'We moved in with 17 strangers so we wouldn't be lonely' - why co-housing is on the rise

When Nikki Little and John Porter retired, they considered buying a bungalow for just the two of them.

Instead, they invested in a £1m house tucked away on Devon's rugged and remote Hartland Peninsula - and looked for a community of like-minded people to join them.

Co-housing is gaining popularity in the UK, says the UK Cohousing Network - in a post-pandemic world where loneliness, the housing crisis and costly care are forcing a drive for new solutions.

"In the future I was probably going to die first and I didn't want Nikki to be on her own," John explains.

"Because we're a childless family it just seemed like a natural thing to do - to form a community where Nikki could be looked after in a few years' time, after we've looked after this community."

Berry Park receives "weekly inquiries" from people considering the lifestyle leap to co-housing, in which residents live in owned or rented lodgings clustered around a shared space and common facilities like gardens, allotments and dining areas.

There are more than 120 co-housing developments either completed or in development and nearly 2,000 names on a national waiting list looking to join one, according to Owen Jarvis, CEO of the UK Cohousing Network.

"We also have landowners bringing forward sites and asking for people interested in developing co-housing on their land - that's probably the biggest recent change," adds Jarvis.

He says it is recognition of a growing desire among individuals to live in a "more neighbourly way" - a key motivator for many of the residents at Berry Park.

According to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 8.6 million people - 30% of all households - were made up of a single person in 2025.

Nearly half (49.6%) of those people were aged 65 and older, an increase from 46.9% a decade ago. Almost one million of these over-65s are "often lonely", according to Age Concern.

In 2025, 779,000 people lived alone in the South West, accounting for 30.4% of total households and the region has a higher proportion of older people living alone than the national average.

The cost of lone living is higher too, according to ONS figures.

"I'm single, I don't have children. Here I have a family," says Lorraine Jones, 49, who moved to Berry Park in April 2025 from a single life in Bath.

Jones, a charity fundraiser, says she does not miss her solo life in Bath - where she could not have afforded land to grow on or the space to keep animals.

"There's a real sense of community and I've felt a reduction in loneliness.

"I intend to die here," she adds. "Not straight a