Fearing a societal collapse ‘at any moment,’ Brexit politician and entrepreneur Peter Dawe, 65, bought a 1,500-acre farm in Norfolk and is turning it into a ‘self-sustainable’ community to house like-minded ‘survivalists.
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Dawe also fears climate change, famine, and political unrest, so the project, called ‘Beat the Bear,’ is the most logical response in his eyes. The farm has a flour mill, an orchard, solar panels, and livestock. Dawe is also aiming at setting up a community garden to grow fruit and vegetables.
Watch to learn more about this community below.
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Video credit: Rumble
The farm hosts five houses, two of which need restoration, and the former tech businessman has gotten approval to build three more.
Only a select group of people will be able to stay at the farm, setting applicants back anywhere between £10,000($12K) and £100,000($120K) per year per person although Dawe doesn’t want the exact location reported, for obvious reasons.
The project is the fruit of 15 years of planning and can feed and house 100 people although there are plans to increase that to as much as 1,000 people. The farm also boasts a local water pumping station and portable water storage reservoir with enough capacity for more than 50,000 people.
Dawe, from Ely, Cambridgeshire said: “I’ve had the idea for 15 years, but it really took shape the last couple of years. I’ve been concerned about how fragile society is and I don’t think it would take much for us to lose civilization.”
He added: “Ten years ago, I commissioned Anglia Ruskin University to do some research into the fragility of the world and created an economic model that looks at food, water, and energy.
“They then used that model to test different scenarios. What if Iran stopped the oil coming out of the USA, what if a volcano really went off in Iceland, what would happen if China stopped shipping items?”
Although Dawe sees many possible causes of collapse, he says that Brexit will not be one of them.
Dawe used to own Pipex, the country’s first commercial Internet service provider, but sold it in 1995 and bought a farm in Norfolk in 1996, one with higher elevation to reduce flooding risks.
Dawe, a former candidate for mayor of Peterborough and Cambridgeshire in 2016, hopes people can benefit from the land and the farm.
He said: “A lot of people are going off-grid and are being self-sufficient, it is possible but it’s a lot of hard work.”
In a self-sufficient community, Hawe says people will only need to work 20 hours a week.
Dawe, who was awarded an OBE in 2001 for his anti-child pornography work, said: “Currently, we have around 1300 tonnes of grain, 400 tonnes of oilseed, 120 cows, 3 pigs, and a few chickens, the latter two are about to become somewhat larger.
“We have 200kw of solar and a 500kw diesel generator. We have plans for a 1MW wind turbine. We also have a 200kw biomass boiler for heating.”
He also said that as a matter of course, people should have canned food stored at home just in case.
He added: “We have had food rationing for 10 of the last 150 years. Why would you not have tinned food in the cupboard?”
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