Torup

Torup is situated on a peninsula between the sea and a fjord, 60 km to the northwest of Copenhagen. Its 356 inhabitants enjoy a range of initiatives and activities, including a music festival, Torup Booktown featuring cultural events, farmers’ markets, repair cafés, common village dinners, a commuter-hub with common office space, jazz concerts, alternative transport, local council, and, most recently, the Danish University Extension.

Such initiatives build on a strong local tradition which has resulted, inter alia, in a parent-initiated school and kindergarten, a common meeting house, an intensely restored railway station, and a utility building containing a café, a bakery, and an organic shop. A group of people who moved in 30 years ago to form a community based on organic principles were instrumental to some of these developments.. Over the years, this particular part of the village has turned into a highly attractive enclave.

Those examples build on local initiatives and local competences. This also applies to the latest major step in terms of expanding the village with 100 new eco-homes over the next few years. To this end, a group of locals established a fund, Torup Fonden, to acquire the land, rather than leaving this to outside investors. Currently, this fund is planning a Torup-wide smart and sustainable heating system based on solar-power. With this backdrop, Torup won the 2019 National Village of the Year award.

People in and around Torup are resourceful, not necessarily economically, but certainly personally and culturally. To enhance the common use of competences and equipment, the village will capitalise on its involvement in the Smart Rural 21 project by bringing this wide range of resources to the forefront, and making them accessible and visible, especially to newcomers.

Videos

Torup life-size boardgame

The ‘Ting’ boardgame has thematic links to sustainability.

Torup gets own General Practitioner

Dr. Anne Louise Born Sylvest has set out to open her own medical practice in Torup, DK, on 1 January 2021, enabling the rural area to benefit from a close proximity between the community and a General Practitioner (GP).

Torup Ting

Peter Plant explains what Torup Ting is and how it supports community engagement in Torup (Denmark).

Torup Education

Peter Plant explains how Torup managed to sustain its school and kindergarden, and even "have a university"(!)

Torup Grows

Peter Plant talks about how they are preparing for receiving up to 250 newcomers to Torup and the way they managed to buy the land for new housing and sustain community services through crowdfunding.

Torup sings

"Oh yeah, we always have a song. And somebody would write a new song for each occasion." (Peter Plant, Torup)

Past and Present of Torup

Kirsten Birke Lund (Smart Rural 21 national expert) is talking to Peter Plant about how Torup village has developed over the past decades to become a vibrant rural hub and "the kind of things they like to do in Torup".

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