The Hockerton folk generate their own clean energy, harvest their own water and recycle waste materials, causing no pollution or carbon dioxide emissions. The homes themselves act as huge storage heaters: taking in warmth during the summer into its massively insulated shell, through their beautiful south-facing glass frontages. This keeps them warm and cozy throughout the winter – and means zero heating bills! They were still warm when I went into one of the units, and this was in March.

The glass fronts face onto a hundred metre lake, stocked with fish and, in the summer months, also stocked with a gzillion children. A reed-bed system at one end feeds into this – just to rub in the fact that reed-treated sewage is as clean as its possible to be. (And close-up, you can't smell a thing – unlike normal sewage treatment works, which you can smell from miles away!)

When the Hockerton team built the project, they had to muddle through a lot of the problems alone. Since then, the technology has become widely available, and the know-how much more widespread.

This project is 'sustainable community' incarnate: environmentally, socially and economically. Surely the powers that be would be falling over themselves to make more developments like this, no?

So – can anyone think of anywhere south-facing, where there's a hill, where maybe we could have rows of zero-heating-bill, affordable eco-housing? Oh crikey! Wouldn't Woodside be perfect!

You can take a virtual tour of Hockerton here:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/360/where_to_go/hockerton_housing_project/tour_01.shtml

And here's their website:
 http://www.hockerton.demon.co.uk/