Working for Gŵyr Community Land Trust, we have supported their planning application for a community-built and community-owned development – ‘Ffynnon Efwr’ – on a 2.4 hectare site west of Swansea, just outside the Gower National Landscape.
Gŵyr Community Land Trust is a volunteer-led community enterprise run by local people in the Gower. It runs as a not-for-profit membership organisation, set up to find a solution to the housing crisis in and around Gower. It aims to build housing which is accessible to local people – high-quality, sustainable and suitable for future generations – initiated, designed and built by the community.
The vision for Ffynnon Efwr is for a cluster of fourteen dwellings arranged as compact, low-rise terraces with a close relationship to communal barn-style buildings and food growing spaces, reflecting aspects of a traditional village and essential to the more productive management of the land. The proposals evolved to occupy a small part of the overall site area, incorporating a workshop to support the social side of communal gardening, with large areas of natural green space that will be open to the public to enjoy.
Macgregor Smith undertook a detailed Green Infrastructure audit to inform the proposals and the landscape strategy. The resulting scheme’s landscape is designed around the core values of sustainability, biodiversity and community, with the intent of creating an attractive, productive and supportive environment with a rural character sympathetic to the Gower.
Alongside protection and enhancement of existing grassland, hedgerows and trees, a range of new wildlife habitats have been incorporated into the masterplan including wetland, woodland, orchard and wildflower meadows. Welcoming spaces for the benefit of the wider community aim to draw people in, to engage them with the landscape and to enjoy, explore and connect with nature.
Dedicated food-growing space includes a covered growing space, sheltered walled garden, local variety apple orchards and generous allotment areas, all contributing to a rich visual and sensory environment for this new community enterprise.
