Last month we shared the news that the PVUK Trustees were looking at the Abenhall Estate in the Forest of Dean as a candidate site for the Being Peace Practice Centre and sought your views on this possibility.
We would like to start our update for this month by offering a huge thank you to all of you – nearly one and a half thousand people! – who were able to complete the survey on this prospect and share your views. Your responses have been so valuable in helping the Trustees and team to decide how to move forwards.
In this update, we want to let you know about some of the results of this survey, the other work taking place to assess Abenhall, and what to expect from the coming months.
Results from the survey
The average suitability score given to Abenhall as a potential site for Being Peace was 9.2 out of 10 across 1,499 respondents, with over 800 people giving it 10 out of 10 for overall suitability. 86% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the location felt suitable overall, with a further 8% neutral on this question. The survey also gave very useful information about pricing and room preferences to help the team with their planning and modelling. And there was also a wonderfully high level of interest in a diverse retreat programme at the future centre, including hundreds of respondents indicating their support for and interest in Colours of Compassion Retreats, Neurodiversity Retreats and Rainbow Retreats. This is an incredible level of engagement with this project, and we are so happy that you are all there!
Our next steps
On the basis of these results, together with a careful analysis of the site with planning and architectural consultants, our Trustees have now reached agreement with the owners for them to take Abenhall off the market and to hold it for Plum Village UK for the immediate future while we complete a thorough due diligence process. This will consist of a three month phase of work during which Abenhall will be our exclusive focus as the potential site for the Being Peace Practice Centre, and during which our core priorities will be to:
- Develop a high level of reassurance on the likelihood of obtaining all necessary planning permissions for the site, by going through the planning pre-application process with the local council
- Deepen our consultation within the community, particularly across teachers, facilitators and our affinity sanghas, to ensure that a strong and diverse programme can be constructed for the centre. We will also be looking into appropriate ways to support individuals and groups who have concerns about accessibility, and to ensure the teachings throughout the country can be strengthened and supported by the development of this centre.
- Conduct further fundraising, to ensure that our plans for Abenhall are robustly affordable and can be built on the most solid and sustainable financial footing possible.
If all of these areas progress well in the coming months, this will give us a truly solid foundation to move forwards on as a project and a community.
What to expect
This has been a very busy period of work for the project and the team, and you can expect to hear much more news from us in the New Year as we move all of these strands of work forwards, starting off with the return of our Being Peace Sangha Evening on Sunday 12 January. There is also a treasure trove of incredibly valuable comments and offers of support of all kinds that have arrived through the survey which we deeply appreciate, and we thank you also for your patience as we gradually work our way through the hundreds of messages and start to follow up on these. We will be sharing our plans with you in more detail as they gradually take shape in the coming weeks and months, and we may also be sharing some right livelihood opportunities to gradually build our core team, in skills and diversity, if all proceeds with Abenhall as planned.
There is much work ahead, but today we can celebrate a significant milestone in this project, and a month in which a very positive prospect for the Being Peace Centre moved from being a possibility to being – perhaps😉- now a probability.
🌸✨🌱Thank you so much for an amazing year and we look forward to continuing this journey with you all in 2025!🌸🙏🌱
