● Why we exist
We believe the way change happens is broken.
Across the UK, communities are facing deep social, ecological and economic pressures: declining local infrastructure, fragile economies, fewer opportunities for young people, rising isolation, climate breakdown, and decisions about the future of places being made far away from the people who live there.
At the same time, more people than ever are stepping forward to care for their places.
Neighbours are organising. Volunteers are holding local initiatives together. Community groups are responding to need, often with very little support.
There is no shortage of care, energy or imagination.
But too often, this work is fragmented, under-resourced and disconnected. People are working hard in isolation, reinventing the wheel, competing for the same small pots of funding, and carrying work that should be shared.
We exist because communities need the time, space, relationships and resources to come together, make sense of what is happening, and build place-shaped responses to this moment.
● The deeper reasons we exist
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If people want to be part of “making change”, they are often pulled out of their own communities and into organisations elsewhere.
The work becomes professionalised, centralised and disconnected from everyday life. Meanwhile, the places people actually live, gather, grow food, raise children, care for land and experience crisis are left without the infrastructure to shape their own future.
We believe change needs to be rooted back in place.
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There is no single national model that can tell every town, village or neighbourhood what it needs.
Each place has its own history, culture, ecology, economy, relationships, tensions and possibilities.
The way forward has to be adaptive. It has to be shaped by the people who live there. It has to come through neighbours gathering, listening, imagining, organising and acting together.
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The work that makes change possible is often the least resourced.
Relationship-building.
Listening.
Weaving.
Holding trust.
Creating spaces where people can think together.
Connecting projects that are working separately.
Helping ideas become real.
This work is slow, relational and difficult to measure, but without it, community-led change cannot take root.
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Rural communities are often treated as beautiful backdrops, not as places full of complexity, creativity and potential.
In places like Somerset and Dorset, young people leave because they cannot see a future here. Community spaces are lost. Local economies are fragile. Land is under pressure. Much of the work of care is held by exhausted volunteers.
Yet rural places also hold deep knowledge, skills, relationships and regenerative possibility.
We exist to prove that systemic change can grow from rural communities.
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The future will not be built by one organisation, one campaign or one policy.
It will be built through a tapestry of communities, each responding to their own place, while learning from and supporting each other.
We need more living examples of communities organising around care, land, economy, culture and belonging.
This Living Place exists to become one of those examples, and to connect with others doing the same.
● Our origins
This Living Place was established as a Community Interest Company in January 2024.
We began with deep listening, to people, land, projects and the patterns already present across Somerset and Dorset.
We wanted to understand what was already happening, where regenerative change was taking root, what was holding people back, and what kind of organisation could genuinely support community-led change over the long term.
What emerged was not a lack of ideas, energy or care.
It was a lack of connection, coordination, adaptive support and shared infrastructure.
● In our first year
hours of listening and community consultation
400+
hours of direct, hands-on support for local projects
new connections made across sectors
site visits to grassroots initiatives
50+
200+
500+
40+
events attended
projects supported
20+
● This Living Place is our response
We are prototyping a new kind of rural community organisation.
One that listens first.
One that is rooted in place.
One that weaves together what has been separated.
One that helps local ideas become real projects.
One that supports young people to stay, lead and build meaningful lives where they come from.
One that connects local work to a wider movement of communities shaping change from the ground up.
We do not exist to deliver solutions on behalf of communities. We exist to strengthen the conditions that allow communities to organise, connect, imagine and build what is needed next.
That is why This Living Place exists.