Traditionalists have been talking about having our own communities since as long as anyone can remember, its one of Neo-aristocracies main themes. The topic is a popular one among the hardcore, but for almost all its only ever a day dream a nice idea if you will, and just about the hardest of all ideas to put into action. However where we Traditionalists still struggle there are groups all across the world doing exactly what we dream about albeit not with the same ideological backdrop.

  A community group in Yorkshire has taken over its only remaining petrol station out of fear that it would have been bought by property developers, making it the latest acquisition for a village bent on self-sufficiency.

The Upper Dales Community Partnership (UDCP) in Hawes is a non-for-profit company that began 20 years ago amid mass closures of facilities and depleting services to the area, populated by 1,137 people.

According to a 2016 report by Rural England, provision of services to rural areas like Hales has presented challenges due to the increase of online interactions mixed with sparsely populated and ageing demographics- creating the need for community action.

The UDCP is doing just that.

 

The village of Hawes, pictured, has a population of roughly 1,137 people bent on a self-sufficient village

 

Speaking to the Times, UDCP spokesperson John Blackie said: ‘In other communities they say “Why isn’t the government providing for us?” Here we say, “If you aren’t going to provide for us we are going to provide it for ourselves.”‘

Having initially started by taking over the local library the UDCP soon moved to set up a bus service in 2011 to replace the rural routes that were being axed- it makes £60,000 a year from the fares of roughly 65,000 passengers.

Petrol stations have equally diminished alongside bus routes- the Times reporting that numbers have dropped from 37,000 in 1970 to 8,600 in 2013.

The closure of the Hawes petrol station would have meant a 36mile round-trip to the nearest petrol station.

But the three-year lease that the UDCP now possesses will see a 24-hour self-service facility. It is further expected to bring revenue to the other service UDCP offers as it is in one of 17 areas eligible for a 5p per litre rural rebate, which was rolled out in 2015.

 

In 2011 the Upper Dales Community Partnership started its own bus service, pictured,  that rakes in a revenue of £60,000 a year from the fares of roughly 65,000 passengers

 

The local post office in Hawes also risked closure but was taken over by the Upper Dales Community Partnership, who employs 18 paid workers

 

The library in Hawes, pictured, is open five days a week and another facility run by the Upper Dales Community Partnership

Last month the UDCP employs 18 paid staff as well as 40 volunteers and has an annual turnover of around £350,000.

The UDCP has also attained the Post Office, built a one-stop shop community centre and soon plans to build two plots of land to build affordable homes.

Mr Blackie told the Times: ‘I hope other communities will look at us and see that, if we can do it, they can do it too. If nobody will do it for us, then we will do it for ourselves.’

Traditionalists must start to take seriously the predicament we as a people are in and at least entertain other forms of ethnic an cultural survival, control of our goods and services.  Schools, places of worship, farms, the local store, all critical to the life of small communities and the well being of the folk. Others have shown the way. It is possible if we have the collective will to realise it.