Community Building for Old Age: Breaking New Ground. The UK’s first senior cohousing community, High Barnet

This 2017 Housing LIN case study (no.139) focuses on the Older Women’s Cohousing group’s experience in active community-building.

Building on the Housing LIN’s series of publications around ‘people powered change’, it describes an initiative conceived and driven by a group of older women who, understanding that living alone as they grew old could leave them vulnerable, looked to each other to develop and share their social capital. To this end, they have built a cohousing community based on shared responsibility and mutual support.

Since 2017, we have featured the award-wining New Ground in a variety of resources which can accessed from the links below. The scheme also won a bronze World Habitat Award in 2024 and an audio recording is now available too. 

And to find more information and access a range of other resources about cohousing, visit our dedicated pages here.