COMMON PRACTICE 
Bridport, Dorset DT6 


Burton Bradstock CLT



Burton Bradstock is a storied and idyllic seaside village with a charming vernacular of times past. We’ve been working with their Community Land Trust to develop visions, stories and meaningful routes to affordable housing that places local people and their place at the heart of proposals.

Our work so far in this project, which we understand will be long-term and slow-burn, has primarily been to research and collate the history of housing development in the village, showing the vernacular traits as intrinsic to the economic activities of the time, such as quarrying, fishing and agriculture which were once dominant, to the now mostly tourism and service based industries and majority retired demographic. Through conversations with current residents, we seek to develop situated proposals that demonstrate a vernacular and approach that suits today.




RESEARCH



Current Overview:

580 Households

67 Listed Buildings

13 Families in housing need

24.4% Homes have no usual resident

(compared to Dorset average of 10%)


Main industries:


14% Wholesale and retail
13% Health and social work
7% Arts, entertainment and rec
7% Manufacturing,
7% Agriculture, forestry and fishing

*12.8% of residents provide 50+ hours of unpaid care

In the last one hundred years Burton Bradstock has changed...



From a village in which most of the people work on the sea, in quarries, in forestry or agriculture

To a village in which much of the population are retired, and previous dominant industries have collapsed to be replaced by tourism and hospitality










What does a village vernacular for today’s Burton Bradstock look like?








What opportunities and frameworks exist to build within?







OUTREACH








We held a 1-day public workshop in the village hall where we spoke with Burton Bradstock residents to share our findings on the development of the village’s housing landscape, showing key evolutions and drivers in its vernacular as well case studies and approaches to affordable housing elsewhere that might serve as a template to be tailored in Burton.

Research was pinned up on interactive boards where residents could discuss and provide input on the village’s need for affordable housing, identifying challenges and opportunities within that need as well as capturing what to them gave their village its unique identity.






DESIGN



A Pattern Book:


COMMON PRACTICE IS REGISTERED AS LOCAL MATTERS WORKSHOP C.I.C.