{"id":1922,"date":"2026-02-12T07:25:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T13:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2026-02-12T07:25:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T13:25:40","slug":"the-times-shared-meals-and-open-gates-inside-the-uks-co-housing-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/?p=1922","title":{"rendered":"The Times: Shared meals and open gates: inside the UK\u2019s co-housing revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Cambridge, there\u2019s a big waiting list for its first communal development. Could it solve the housing crisis or is it just a middle-class utopia?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a crisp morning Helen Mulligan, 45, is giving me a tour of Marmalade Lane, the 42-home co-housing scheme in Cambridge where she and her husband bought a home last year with their two young children. She steps through her patio into the central pedestrianised lane \u2014 there\u2019s no garden gate \u2014 as her three-year-old daughter, Gwennol, zooms past on her bike over a giant chalk pattern she and her friends have drawn on the tarmac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gwennol disappears towards the communal building where residents gather once a week to share a meal. \u201cYou see these maps about how close the average eight-year-old stays to home and shudder,\u201d Mulligan says. \u201cHere they can roam with children of different ages and learn what to do when something goes wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The houses sit around shared spaces rather than cul-de-sacs. There are few fences, cars are kept to the edges, and neighbours share communal space and \u2014 seemingly \u2014 gardens, toys and tools. \u201cWe\u2019ve moved to this community with intention of being part of it. We have met so many friends,\u201d Mulligan says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Cambridge, there\u2019s a big waiting list for its first communal development. Could it solve the housing crisis or is it just a middle-class utopia? On a crisp morning Helen Mulligan, 45, is giving me a tour of Marmalade Lane, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe6P8V-v0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1924,"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions\/1924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arboretumcohousing.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}