CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Grand Designs on Ch4: This off-grid eco-cabin proves that a sustainable lifestyle is pure fantasy
Maybe Ed Miliband’s green campaign hasn’t convinced you yet. Maybe you can’t grasp all the charms of the rugged off-grid life. But eco-evangelist Marcus will transform you.
Pointing proudly to her enamel bathtub, which sits on a wooden platform beneath a sheet of corrugated plastic in the woods, she said: ‘If you’ve never bathed outside in the winter when it’s raining, you don’t know how wonderful it feels.’
He is a visionary. What better way to persuade millions of spoiled Brits to give up their selfish luxuries than to start December with a good brushing outdoors? Imagine that the hailstones are free bathing crystals and the howling storm is a hair dryer.
Even Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud, who has a disdain for all things traditional in architecture, couldn’t hide his skepticism as Marcus and wife Abi set about building a cottage in the Pembrokeshire woods.
Windows were salvaged from other buildings, insulation was made from recycled newspaper, and the stove was powered by gas from rotting vegetables.
This was supposed to be a symbol of sustainable living, but little of it made any practical sense. For a start, few people have the advantage of inheriting a piece of Welsh woodland.
Marcus’s father, a committed environmentalist, bought it in the 1990s before his early death at age 54. He was buried there.
And not every man has the luxury of taking a year or more off work while his wife looks after the family. He and Abi, who works for a renewable trading organization, have twin daughters in secondary school.
Kevin McCloud with Marcus and Abi as they build an eco-friendly cottage in the Pembrokeshire woods
They also have the added bonus of their home in Tenby, which they can rent out to provide additional income while living in the bush. When their savings ran out and they were £50,000 over budget, the couple were lucky enough to be able to borrow money from relatives.
The restrictions imposed by planning regulations are even more impractical. Marcus and Abi will need to produce accounts over the next five years to prove every aspect of their lives is low-carbon and extra green.
They must minimize their travel while all their purchases, including food and clothing, are scrutinized. Shopping police foul and their right to live in the cabin will be revoked. They will be evacuated and the house will be demolished.
Even if they strictly followed these draconian eco-laws, they could never sell this place. No one else would be allowed to live there.
Of course, good luck to the couple. The dreams of living in the middle of nature, surrounded by birdsong, are very attractive and it required a lot of work to make it a reality.
But to claim that for most people this lifestyle is nothing more than fantasy or that it is possible on any scale beyond the individual and eccentric is nonsense.
Like all ecological innovations, from wind farms to banning gasoline engines, this one made as much sense as bathing in a snowstorm.
