A BUSINESSMAN has opened his fourth community housing scheme, or shared house in Stroud.

The CoFlats Community Sladbrook at the bottom of Stroud has seven self-contained private flats with access to a common house.

Owner David Michael said: “People can be as private or as communal as they like but increasingly being isolated is a big cause of mental health problems so co-housing is fun.”

Communal living has also been mooted in some camps as one way to tackle the housing crisis in the UK.

The Co-flat community house sports a sauna, a gymnasium and a DIY or craft workshop.

Residents can book a visitor into the guest room at no extra cost and with a cooking rota people who cannot offer much in the way of culinary skills only have to make dinner for fellow residents every-so-often.

They also have access to the car share club and a bicycle store for 20 bikes.

Cohousing started in Denmark in the 1970s and is thought to be the result of Danes having been volunteers on Kibbutz in Israel and wanted to create something similar.

The house with its jigsaw of flats inside generates its own electricity with numerous solar panels soaking up the sunlight.

David and his partner Helen themselves still live at the Springhill Cohousing Community, the UK’s first co-housing community which David built 13 years ago.