The death of the British countryside

[Dappy777]

I have lived in north Essex since 1998. When we moved here, this was a small village on the outskirts of a quiet market town. In the last ten years, it has been ruined. My local woods have been hacked down to make way for two huge new estates, and at the other end of the village a second giant housing estate has been built. Now we've been told the fields in the centre of the village are going to be built on as well. The traffic is so bad that the country lanes, which were meant to take the odd tractor and a few cars, now have the sort of congestion you'd expect on the M25. The main road into town is also having 500 new houses built along it. That road is choked with traffic now, so what the hell is it going to be like when 500 extra cars are added?

This beautiful weather has really brought it home to me. My sister lives in a village 30 miles from here, and it's exactly the same where she is. In fact, it's worse. Everywhere I go they are jamming more and more disgusting rabbit hutch 'houses' on top of one another. Instead of bird song, all you hear is the drone of cars and the screeching and backfiring of idiot boy racers. I think we really are living through the death of the British countryside. There will still be fields and trees, of course, but the countryside as I knew it will soon be gone forever.

What sickens me is that I know the left get a kick out of all this. They seem to think that everyone in the countryside is a rich, fox-hunting 'Tory' in a big mansion. In reality, the vast majority of so-called 'nimbys' are just ordinary people who've worked hard and desperately want a bit of peace and quiet. My sister has devoted 30 years to the NHS, as has her husband. They've slogged their guts out to buy a little semi-detached house in a village. Now that village is being destroyed around them.

Is it just here in the south east? Or is this happening in other parts of these islands?

It makes me so sad, where does it end? My village is being expanded in every direction. Access to the countryside with fresh air, green space and wildlife is so important and it is just getting further and further away for everyone. Building on it the way we are is totally unsustainable and there seems to be no long term plan for this whatsoever.

Do you have children or does your sister @Dappy777?

Anyone on here who has children complaining about houses needing to be built are nothing but hypocrites.

@BaggyPJs It doesn’t have to mean building on the countryside though. We have huge numbers of unoccupied homes, second homes, and underutilised homes with one or two people living in massive houses. We need to be building on brownfield sites, cutting stamp duty to encourage downsizing etc before permanently destroying our countryside.

Exactly.

And depopulation happening here…… as they say,
chance’d be a fine thing.

I always thought N Essex was a well kept secret. It is/was very pretty and East Anglian. I always wanted to live in Dedham, but life took me off somewhere else.

I think your problem is that commuter range has extended since hybrid working and WFH became more normalised. So development and money follows.

Trains have got faster in many places too. (Are they still talking about “Norwich in 90”?)

If you went deeper into Suffolk, you’d probably be relatively safe for a while longer.

Obviously got nothing to do with you - because you don't use toilet paper or any other kind of paper or cardboard packaging, wrapping or boxes .....

So only people like @Dappy777 can live in nice little countryside villages. Her house was built on countryside too.

What sickens me is that I know the left get a kick out of all this. They seem to think that everyone in the countryside is a rich, fox-hunting 'Tory' in a big mansion.

A statement like this is so politically naive I can only imagine you’ve lived under a rock for the last fourteen years, with only a copy of the Mail for company.

Did you know the Conservative Party has been in power from 2010 until last Summer. Please tell me which lefties in that party have set about destroying countryside?

I live in Kent and this is people on Facebook’s usual lament, it goes like this:

1. There is no countryside left in Kent, so the endless fields and tiny rural lanes are a figment of my imagination. As are the stats regarding land usage.
2. We have too many people, and it’s the boat peoples fault, despite the fact that in most villages there barely being any people of colour.
3. It is all Starmer’s fault, he let them all in, hasn’t built a wall in the world’s busiest shipping lane to stop them, and the Conservatives also let them all in, so Nigel Farage is our true Jesus like saviour.

If you look at it all with a spot of critical thought it makes you worry for the levels of rationality in this country.

I actually suggest you go up in a hot air balloon and properly see what the land usage is like in Essex, it’d be enlightening.

I agree with this. But we don’t seem to have that civic pride. It’s a shame.

@bozzabollix It’s all Starners fault? 6 months ago it was Sunak’s fault! Then every PM before him. Of course this is Reform mantra. Obviously loud in Kent coastal areas. More genteel areas, not so much.

That is the reality though. ‘Nice little countryside villages’ are a scarce resource. If you keep building on them sure more people can live there, but they won’t be nice or little or villages or in the countryside. They’ll be ugly dormitory suburbs with no facilities.

So yet again... you propose to do nothing... and let those 1m young people fester away, costing the country billions....

How about job creation? schemes run by the Govt, doing public good, don't complete the 6 months in work... lose benefits...

My brother would have been classed a NEET in the early 80s, after 6months on the dole, he was made to work clearing an old grave yard, outside work! in a team of other long term unemployed, run by a former navy guy... his wage was the same as the average labouring rate....

All under Thatcher! hardly my hero but she was on the money with this..

He saved enough to buy a motorbike, got back into the work habit, went to evening classes, college, got into telecoms... it gave him the kick up the arse he needed...

NEETs are not lost, most can make a gainful contribution, many are not happy stuck in their bedrooms etc...

@Alexandra2001 I do think they should do something but I bet loads are pip recipients. I worked for the YTS scheme. I know exactly what you mean. I think the difference is that those young people wanted to work. All of ours gained work and went to college on day release. I worked for a LA scheme and we had young people in care homes, all sorts of offices and various manual areas of work. Now most would apprenticeships but I will be interested to see if Labour forces young people to do anything. It’s been very quiet about this since winning the election. Maybe it’s in the “too difficult” box?

YTS was different, the scheme i'm talking about was "6 months out of work.. do a work scheme or lose benefits.."

YTS in my experience was often slave labour, the pay rates were pathetic.

PIP is rightly being addressed, though all a bit too slowly, there is no reason why people are getting it by giving the assessor, over the phone and with no access to medical records, simply by listing a tick box of qualifying conditions.

How do i know this happens? my DD works with people who do exactly this & my ex partners son did it too..... not NEETS btw... meanwhile people who need financial help, don't get it because they are too honest!!

The system has been allowed to become a complete mess.

Here in Australia people like OP are known as NIMBYS 😆 Or not in my backyard they'll moan about anything even people needing a place to live

@NessastatsGosh! That’s unusual! Here in the uk they are NIMBYs too!

If we had a reasonable right of access (as in Scotland) then we wouldn’t be herded along the same public rights of ways and could explore more. Same with rivers and woodland that are in private hands.

When immigrants settle, their birth rates tend to follow the country they’ve moved to as everything is expensive for them too.

When compulsory first registration comes in, it will be interesting to see who really owns the land. They will also have to produce a deed trail of ownership and I bet many of them can’t.
So no, a lot isn’t actually owned and a lot isn’t actually farmed as you say but used as a private pleasure ground for things like shooting and hunting.

PIP is rightly being addressed, though all a bit too slowly, there is no reason why people are getting it by giving the assessor, over the phone and with no access to medical records, simply by listing a tick box of qualifying conditions

There is no "tick box" of "qualifying conditions". But I don't want to derail the thread. Just wanted to point that out. There is a lot of misinformation spouted on these boards about PIP, including the notion that it is easy to get. It isn't.

They have built housing on our food fields by my house it's a mess and unsuitable for housing really the ground is too soft they have had to scale it back because we used to have natural drainage on site they blocked that now we have natural pools that the incorporated into the plan it's not even been completed and it's already falling apart 🤷‍♀️ there are no school places over subscribed doctors surgery no local jobs the dirt is so fine it's spreading a dust cloud all over the area they have to keep damping it down and despite the assurance that none of the other fields are going to be built on guess where they are building next? The road they have put the entrance and exit on are 40mph with a blind hill so your merrily bombing along and suddenly someone meanders out in front of you usually you have someone up your arse so your spoilt for choice head on collision or get rear ended

@BurntBroccoli Hunting? What century are you in?

@Alexandra2001 My LA got most of our trainees into work and further training. It was better than doing nothing. You want neets to do something. In all honesty, they need supervised work but they are not great at it. They often don’t have the basic qualifications to access courses and they are not worth a full wage. However they could have a sponsored college place and build up a cv. They cost us a lot in many ways. Not least by immigration.

Why can't our children rent or buy the property available on Rightmove. Loads available.

I don’t think you can really hold up YTS people - and other 80s schemes - against today’s NEETs without acknowledging that Britain has fundamentally changed since then. At the time there was still the remnants of a social contract that said if you worked for a living, you got a living. Housing is the basic requirement for a living. Access to that has gone. We have globalisation driving the rights of workers down. There is no council housing, private rentals can offer whatever crap they want for whatever price they want, buying houses is so much more difficult. The motivation is not there. However right wingers want to spin it, it is not worth working now unless you have life given to you on a plate via inheritance and housing. People are voting with their feet, since real voting has produced no changes in our favour, and dropping out of regular (and useful) work in favour of internet crap and the destructive drugs / prostitution rackets. AI means there’s nothing good on the horizon.