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

Our local Tory council has given permission for our neighbours to build a giant 'gym with plumbing' in their garden (London) which takes up almost all the outdoor space and now very predictably has someone sleeping in there. They didn't even let us know at the planning stage and care not a jot now it is being lived in. Depressingly I don't feel like any of the parties care all that much anymore.

Exactly. Locals told the planning department repeatedly that the flat pack houses weren't sturdy enough to withstand our local weather. Local historians begged them not to bulldose a historic building, the last of its type in the country, so the developers destroyed overnight on a Sunday. It was turned into a car park. These are the things that anger people.

I can't believe the new government is so stupid that it doesn't think the developers will do exactly what they want, as usual. If this is anything more than a blank cheque for shitty quality housing to be built on greenfield sites I'll be pleasantly surprised.

We had a massive building programme of prefabs. Not the the good quality post war type. These were the type that all blew down overnight in a thunderstorm (before they were finished, thankfully) and had to be replaced.
Building hundreds of houses before even considering new roads, public transport, shops or schools is always going to cause problems.

Funny how the developers' enthusiasm fades when they are granted permission but with conditions requiring them to build decent quality housing with appropriate facilities that limit impact on the parish. 🙂 We have two sites with outline planning permission, where the owners cannot find developers willing to buy.

Old, old story. Near us the original developer often sells on the permission to another developer. They then go to the council and wiggle out of everything that has been agreed. People are fed up of being deceived, and ending up with something completely different from what was promised.

We also have several developments (in Devon) which have just been abandoned halfway because the money has run out. The new town of Cranbrook is still arguing about all the social and community infrastructure, which has still not been built 12 years in.

Labour are in for a big shock when they realise that NIMBYs aren't the problem after all - it's good old fashioned greed.

I think this is the nub of it.

The reason I suspect that the ‘grand plan’ will fade and die is that - as I understand it - planning rules will be relaxed but that building will depend on developers funding construction. So even if the government can keep development out of the courts, which I find hard to believe, there will have to be sufficient profit in construction.

New house building is a very hard-nosed (and generally spivvy) business. Trying to get builders with big enough workforces to commit to efficient construction of quality homes within short deadlines is a very hopeful policy.

Tbf I know a lot of people who work from home, many families need a working form home space these days, in my family the spare bedroom is often actually an office (or 2 offices if the space allows)

So many people DO bother though and are never listened to.

Yes it’s painful how ‘but there’s loads of green when you come into X airport’ is ACTUALLY used as justification, do they have any idea how much land is needed to provide the food for just 1 person every year? All hope of self sufficiency is lost and not realistic anyway, but we really should retain as much as we can for environmental reasons if nothing else. Plus our ever increasing flood risk how much has it rained the last few months

The very same posters will be on here in 2040 to whinge about ‘short sighted politicians who ruined our food supply and landscape so we can live in an over polluted, crowded, under resourced hell hole’

They never learn.

I really think planning has to change to centre services, space for a walk in clinic, a nursery, some shops, maybe a community hall type of thing. There are too many developments that are badly served but people need to live somewhere.

This. The coming food crisis is inevitable and we need to retain as much productive agricultural land as possible.

That's not nimbys, that the developers. They don't want to build 20 houses here and 30 houses there, they want to build a big fuck off development of 200 houses, on a plot of land they already have their eye on.

We have an accepted neighbourhood plan in our area.

We have met our 5 year housing supply by proactively identifying suitable sites. However our plan also requires all homes to include solar panels, sufficient off-street parking (we have VERY narrow roads and lanes), electric charging points, for two native trees to be planted for every dwelling and then protected with a protection order, and an allowance for greenspace calculated on the number of houses. Other things include flood alleviation, upgrades to village sewage plants, improved broadband, uprated electricity supply etc.

The permission granted includes 2 bed, 3 bed and 4 bed. No 5 beds.

Funny how the developers' enthusiasm fades when they are granted permission but with conditions requiring them to build decent quality housing with appropriate facilities that limit impact on the parish. 🙂 We have two sites with outline planning permission, where the owners cannot find developers willing to buy.

We have yet to see if Labour's policies will impact how we work.

The issues where I am are

a. that a really large development is being built (housing association) which on the face of it is great news BUT will have no benefit to people in this area instead it is housing people from council waiting lists thirty to forty miles away

b. housing developments in the area (for sale) are not what is needed locally i.e 2/3 bed homes with gardens would be great for local families but what we have being built are 4/5 bedroom "executive" homes which are either not selling quickly enough to allow the next phase of the development to progress or are selling to people from out of area

I have no objection whatsoever to building taking place but please let it be what is needed and wanted in that particular area

I was brought up in a mining community in the North of England.
A new town was built up very rapidly joining all the villages together. For nearly 15 years the only building was houses. It became s grim and depressing place. Littering and vandalism everywhere. Corruption within the local council resulted in the destruction of important historical buildings.
Eventually schools, shops and health services appeared.
50 years later the town is prosperous, well served with amenities. A conservation programme is restoring some of the places that were ruined.
It was awful for the people who lived there through the first 15 years.
I hope this round of new towns is better organised.

OP your town council won't have any power in the decision on where new houses will go.

It will be your district or county council.

And there will be consultation on the plans, although of course the end result may still not be what you personally would like.

So many people don't bother to engage in local or neighbourhood planning and then whinge about new development on Greenfield sites near them.

Anyone living in a crop of new houses on the edge of a village will have to register with doctors/dentists yoga instructors, or whatever the hell they need elsewhere, however far away, and soon enough developers will see a chance for profit and build medical centres, supermarkets and anything else that is needed and they can make a profit off of providing

That hasn't happened anywhere near me, and they've been building for 30 years on and off.

That's what I assumed but apparently that's not how it works.

A house in our village that was bought for 400k a few years ago has just sold for 1.1 million. There could be 10,000 houses built nearby and that wouldn't have made any difference to that sale price.

Funnily enough the developments are getting put where the schools are full to bursting not on the areas where a handful of schools are empty.

We need to retain agricultural land and countryside- we should not be aiming to fill it up with building- there should be nothing on greenfield while there is any brownfield left.

You can search for community infrastructure levy /CIL and S106 money and see what has been spent from it locally and what it was allocated for when the developers paid it as a planning condition. I looked this up when I was looking for funding for playground redevelopment at our local primary. And then push in local government etc for it to be spent on the infrastructure it was intended for.

You can write in support of local brownfield developments if that’s what you want when they’re mooted. You can create or join groups pushing for cycle paths and footpaths that make developments less car dependent.
Schools are closing round here because there aren’t enough children, lack of school places is not a problem everywhere. Although I’ve heard people object to a local brownfield development on the grounds of school places through ignorance of the mothballed classrooms etc.

I don’t know what the right level is for immigration but I do know when visiting care homes professionally and from working in the NHS that many staff are immigrants- we have an aging population and one way or another need people of working age willing to work in health and social care.

Also , I’m not convinced, although open to rational arguments, that objecting to so many developments on the grounds that there aren’t enough affordable homes is helpful to the pain of the housing crisis. Isn’t it sometimes just closet NIMBYism? It’s a housing market, if there is more supply (with measures that make second home ownership unattractive) won’t the price come down anyway? 80% of a high market value might be the same as 100% of a lower market value if prices fall because competition for accommodation is less fierce.

I have read many posters bringing up that they are not NIMBYS, but are concerned about the lack of infrastructure on small villages that start to grow. If you read up on the growing of big cities, they didn’t all just automatically grow with everything everyone needs, they developed organically, most of what now is busy highly populated inner London was once tiny villages. As the population grew, entrepreneurs, councils and business folk filled the need for all the services we require.

Anyone living in a crop of new houses on the edge of a village will have to register with doctors/dentists yoga instructors, or whatever the hell they need elsewhere, however far away, and soon enough developers will see a chance for profit and build medical centres, supermarkets and anything else that is needed and they can make a profit off of providing. It’s just how things work, everything isn’t just automatically provided for free.

When anyone goes on about these reasons that we shouldn’t extend their village, it’s never really about infrastructure or flooding (that argument was used to try and stop a development at the end of our road which was beautiful fields leading to national trust coastline), it’s always certainly because no one wants to share where they live, they love that they have quiet beautiful views and don’t want it ruined, I wish people would just admit that. Thousands of houses are going up on vast fields at the edges of where I live in the north west, it’s going to join our coastal town up with the next one and leave us with fewer beautiful vast spaces, there is a load of wind farms off our coastline, none of us really want this change, but it has to happen.

Already there is another supermarket going to be built, and more clinics etc will follow, and that will happen in your villages that will be extended. I just wish people would admit that they just don’t want their beautiful places ruined with more people because they like it how it already is and don’t want to share. Adding to that in case anyone comes for me, I totally get it though!

About time they tore up the planning laws , town and country act was brought in the 1940s it's not fit for purpose. Look at the attempt at another Thames crossing to see how much of a mess planning is. Millions spent on a document so big no one person can read.

This. Have you all tried living in a village which is accessible by a single track road? Or has a single shop selling the basics? Or a tiny train station with no parking? Because I have. I’m all ears and would love to know how you think it would manage with an extra 1000+ residents?

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