To feel really upset about the lack of scrutiny on new housing development in the countryside

Much much much more value NEEDS to be given to agricultural land. Houses must not be built on any agricultural land, or land that is suitable for agriculture. Our food supply is already dependent on imports and will get worse against a backdrop of changing climate impacting food supply worldwide. Labour have got nowhere near placing sufficient import on food security.

Plus they are only getting out a few weeks early, not months or years, where were they planning on going before?

I don't agree with building on agricultural land, food security is vital.
It would help if everyone didn't want to live in the SE.
Lots of areas in the UK where they could build but there aren't people who want to live there. Maybe incentives to relocate major companies from SE to NE.
Move more government departments out of London.
I think councils should be obliged to build an equal number of social housing as owner occupied. No right to buy. Empty buildings compulsorily purchased by local authorities for housing if unoccupied for over a year.

@Grapefruitjelly you have hit the nail on the head. There would maybe not be so much opposition if housing was done more sensitively with thought to people privacy, those of us who live in villages do so because we want peace, privacy etc not houses crammed in together as close as possible without room to breath or chance to get away from others

@Theoldwrinkley i strongly believe that all empty/abandoned/second homes and empty shops and offices should be utilised for housing first before building on more green spaces and encroaching into villages making mini towns without suitable infrastructure or thought to residents. If all of the above were used first it would make some dent in the housing ‘crisis’

Was this Bicester?

I hate the way the government or council rides rough shod over these agreements

Same happened with a sport recreation ground taken by HS2 even though it was left in trust for residents

We had a housing estate built on some land that had a covenant on it saying it could only be used for recreational purposes. The protest went on for years because not only did they want to build on something that was recreational and used by 100s of people a week, and employed many locals, it had been the habitat for deer, foxes etc. but they scrapped the covenant, and up went a shiny new Taylor Wimpey shoe box housing estate with no doctors, shop or upgraded roads. A 2 minute drive down the road each way and you now have another two new housing estates built on farmland, with no doctors or shop and still no road upgrades. Across the roundabout in the next town you also have three new large housing estates.

Successive government's have forced houses on already over populated areas in the South East with little regard for the environment or population already there.

Farming is no longer viable for a lot of farmers which is why they end up selling their land off to the developers. If we made it profitable, I'm sure they'd rather keep it.

I have mixed feelings about compulsion from government, but we need a joined-up approach with local councils including parish / town councils involved and a carrot and stick approach.

I live in a small village with a pub which has been closed for the last four years. The pub had become unpopular, the owners decided not to re-open after Covid, they sold up. It was bought by someone who then decided not to re-open it as a pub after all. So far so normal.

The building is ripe for conversion into flats, probably no more than four which would hardly overwhelm the village. There is more than adequate car parking and garden space. At this point, someone in authority should be pushing the new owner to actually do something rather than just letting the weeds grow.

People voted Labour because the conservatives weren't doing well and change was needed.

The government should be listening to the people whichever party they are

We need to keep as much agricultural land as possible

So disgusting how the developers get away with this.

Whilst the government continues to guilt trip us about the environment

Can't have it all ways

I had forgotten this, but as recently as 10 years ago, they built yet another housing estate on top of a newly discovered iron age settlement.

It's lottery day for family run and investment run building firms.

I not sure where this eccomy drive benefits locals.
They usually have their own teams and contractors.

If new homes are needed, the council will commission studies to see where the best area is to encourage development based on existing infrastructure. Then they’ll ignore that and let the developers build where they can get the most £/square metre

There'll doubtless be "public consultations" which they'll ignore too, but never mind; building in a more expensive area may well enable even better kickbacks for the council

The tone with which the minister talks about all this really rubs me up the wrong way.
I heard her on the radio and she was curt and crisp to the interviewer "this is what people voted for".

No actually tearing up greenbelt may have been on some people's agenda but they won because tory were so awful.

Another consideration is the Quality of these homes. They usually have small windows tiny postage stamp gardens, small box like rooms and lots of noise issues and echos snd reverberration..
Goodness knows what the flats are like in town here are certainly no trees for gardens attached

This is exactly what people do, and exactly what the government have said they will ignore.

Assuming you have the same set up as me... The town council can say and do what they like, it will be decided by the district council who will over rule them.
We've had similar where I live where a vociferous lobby were claiming a site at the opposite end of town to them would be far far better for housing compared to the one behind their own (newly built ironically) homes. It all came to nothing and the development behind them is about to commence.

I don’t agree with everyone on this thread but I think it’s a good discussion of a really important topic with people bringing in a lot of useful points from their experience and knowledge. What I’m taking from this is that it’s important to push hard for the details of developments to be right.

Exactly. And sadly I think the new government has stars in its eyes. The developers must be rubbing their hands with glee

We live in a town where rampant building has taken place, huge ugly tower blocks.
Locally we have been fighting to keep one of area green and unfortunately we've lost but I feel it's all hopeless now and huge building firms many family owned and or owned by investment firms will be rubbing their hands with glee.
But hey... The locals may get work on the building sites...

Our roads are already painful to drive on, our services are buggered.

I'm not a NIMBY. I want to see new homes built and I would be happy for them to be built in the fields at the end of my cul-de-sac if that was deemed necessary.

But, my town of around 8000 people has had around 1000 homes added to it in the last five years.

No new schools. No new GP surgeries. Dentists have left. These estates have been tacked onto existing roads causing a huge increase in traffic through the town, which already suffers from narrow streets, one way systems etc.

I want to ensure development is sensible and infrastructure is included with that. Developers shouldn't be allowed to add 100s of houses, make millions in profit, and do nothing about the extra services that are subsequently required. It's a total scam and I don't understand why more people are not angry about the fact that this is allowed to happen.

Yes. It's very convenient to label everyone who objects as NIMBYS.

Many people have legitimate concerns. The housing estate near us was built across footpaths. There was a lot of protest and the powers that be couldn't give a shit,.protesters were labelled as awful middle class types and who has time to go walking these days? Move over, grandad!

The upshot is that they have had to build new pedestrian access which they have done by adding steps leading from the nearest road, so anyone in a wheelchair can't access the town from the estate and baby buggies are a huge struggle. No disabled access at all, whereas if they'd saved the footpath and built a flat tarmacadam bit along the side, which the NIMBYS proposed everyone would have been able to cycle/wheelchair/buggy.

I think we need to build upwards not outwards. It would protect the countryside for growing important stuff (like enough food to feed 70million people) and for wildlife and recreation.

My young adult DC would happily live in a well designed flat (as would DH and I) but there just aren't any available near us.

Look at the flooding fiasco in Fishlake. Did nobody question why the place was called Fishlake?
We had a similar problem with a new development on fields near where I live now. It cost them a fortune to deal with the ground water. Locals told them about the spring and the stream and the pond and the well. All of which feature in the local place names.

It's important we're building the right type of housing, affordable, mix of sizes not expensive 5 bed places the developers want because they can get the most money etc. It's also important we build correctly otherwise we're creating social problems for the future eg poor quality, lack of amenities, flooding issues. We should also be making sure that the new developments are actual homes rather than second homes or holiday properties.

In my experience enabling comments at the planning stage has improved the final housing. Local people are more likely to look at the plans carefully and point out things like flooding issues which the local authority are not aware of (which then leads to surveys and modifications of plans). By looking more closely local people also spot things that planners have missed like parking issues, inadequate bin stores and developers not following rules such as amenity space, which again leads to a better overall developments. I see the chance to comment as an important step in holding developers to account and ensuring what is built is as good as it can be.

I'm not against building but don't trust developers to build good quality homes. An alternative would be to make use of existing stock by banning Airbnb and outlawing second home ownership. I don't think that nimbys would like that either so building it is.