected them. I encountered many mentally ill people during this time, many of them rich - I guess that's why they say poor people with mental health problems are classified as 'mentally ill' whereas the rich are called eccentric/hippies.

Many tried to create their own reality which can manifest as a very liberal attitude to drugs as well as the danger of cults - people attempted to 'friendly fish' me on numerous occasions.

Not to say rejecting certain aspects of society is no bad thing, just that having lived the lentil lifestyle for the past 10 years I now fully embrace normal.

I don't want to be frighten you off, just to see the other side of things

Are you just looking for 'alternative' towns or more generally eco-friendly places to live - if the latter have you tried Diggers & Dreamers for housing co-ops & communities?
link here

Also in Gloucestershire, Nailsworth.

Not as alternative as Stroud but definitely with alternative tendencies.

Frome has beautiful architecture and quite an alternative vibe (organic market etc) but not hard-core alternative.

You've made me think about what brand of alternative now - umm, well, I'm a hardened communard, so I can now spot a mental health problem at a few hundred yards and have met dodginess in enough different forms to see it coming usually.

I'm most interested in sustainability - so places that rely on dollops of capitalist cash to keep the 'alternative' idyll going aren't really my cup of tea.

Glastonbury and Findhorn too spritually focussed for me - I don't mind a bit of crystal healing, but it's not really what I'm about.

Mmm, I hadn't thought about Todmorden, Stroud, Nailsworth or Frome...

Thanks!

piece in today's Times

There's always York: has a Steiner School, is a Fairtrade city, has plenty of wholefood and fairtrade shops, Quakerism (with all its emphasis on peace) very strong, good bus service, centre of rail network, lots of cyclists because it's flat - but a big enough place to have other contrasting elements so it doesn't feel too 'worthy' or stifling.

I must say, I'm surprised to see Bruton in the list: my PIL's used to live there & it never appeared at all alternative to me, with the fact that it has 3 public schools supporting that view. Maybe it's changed...

i'm in south devon.
it's nice and possibly what you're looking for.
i don't go intop crystal clinics but i like to have them around.

Somewhere like Tavistock a kind of watered down more mainstream less worthy version of Totnes. More affordable too.

There are still some affordable places in Cornwall as well which would fit the bill. You have to seek them out though.

hi jimjam, loved the surfing pics!

Now Bigbury..... I would live there (but very expensive)....

I got lost today and discovered Ashburton. It looked nice.

Hi Barking
Yes- I really agree with you- the idea that poor people are mentally ill and the rich are eccentric is a great point.
So called alternative communities can be in danger of cutting themselves off from their surrounding ones- and be agressively judgemental towards those who don't agree or follow their lifestyle.

overthehill- York? I wouldn't agree with the idea it's an "alternative" place to live really.
My brother and family lived there for a bit- moved from south London. She was stopped in her car 4 times in six months by police- she's black. Attitudes are quite ...old fashioned... if well meaning... people kept asking her if she was a refugee fgs- ( she's english)...It is quite a nice city though. They didn't want their kids being the only mixed race in the area let alone school, so went back South.

Also- York has alot of pie shops and not many lentil ones... didn't that organic supermarket close? Alligator is the only really green shop isn't it? Do you know any more?

Hi northernrefugee - I think you're being a bit sweeping to say the least. I live in an 'alternative community' (at least thats what the media invariably call us), I hope we are not agressively, or indeed at all, judgemental, how can we be when we all have to live in society. We are not in the least cut off from our surrounding community - we have jobs, our children go to school, we have friends.
Tunicate, what about Machynlleth, good if you're maybe political alternative/green, rather than spiritual alternative / green IYSWIM because of all the CAT connections. I'd love to move to Mach, (partly I have to say because it is nearer my family than where we are now) but I am still working on persuading DH!

Isle of Wight?

Woodbridge is def not alternative btw! But I'm sure somewhere in Suffolk must be.

Takver- it wasn't sweeping- if you read what I said I put can be... not all.
I've had a terrible experience of an alternative community behaving just as I said- and so has barking- who I was agreeing with
Your community, however, sounds great....

Takver - I agree. My experience of intentional communities has been that people have to have exceptionally good social skills for it to work and that most communities are very much in amongst the wider community - anything but isolationist. A few happen to be geographically isolated. I can't think of a community (other than a couple of explicitly religious ones) that is anything like the isolated cult of legend. That's not to say that they don't attract a lot of people who can't cut it in the rest of society for one reason or another

Well, its not necessarily always that great NR, there are plenty of downsides of course - but I'm not sure that isolationism and judgementalism are high on the list . I've visited quite a lot of communities, and I reckon if you avoid the heavily spiritual and stick with boring old housing co-ops, they're mostly pretty sane. Grubby, too many meetings, too many people, and too many goats (latter not universal, probably not a problem in inner-London?), but reasonably sane!

For Suffolk, what about Leiston, is there an alternative grouping around Summerhill school?

Takver - Did they try to get you to do Wife Swap as well?

I've been thinking recently that co-housing or something else is the way to go. Too many problems with the legal structure of a co-op - one of the reasons I'm moving.