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?

Oh go away.

It’s happened here in my area of North wales too. Field upon fields have been sold to make way for huge housing estates.

I also think our local councils don’t help matters. Too many little hedges that border gardens on council estates like mine have been ripped out and replaced with iron railings because it looks neater and easier for the tenants. My mums had sparrows and blackbirds living in hers. Now it’s silent

My world has. I want to live in the place I lived in 60 years ago. I do, on the face of it, but I don't hear the cuckoo now and I don't see owls or bats and all those unnecessary lights have ended the world they live in. I can't go outside and see the stars as well as I could have when I was first taken out to be shown the north star.
Your world hasn't ended.

I live in the South East because my job is here, I earn just over the national average but am far from rich. We’re not all coining it in but we’re allowed to feel sad about houses shooting up all around us with no infrastructure to support them.

On another thread, another OP is posting about the lack of transport facilities in rural communities and asking for a handout.

In other countries, state subsidised facilities like transport are funded by housing expansion which obviously increases the usage of the facilities and makes them more viable. I think that's a good model. There is plenty of land in the UK and not enough people able to see the big picture. Obviously we should try to develop outside of the south east at the same time.

Drive outside of London down the M4 or M3 and you'll see exactly how "built up" it is (not at all)

Well you're not wrong, OP about the depletion of the countryside. I wonder how many nightingales there are in the UK now? All sorts of other songbirds have been lost too. We've seen it in the 20 years we've lived in this part of the SW. Used to get cuckoos but haven't heard one for years. Farmer up the road was waxing lyrical about the dawn chorus but it's nowhere near what it was 20 years ago. We used to have bats but haven't seen any for years. One long hedgerow they used to fly down has been taken out. There is a nature reserve near us but no one keeps their dogs on leads and they go rampaging through the undergrowth - what hope for ground-nesting birds? People don't know or don't care. I used to see rabbits but the farmer "controls" them, so no foxes either. Rookery trees cut down by the builders of a new house. It's all relentless. And loads of house building - in all the villages, and a massive new town (Cranbrook) built on Grade 1 farmland. Yes, people need homes. But how many people can we accommodate? I think the balance has tipped too far for nature to recover in most places. Never seen eg chaffinches or sparrows even though I put out food. Soon it'll just be pigeons here in the countryside.

People who live/lived in the countryside go to/went to country market towns. They go/went on market day.

Do they destroy the town by being there for 3-5 hours on market day?

As someone on ‘the left’ I actually find that issues of biodiversity and nature preservation, the quality of housing being built in the local area and the seemingly completely unfit for purpose/corrupt decisions made by planning officials are those that have the most potential to UNITE people across the political spectrum. Who DOESNT want lovely countryside and decent housing? This is why the scandal about water companies and sewage is so significant, because it’s pretty hard to defend companies like Thames Water - who are beholden to their shareholders, many in foreign countries that have no reason to care about out rivers- that don’t give a shit (or the opposite, in a literal sense) about looking after nature. You have to be REALLY SOLD on the most right wing kind of free market capitalism to be like - yeah think that’s going well actually. And it turns out there aren’t too many of those people around.

All the people saying you can just move have completely forgotten that some people and families are actually ‘from’ a place. I was born in my village, all my family live nearby. If it were Native Americans being driven out of their ancestral land by big development people would be outraged, but because we’re British they think we can’t be rooted. We can, this place is my home.

Some house building is needed everywhere, but alongside that we need:

• the voices of local people to matter more than profit.
• protections for nature that can withstand the might of the house builders’ money and power.
• infrastructure
• developments to be small-scale, spacious and architecturally pleasing.

Where’s the aspiration? Why can’t we expect better than everything being concreted over with flimsy rabbit hutches, nature destroyed, traffic everywhere and no schools, shops or jobs nearby?

There is not plenty of land. We are one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

NIMBYism only exists because often the building that is proposed is a net negative for the community. Then the government/house builders make locals look small minded by calling them NIMBYs. It’s actually gaslighting: there would be no nimbys in my village if the development proposed was suitable in scale, attractive, built on brownfield and accompanied by infrastructure. Because then it would be a net benefit: houses for our young people, kids for the school, perhaps a better bus service or a shop.

But It’s not just agriculture though is it? We are a country that is overpopulated. More people & houses/buildings = less habitat for wildlife.
We need farmers, people have to eat.

'Us and them' attitude?

Many people have moved to this area, usually because housing has been cheaper than in the southeast. I know lots of them and get on with lots of them.

About 13 years ago I was at a meeting with 7 other people. Mrs. A asked, "Are any of you from round here?". Two of us said that we were, and Mrs. A said, "Oh, I won't say what I was going to, then." What was she going to say? That we are thickos because we come from the countryside? Who knows?
Some sort of insult, presumably.

Don't tell me I make the divisions.

If you want a house have a look on Rightmove -plenty available and no need to decimate the countryside.

I agree. People are so hypocritical about climate change — they get their knickers in a twist about people taking a flight and yet don’t give a shit about the absolute desecration of habitat that is happening at an alarming rate all around us.

Ruining the British countryside has wider implications than just spoiling someone’s view.

In my town none of the new housing is affordable either, so the only people it serves are people from London who can afford second homes. People here who are key workers and have lived here all their lives can’t afford to stay.

Agree.

Agree! It’s massively gaslighting.

We need to keep bringing people in to keep the economy going and they need to have somewhere to live.

Why is the population rising though? I thought the birth rate was dropping and primary schools are having to close 🧐

It's actually a bit of a red herring that statistic, as it only includes land that is built on in the sense it contains a building. The majority of Britain is developed land, such as fields, which aren't natural and aren't counted as wild.

Careful now!

The sheer volume of net migration s pushing the population up, much faster than it would naturally increase.

There are too many people in this country. Hopefully the falling birth rate will help, and also the people (leaving because apparently the UK is shit!)

This and I agree with the OP the labour government doesn't give a damn. Sweeping statement that it is. The farmer tax is an abomination and shows a complete lack of understanding IMO and they are talkinf of relaxing planning rules around those in place to protect biodiversity. I know people need places to live but there's got to be a better way than the approach they appear to be taking.

Brexit caused the small boats and that was driven by the right. When were in the EU we had an agreement that we sent them straight back so few tried

Perhaps with fewer children the house building will slow