14.05.20: THE SOAP and cosmetics manufacturer Pheromonix has turned back the clock 200 years and built a complete new
village for its staff.
"We have reinvented the model village," said the company president, Tudor Watkins. "People have had enough of so-called
'virtual communities' where they can meet only like-minded people on the Web and where their only colleague is a screen. They
want real work and real colleagues in real communities and that's what we're giving them."
The village lies on former forestry land near Thetford in Norfolk. Called New Croxton by its architects, but "Corporateville" by
critics, it includes housing, a health centre, school, library, art gallery, sports hall and church.
"They want to own people and control what's in their heads," said Courtney Bell, a fragrance modeller with a home telework unit in
Saffron Walden who resigned from his regular job rather than change his way of life. RG
