Could this be the model community?

I'M standing on top of the ridge above Danby Dale, a little valley on the edge of the North York Moors. It's a perfect early summer day; everything is green and the hillsides are dappled with sunlight. Below me, lies the collection of houses and farm buildings that make up Botton Village, and a word pops into my head and lodges itself there: Utopia.

I dismiss it as an exaggeration but as I drop down onto the valley floor and begin to explore, I realise that the way of life at Botton is probably as close to Utopia as the 21st century will ever get.

At first glance, it seems like any other village. At its centre, there's a post office, general store and coffee shop, where the priest and storekeeper are having a chat. There's a village green, a church and community centre. But this is no ordinary village.

Botton is one of 11 communities in Britain within the Camphill Trust, communities where people with special needs live and work alongside their carers, known as co-workers.

It is home to 350 people. There are 30 houses, roughly grouped into five neighbourhoods around a farm and workshops. A typical family consists of a couple acting as houseparents who, with the help of other co-workers, are responsible for a group of adults with special needs, as well as their own children. It creates an incredible sense of community. Front doors are left open and everyone knows everyone else. My guide Nick Poole is stopped every few minutes by a friend saying hello or having a quick chat.

There is no hierarchy - all decisions are made communally with everyone given an opportunity to voice their opinion.

"A lot of things here are different so a lot of what we do isn't understood. It's not really understandable. We ourselves don't fully understand," says Nick.

"What we are doing is a social experiment made possible by the fact that we live with people with special needs. We are constantly trying to find out what they need and create a social organism around those needs. What emerges is a damn sight more human than the competitive, thrusting value system that we see everywhere. Our villagers are saying they don't fit into that and they're leading us in a different direction."

The Camphill communities owe their origin to Dr Karl Konig, a follower of the philosopher Rudolf Steiner, on whose teachings their entire way of life is based. Dr Konig fled his native Vienna in the 1930s following the Nazi invasion of Austria. An expert on children with learning difficulties, he set up a pioneering school at Camphill, near Aberdeen. Its pupils flourished but there were fears that once the children's education was over, they would have to return home or end up in institutions.

Dr Konig developed the idea of a community where the now young adults could do meaningful work and make a contribution to society but still be supported by friends. The Macmillan publishing family, whose son Alister was a pupil at Camphill, offered their estate in North Yorkshire as a home for him and his fellow pupils.

Initially centred on Botton Hall and a few farm buildings, the village has grown since its foundation in 1955. Adjoining farms have fallen vacant and been absorbed, creating a unique community.

"We have many people here who were in padded cells, in institutions where they were considered a danger to themselves, but transplant them to a setting where their needs are met and a huge sense of achievement and satisfaction becomes apparent," says Nick.

"The person with mental illness or disabilities is able to make a very real contribution to society and it's both the environment and the acceptance of them as full human beings by their friends and colleagues that makes the difference."

There are around 70 co-workers, often people looking for a change in their lives or who feel dissatisfied, people who want to try a different way of living in a collective. Students come from around the world during gap years. Nick's own case is slightly different. With what he describes as "fairly radical folks", he grew up at Camphill in Aberdeen after his father left the church to join Dr Konig. Like most children, he was desperate not to follow in his parents' footsteps and left the community at 17 to go to university, where he studied biology.

"A lot of questions about Darwinian evolution crowded in on me and I began to feel this was something I no longer believed in. I started looking around for alternative lifestyles. I spent six months at Botton before deciding what to do and I found the questions were answered by the life there. I hadn't been exposed to that as a kid but when I came back as an adult, it really spoke to me."

Nick has been at Botton for the last 30 years and says he can't imagine living anywhere else. Others have joined more recently. In the bakery, I meet Andy, who has been a co-worker at Botton for two years. Before that, he was a self-employed electrician and found himself becoming increasingly disillusioned.

"I got fed up with working every hour God sent to support my wife and two boys. Here, your efforts are the same but you're supporting 330 people instead of three. My other needs are met by the rest of the community. It's really about working together," he explains.

The rhythm of life at Botton is dictated by work, which is from 9am to 5.30pm. There are several workshops, including a weavery, creamery and bakery, as well as glass, candle and doll workshops. Everyone works, although some villagers cook or clean in the houses or split their day between the two.

During my tour, I visit several of the workshops, where everyone is doing their bit. The villagers come over and introduce themselves and are keen to show me their work and the products they make, which are sold around the world, as far afield as Japan and Australia. "There's a real sense of making a contribution and, although the work is repetitive, for many of them it provides a sense of security. We might think it's demeaning to fold pieces of paper for books for months, even years, but it gives them security, as does the knowledge that the people they live with are going to be there for them," Nick says.

But for all the harmony, Botton is not without problems, caused largely by bureaucracy. During the late 1980s, the Government introduced care in the community legislation. Botton became a registered care community, a label Nick describes as an "ill-fitting garment".

"We're a square peg in a round hole," he sighs. "It's pretty onerous. If we let it, it would drive a wedge between us as co-workers and the villagers. They're always described as care users and we're providers. That's a false distinction and one which is absolute anathema to us. The community has been built as a co-creation." Nowhere is this more obvious than when the entire village gathers on the village green for a celebration or special occasion. "Seeing the whole community out here is an inspiring sight. We have such an amount of faith and trust in each other and share things in the community without anyone feeling they have to shine. We are one and that's quite something in today's world," says Nick.

"I really like to think what we are doing here has potential for the future. Perhaps I'm being idealistic but I see it as a model, a prototype for the rest of society."

* Visitors are always welcome at Botton but the village is holding an open day on July 4. For more information call (01287) 660871.