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?

I think a lot of us on here aren't saying that we mustn't have any houses in villages at all, but that more care should be taken to have them at a sensible scale for the place, and to pay attention to the amount of green plants and brown earth which are integrated into the new estate, as well as consideration of shops, P.O., school, doctor et cetera.

But it isn't 50 more. It was 20 about 25 years ago but since then it's been 30 and 40 and 60 and 75 and 18 and 5 and 4 and counting.

You don't know what I think about the need for social housing. I didn't get as far as saying anything about that in the first post which I put on here. You also don't know what I think about private renting and landlords.

In the last ten years, it has been ruined
By the Tories then.

Bread and Roses, it is not unreasonable to want to experience nature and not have people living in overcrowded B&Bs. We are seeing epidemic levels of conditions that green space is known to help alleviate. It shouldn’t be seen as a luxury, no more than doctors should be.

There has been a lot of development around local towns and villages. The main problem is that they are unaffordable for the local youngsters wanting to move out (rent or buy). £300k plus for new builds and I’m wary of shared ownership schemes as they seem to have lots of extra costs.

I absolutely agree with the OP in that we’re experiencing the same in Beds/Cambs borders. All the people who are cheerfully saying they don’t see a problem are not in specific areas that are being targeted for building. There is a lot less building in say Surrey, Berkshire some parts of Sussex etc, the more traditional ‘South East’.

I don’t think it it is the left wings fault although I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it loses Labour the next election as feelings run so high (I voted Labour btw).

The area OP is in is probably adjacent or part of the Oxford-Cambridge arc, which has been the focus of building for many governments but is absolutely in the sights of the government now. In reality it means less popular, and less rich, areas are being built on - the Cotswolds is not going to be concreted over, the western bits of East Anglia are.

Anyone who has experienced planning will know if often makes no sense. In our local area we have seen the massive growth, we have had doctors begging the council not to add more population as they can’t cope, then some doctors retiring or leaving when they’re ignored. Meaning there are less doctors than there were before all the new houses serving a much larger population. Short journeys are made longer by traffic and no increase in public transport, in fact cutting it again when there is more population. This affects everyone as well - the people that were there before and the people buying the new houses.

I would personally love to see investment properties in London be banned, as a the lack of housing in London is a big part of this problem.

There also needs to be conversations about what makes a good community. The pattern round here has been private investment is good - ie new retail parks - but no investment in public services. No new gyms or swimming pools for example which means queues to get in, or a long drive to a different pool.

I honestly think life has got a lot worse in my area and big part of the reason for that is the new builds. My friends in very rural areas (think Cumbria) have better services in some cases than we do 50 miles north of London.

It’s why we bought a house in a conservation area, but OP when you fly in over the UK it’s still a beautiful patchwork of green. It’s only a small percent of land that has houses.

Those well-known lefties Mr Barrett, Mr Bellway and Mr Taylor Wimpey

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

All the developments that you have mentioned around your village, were authorised under the Tories...

Labours housing target is only 250k more over 5 years than the Tories target, which like Labour's will never be reached.

However, i'm dead against the housing policies we've had in this country... building large housing estates around villages and towns with no work, so people end up commuting to the nearest city & local roads just become congested potholed lanes.

Development for villages should be mainly local, with most housing near where people work, in and around cities.

The smaller villages could be more connected too with a requirement for the developer to build paths alongside existing roadways. Many of these roads are 60mph and very unsafe to walk or cycle along.
One village may have a few shops, another a pub, a primary school and a bakers so connecting them makes sense from an economic and health point of view.
We need to look more spatially when we plan and what is in the vicinity.

Yes, loads of over developed villages connected by pavement-less A-roads. Why not a requirement to build cycle paths between them? With e-bikes that would revolutionise rural life even for the unfit among us.

Ok but thats no good when most work is in cities 20 or 30 miles away.... and only much larger villages will have a shop, school, let alone a pub.

Most housing built in Cornwall in recent years is bought by people moving down, every week or so it seems, you'll get a "Looking forward to moving to the area" on the local FB page.. and then there is the all too often "Desperately looking for a 1/2 bed property to rent, LL selling up"
Even out of area housing associations have bought up properties and moved their residents down here.

The very few "affordable" to either buy or rent is usually way out of local peoples means to buy, some 3 beds came up affordable, they were 300k each, one was for rent - £1250pm.

If developers were forced to build separated cycle paths etc, they wouldn't make any money, as most A roads don't have the width to accommodate a separated cycle path.... compulsory purchase and rebuilding hedgerows... huge expense.

I can see OPs point about ‘the left’ because the current government have come steaming in calling us naysayers and NIMBYs. Ed Miliband is plastering huge swathes of productive farmland in solar panels. It does feel quite gleeful.

I agree with you op. Every inch of green land seems to be being build on with cheaply made identikit houses, meanwhile our city centres and towns are slowly becoming boarded up ghost towns. Why can’t the housing crisis be alleviated there first?

Nope, Labour haven't built a single Solar farm, the planning applications take far longer than 7 months and the builds even longer.

The NIMBYs etc is terminology first widely used by the Tories

The term "NIMBY," short for "Not In My Backyard," first appeared in the 1980s and was popularized by British politician Nicholas Ridley, who was the Conservative Secretary of State for the Environment

The land around Solar & Wind farms is often grazed by sheep and/or can be planted with wild flowers etc and become a haven for nature.

Personally, all in favour of Solar and Wind generation, its one way we can avoid energy price hikes, so long as we also regulate how energy is priced.

I agree largely with what you say, but the out of area housing associations buying property and moving their tenants down here is a pervasive myth. Why would they buy property down here, where it's relatively expensive?!

Labour are wanting 1.5 million homes in 5 years. That’s way more than the Tories built in 10 years. They never hit targets. In the town near me, housing targets have tripled. It’s already had many estates since 1970. Villages around the town have been nearly consumed . Under Labour they will be. Labour is definitely anti NIMBY and will relax planning laws to ensure local people don’t stop housing.

Spreading out housing is probably what we should not do. Going up and leaving larger green space is better. We keep getting divorced too. Two family homes for one family unit are then bought. This is profligate too. 50/50 childcare comes with double the housing needs.

We also don’t use brownfield sites due to cost. I can point to to several locally that should be used. Cost prevents this and lack of determination by planning committees.

If we don’t have builders, we don’t have homes. Lots of areas are protected and it’s not fields around towns.

In addition many of these smaller villages actually had a railway line very nearby which were closed in the 60s as part of Beeching’s cuts (poor choice in retrospect!). Many of these still exist if you look on National library of Scotland old maps. These could be opened up again as proper routes to connect and as part of a section 106 planning process.

We need to overhaul the planning system in general for human health and wellbeing and nature. It’s just all been about profit since the 1980s.

@BurntBroccoli We have totally under utilised old railway lines. Could not agree more. Where I used to live, the line is being reinstated. Varsity Line. Lots of the branch lines could have been repurposed.

I live in a 'disgusting rabbit hutch house' on the site of a former factory. It's on the edge of farmland and some green spaces.

We've established a small front and back garden, have proper grass, small trees, feed the birds and visiting animals and they flock to our garden because nobody else has bothered to do anything with theirs.

If people made small efforts and councils stopped cutting trees and hedges down, wildlife activity could be encouraged and preserved.

https://youtube.com/shorts/OLLxT55QVXY?si=41ZQWa6KaegrdT7t

Birdsong and hearing their calls improves mental health.

Very narrow minded and proscriptive.

Some cultures value plastic grass, flagstones/paving, no trees and extra dwellings in the garden.

What’s so bad about this?

So people need homes near their work
and employers need workers
and people want ever bigger spaces per person
and people want second homes and holiday homes
so your solution is ?

This is disingenuous, unless you’re not aware that Ed Miliband supports the enormous solar applications that are currently making their way through planning. They will end up covering something like 9% of Lincolnshire. I am supportive of solar too but huge solar installations turn the countryside into industrial landscapes. It could be done differently (smaller scale installations or car park solar or mandatory rooftop solar) but the alternatives are less profitable.

The current government may not have invented the word NIMBY but they are throwing it around gleefully:

His projects, he said, would “send a very clear message to the nimbys, the regulators, the blockers and bureaucrats… The alliance of naysayers,

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/09/nimbys-naysayers-traitors-children-take-note-why-learn-oracy-when-insults-will-do