● About
Rooted in place.
This Living Place is a community-led organisation working across Somerset and Dorset.
We exist to strengthen the relationships, skills and systems rural communities need to shape their own futures.
We began here. We work here. We build alongside the people and places we care about.
● Our Origins
We Grew From Listening
In 2024, after hundreds of conversations across Somerset and Dorset, a clear pattern emerged. Rural communities were already doing vital work to care for land, culture and one another, but often in isolation, under pressure and without the infrastructure to sustain it.
Rather than creating something new, we set out to strengthen what was already happening.
We asked: what kind of organisation would genuinely support rural communities over the long term?
This Living Place is our answer.
● In our first year
hours of deep listening and community consultation
400+
hours of direct, hands-on support for local projects
500+
200+
new connections made across sectors
50+
site visits to grassroots initiatives
40+
events attended
20+
projects supported
● What we do
Four Connected Areas
We work across four interconnected areas:
Living Spaces & Places: Supporting towns and villages to plan and act together around housing, land, food, energy and culture.
Living Systems & Flows: Helping communities understand and reshape how power, land, money and resources move through their place.
Living Culture & Narratives: Rebuilding confidence, belonging and shared identity through storytelling, gatherings and skill-building.
Living Networks & Movements: Connecting practitioners, organisers and institutions to reduce isolation and strengthen collective action.
Together, these strands form a practical framework for community-led rural regeneration.
● Our Values
We counteract bigness and scale by weaving small, place-based systems of care; rooted in long-term relationships.
Our work is as practical as it is big picture thinking; rooted in lived realities, making, doing, and creating together.
We believe tomorrow’s thriving communities rely on today’s brave experiments and bold ideas.
Relationally rooted
Purposefully practical
Creatively pioneering
We unlock resilience, mutualism, togetherness and transformative potential through deep connection, trust and collaborative action .
Radically collaborative
Boldy liberatory
We take bold steps to address deep inequities present today to bring into reality post-capitalist futures, rooted in justice, care, compassion and liberation.
● How We Work
A different kind of role
Our work starts with relationships, trust and time. We listen carefully, build shared understanding and support local leadership to grow.
We move at the pace of place. We focus on building skills, confidence and coordination so that change continues long after any single project ends.
● The legacy
Building living infrastructure
Relational
Cultural
Systemic
Over time, our work creates what we call living infrastructure.
Living infrastructure is not buildings or services. It is the relationships, shared knowledge, skills and trust that allow communities to respond to change, steward land and shape their futures together.
It is often invisible, but it is essential. Our work is about helping it grow and endure.
Project Spotlight
Stalbridge
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Dorset COP
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Living Places Network
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Objective
to co-create the conditions for an emergent, adaptive living ecosystem of social and ecological regeneration that is self-managing and self-perpetuating, that is rooted in places, led by rural communities, and spans our bioregion