An Invitation

Brithdir Mawr Housing Cooperative, a 30 year old land working off-grid community in Pembrokeshire is threatened with eviction by a new landlady who says she “plans to start a healing retreat centre”

This news comes despite the community being assured publicly by the original owner, that they would be able to purchase their home at Brithdir Mawr if they could find the full cost before the end of 2025. The Housing Cooperative secured the agreed funds to purchase Brithdir Mawr, yet the sale to the new landlady went ahead.

The community is staying in their home, which they have sustainably renovated and cared for over decades. With sustainability and community at the heart of everything they do, the land they live and grow their food on together is managed organically, and also home to their small herd of milking goats. All water comes from a local spring, heating and cooking is wood fired and all electricity is supplied by solar panels, a hydro system and a small wind turbine. The community has lived in the heart of Pembrokeshire for over 30 years and hosts weekly Welsh language classes, runs workshops, open days, volunteer weeks and other popular events to demonstrate their way of life to others interested in living in low impact and ecologically sensitive ways, and setting up off-grid, sustainable communities.

A new movement called WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER has launched. Working in support of radical change at Brithdir Mawr and beyond, WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER aims to:

+ Bring attention to what is happening at Brithdir Mawr. We see it as a reflection of what is happening in the rest of West Wales and beyond, where we believe a linkage between power and money can mean that those of us with more of it might find it easier to change the World as they desire. We would like a World were everyone’s needs are given consideration;

+ Build our movement to include a broad range of those of us who recognise the need for changes in the way our society works at all levels from the personal to the global-political;

+ Use our movement to amplify the voices of those of us who are often overlooked, particularly the local folk of West Wales, and bringing attention to local issues around access to housing, access to land, the problems of second home ownership and more;

+ Use the energy for change to help BMHC to hold fast within a system that appears to suggest they have no right to do so;

+ Use this excitement to bring more attention and so on, our movement growing like a snowball;

+ Cause deeper changes in the legal systems of Wales and beyond;
+ And beyond;
+ And beyond.

WE DO NOT BLAME OR SHAME. We believe that the problem is with normal, not with any particular individual or group who are simply operating within the normal way. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR ALL. WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER.

…and somewhere in amongst all of this, we hope that BMHC’s landlady will find that working in true collaboration with them would be a more beautiful solution than working to evict them; that in this small but extraordinary place in West Wales a truly radical change will occur.

THERE IS POSSIBILITY HERE.

Want to get involved?

There are many ways to help and get involved:

• Come in person – get in touch to work out a good tim
• Sign up using the “Get Involved” button and let us know what you would like to help with and we can send you more information.
• Come help plan and run our next event on Saturday 8th February 2025
• Attend our next event on Saturday 8th February 2025
• Please spread the word and help get the word out on social media (see flyers below)

THERE IS A PLAN…