Who We Are: Meet the Hazel Cooperative
We are a community of young professionals brought together by a shared dedication to people and the planet. As a group, we purchased a house in Littlemore, Oxford, and operate it as an ethical, environmentally aware, multigenerational housing cooperative.
Hazel Cooperative is much more than a shared house — it is a home built around common values. Each member brings their own work, interests and skills, ranging from yoga and farming to research, music and community organising, and together we look after the house, the garden and one another.
Our Story in Brief
Our cooperative started from a straightforward aim: to create a place where socially and environmentally conscious people can live affordably, support each other and grow alongside the wider community. That aim became real when we bought our home in Littlemore, and we keep developing it as a low-impact, welcoming space for everyone who lives here.
The People Behind the Cooperative
Katie (she/her) — Yoga Teacher
Katie is driven in both her professional and personal life, and she brings a strong set of skills for supporting teams effectively at the University of Oxford and beyond, with the goal of leaving the world better than she found it. Outside her day job, Katie is a trained yoga teacher working to create inclusive, accessible spaces where people can practise yoga together. She is particularly drawn to people-centred classes and to helping students find agency in their practice. Katie also supports a local yoga studio with its training portfolio and its vision of nurturing a community of compassionate, informed and inclusive yoga teachers.
Katie enjoys bringing people together to build community, work towards shared goals and projects, and share life's highs and lows. She is working towards low-impact, environmentally sustainable living, whether by growing food on the allotment or within the communities she belongs to. Katie sees the Hazel Cooperative as the heart of her life, a place from which ideas and love can radiate outwards, both individually and together.
Bradley (he/him) — Farmer at Oxford City Farm
Bradley hopes to leave the world a little better than he found it, in whatever small ways he can. Having moved around for much of his adult life, he is now making England his home and hopes to build and support a community and family by living his values socially and environmentally.
Bradley was born in the mountains of West Virginia in the United States and grew up sailing on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, which sparked a lifelong love of nature and the water. He has lived in the UK for over five years, after a few years in France and other countries before that. He spent 15 years in the U.S. Coast Guard serving on ships in Alaska and Hawaii and protecting marine resources, especially fisheries. After leaving the Coast Guard, he built on those skills working for an intergovernmental organisation and then co-founding a non-profit here in the UK to help countries and the private sector with intelligence on environmental and labour compliance in the fisheries sector, as well as supporting the protection of maritime war graves and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions from ships, among many aspects of maritime monitoring. He continues this work freelance, but his true passion is now his new full-time job: farming!
Bradley now works as animal lead and head grower at Oxford City Farm, helping to expand their programmes to be more sustainable and teaching local residents how to ethically care for animals and grow their own food. Outside of work, Bradley tries to live a low-impact life and contribute positively to society. He volunteers with political campaigns, grows as much of his own food as possible, and explores new bread recipes. He is especially keen on encouraging a variety of vegetables alongside companion planting and wildflowers that support local fauna (especially pollinators). He is keen to help grow the Hazel Cooperative into a low-impact housing community of socially and environmentally minded peers who can help each other grow together along with the community.
Orlando (they/them) — Researcher
A jack of all trades and a joyful master of none, Orlando — pictured here with their first ever hand-picked purple-sprouting broccoli — is an interdisciplinary scholar who wants to work in areas that improve the lives of sentient beings. Currently job hunting after finishing their master's and taking some time to learn how to code, watch this space to see how their career progresses!
Having searched for a home all their life, bouncing between homes in childhood and living in several countries in adulthood, Orlando has finally found their forever home. In this home they want to build community, focusing on making their house a safe and accepting space for people from all walks of the LGBTQIA+ community. This involves arranging craft nights, book nights, movie nights, DnD nights, and any other nights their heart desires (or their friends request). When not job hunting, socialising, or watching the chickens with a sense of awe that errs on the obsessive, Orlando spends their time writing and performing poetry with a healthy self-awareness of the absurdity of it all.
Claire (she/her) — Communications Officer & Artist
Claire is a creative problem solver who loves working with her hands and being part of a fun and ethical community. She was born in Topeka, Kansas and holds dual US and UK nationality. She grew up in the mountains of Nepal until the age of 10, then spent the rest of her childhood in the Mid-West of the United States. She developed a deep love of music and artistic expression, earning her Bachelor's Degree in Commercial Music before moving to the UK.
She pursued a professional career as a musician for several years before discovering a new passion for supporting small businesses and social enterprises in the Oxford area. She has worked freelance for multiple independent businesses and social enterprises, most notably Makespace Oxford as their Operations Manager, helping to support over 200 local socially conscious businesses and charities. She is passionate about helping others achieve their goals, which inspires her to keep developing new skills and growing her community.
Outside of work, Claire is highly creative and involved in multiple music and art projects, and she loves to cook and work in the garden. She helped found an intersectional feminist poetry group and is developing her skills in art and graphic design. She enjoys working towards self-sustainability by growing food on the allotment, advocating for environmental and socially conscious policies, and supporting her local community. She is keen to develop the Hazel Cooperative into a hearth for forging creative and innovative ideas and for building a community of solidarity and mutual support.
Get in Touch
If you would like to find out more about the cooperative or get in touch, the contact details below are the best place to start.
Contact Us Today
Living together at Hazel Cooperative means sharing both the everyday tasks and the bigger ambitions. Members take turns caring for the house and garden, grow food on the allotment, and bring their own interests — from yoga and music to research and community organising — into the life of the home. It is a place where low-impact living and mutual support are part of daily life.