Every evening, John Franklin, 49, who works for a management consultancy in the City, takes the train back to his three-bedroom home in the Sussex countryside - hopefully in time for a spot of gardening. But Franklin is not growing roses in a cottage garden. He is helping to produce vegetables for his 70 or so neighbours. “It’s a wonderfully inspiring thing,” he says.

This is not a random act of generosity.

Franklin, his wife Melanie, 45, and daughter Imogen, 14, are part of a small but growing number of Britons trying out a different way of living: cohousing. The Franklins live at the Community Project, where 22 households have set up home together in 23 acres of rolling countryside on the edge of the South Downs, just outside Lewes. Although they each own their own property, they live together as a community. Call it a capitalist commune.

After work or at weekends, Franklin and his neighbours might take part in committee meetings to discuss ways of making the site greener, attend a “pot luck” supper, where every member of the project brings a dish to the communal dining room to share, or gear up for the next “busy day” – a monthly event when all the community’s members tackle the endless jobs that need doing around the site, from mending broken door handles in Shawfield – the house in which they gather for various activities – to mowing the lawns.

The project grew from a conversation between a group of friends around a dinner table in London in 1989; the first members moved there nine years ago. Now 74 people – including 34 children – live here, either in four detached wooden houses or in homes carved out of the main building, a converted hospital built in the 1930s to house “high-grade and low-grade imbeciles”.

Like Franklin, the other residents own their own homes on a 9,999-year lease and pay a service charge, based on the square footage of each property, to cover heating and water. The project has its own water system and produces its own heat via a biomass boiler.

Each adult is also a director of the company that owns the site as a whole, and is jointly responsible for taking part in decisions on subjects from finances to whether someone should be allowed to build a garden shed. Nothing happens here without hours of discussion – and there are subgroups to deal with everything from looking after the land to general maintenance.

Co-housing schemes like this have existed in Denmark for 30 years and in America for 20. In Holland, cohousing groups get state subsidies and account for 10% of the country’s social housing. And they are starting to take off here. “It’s not overly ideological,” Franklin says. “We’re a fairly diverse group, but it achieves a balance. We all live together, but it is nice to be able to shut your own front door.”

Visiting the Community Project on a sunny summer’s day, it is easy to appreciate the appeal. The setting is idyllic – the buildings look out over a green valley, narrow paths wind between rambling undergrowth and abundant vegetation, while three horses in a paddock swish their tails lazily against the flies. Come teatime, the place is swarming with children conducting water-gun fights and larking about.

“It’s awesome for kids,” says Jed Novick, 49, a lecturer in journalism who moved here two years ago with his wife, Gilly Smith, 45, and their two daughters, Ellie, 12, and Loulou, 9. “They have such freedom and independence here, within safe walls.”

Julian Morgan-Jones, who, with his wife, Lucy, was one of the founding members of the Community Project, agrees. “Sharing in the stresses and strains of bringing up children has been fantastic,” he says. “It’s like being part of an extended family – there’s always someone to pick your kids up from school. You’re never alone.”

For some people, of course, this would be the ultimate nightmare – but the community spirit that exists here does seem to have discernible benefits. Sarah Berger, a sprightly 64-year-old who is the oldest person in the community, was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago and says the response from her neighbours was overwhelming.

“When I came back with the news, within two minutes I had a group of six women in my sitting room opening the brandy,” she recalls. “There were offers from people to stay the night, there was a rota to take me to chemotherapy, a rota for bringing me soup – it was amazing.”

Not that such living is for everyone. “People have to get their heads round it,” Berger says. “There are quite a lot of meetings, a lot of joint projects and responsibilities, and everybody has their share. If people get a sense that it would wind them up or would be too much of an investment of time or energy, it’s probably not for them.”

The Community Project currently has two properties for sale – Novick and Smith’s three-bedroom home is priced at £700,000 and a second property in the original building is £390,000.

Anyone wanting to buy faces a vetting process, during which they are encouraged to visit the community and see how it works. The rules become less stringent once the property has been on sale for more than three months.

Fancy the idea of living communally? You could always found your own cohousing community. Alan Heeks, an ex-businessman with an MBA from Harvard, set up the Threshold Centre at Cole Street Farm, near Gillingham, Dorset, with a group of six like-minded friends in 2004, and runs regular workshops for those interested in cohousing. The basic principles are the same, although there are differences: the eight members share everything from home-grown vegetables to the washing machine, and are required to give 5% of the value of their property to the project when they sell.

Nancy Winfield moved to Cole Street Farm just over two years ago with her daughter Vita, 5. Winfield, 42, who works from home as a bookbinder, was attracted by the “green” aspects of the scheme – and by the fact that is a much easier place to bring up a child as a single parent. “Being a single mum on your own is quite tough,” she says. “If you can do it in a community context like Cole Street, it is wonderful – there is a lot of backup. When I need a car I can borrow one and people always help out.” When we speak, she is talking on a mobile phone borrowed from another member of the community.

Heeks’s advice for those hoping to follow in his footsteps is to start small. “You need a fairly focused core group of 8-10 people who communicate well and can keep up the level of commitment,” he says. “Then you can widen it out and bring in other residents.” You should also do your research and visit local schemes before starting.

Above all, you need to be able to work well with other people. “There are decisions that you can’t make as an individual because the whole group needs to be involved,” Heeks explains. “You need to be reasonably tolerant.”

Doing it for yourself

Want to start a cohousing group? These are things to think about:

Keep it small to start with: 8-10 people as a core group

Do your research: visit some existing schemes, read up and take part in a workshop (see www.thresholdcentre.org.uk)

Decide what your aims and values are, and how much of the project is going to be communal

Form a company, so mortgage lenders have something to lend to

Work with professionals to find a property: architects, contractors, even a friendly developer if you can find one

Examine your personality: are you prepared to share large chunks of your life with strangers and relinquish some of your freedom in decision-making? + www.cohousing.org.uk

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