To be sick to the back teeth of NIMBYism

[KnotNora]

I live in a village which is ruled with an iron village by a core of villagers who seem intent on sending us back to the dark ages.

This all started with a planning application for a housing development on a disused field. There was a very loud and vocal group who organised the no campaign and managed to get the application turned down three times (it's now gone to a final appeal).

Following on to this they are using the group to seemingly campaign against any development whatsoever. In the last year they have campaigned against single houses, a development of 6 houses, a planning application to change the use of a garage/cart house to a granny annex and now they are campaigning against an application for a single house on a crappy piece of land used by teenagers to drink on a weekend.

The main person writes a letter and then hands them out at the village hall and to all the old folks, gets them to sign it and then posts them off himself. He acts as proxy for online objections. Most of the reasons are scaremongering about losing our village, if we let them win once we'll be overrun etc.

He's just been round with another campaign to stop the demolishment of a house in the village which is owned by a train company. He wants the village to purchase it and turn it into a museum. It's a bog standard house with seemingly no amenity value at all.

AIBU to be sick and tired of a group of NIMBYs who don't seem to understand that people need houses to live in! It doesn't help that they make up the parish council which objects to any and all planning in the village. They shouldn't be allowed to scaremonger amongst the older members of the community like this.

YANBU OP.

My DM lives in a small village, which to be fair is lovely, half farm houses and buildings pre dating 1900, the other half 1970s housing estates. All pretty nice, large with large gardens. But modern housing none the less. DM lives in one.

Yet she, and her friends in the village, oppose every single new development that's suggested. Every time I visit there's a new yellow sign in the garden opposing something else. The village is tiny; it has a tiny shop open a few hours each day, a school with about 15 pupils a year entry, one crap pub and nothing else. No amenities. Surrounded by disused farm land.

It's the perfect place for new housing. Each proposed development contains a GP surgery (badly needed) and a proper shop. But they protest every time. They have opposed wind and solar farms on that land as well, which is now little more than waste land, with rotting farm buildings visible from the road. I do not get their attitude at all.

I don't think that it's NIMBYism to object to a massive estate of new built houses in an area which has a more rural or traditional feel. A blanket objection to any changes is silly of course, but I'm thankful for the people that do try and protect areas from the greedy developers and lazy councils.

People need to build smarter, not more and not bigger. No one needs a massive house, and taking over traditional rural areas just because someone wants two guest rooms and theatre room is the wrong approach. Yes, more houses are needed, but it needs consideration for how housing should be built, not just finding any old field and seeing how many overpriced cookie cutter homes can fit on it.

A new law saying that every village needs a development plan with land made available for affordable housing for people with a significant local connection. Any objection is to be considered on its merits but if four plans in a row are scuppered by local objection then the four plans are to be re reviewed and the most socially amenable plan is to be allowed to proceed.

My mum comes from a sleepy welsh village which was dying because of the amount of retired people who moved there. The retired got bored, signed up for the local council and stifled all development. The locals watched until it became unbearable then fought back. Now everyone on the parish council speaks with a welsh accent or has impressed the natives with their go getting attitude and they get stuff done. The village hall was an unused dilapidated tip. The new one is great very busy and the centre of the community. A local lad was transported to hospital by air ambulance and in return the village (300 people??) raised £40,000 as a thank you.

You can fight back.

Epona they obviously have a snobby shitty attitude to social housing tenants which is where their ideas are coming from but also have their facts wrong

Affordable housing does not mean social housing.

Local objections are not grounds for refusal of planning permission.

If the developments are being refused by Planning Dept or Committee, then it is on the basis of material considerations, not whether the locals like it or not, surely?

UpThePaddle my house is on a sprawling nasty new build development on what was once a lovely dog walking field.

When I was purchasing it a very vocal woman from the adjacent older estate came in the sales office one day and said what a disgrace it was, how she'd lived in the area for fifteen years and it's a shame people were building on the fields her children played on. I helpfully pointed out I was born in the area, used to play one the fields her house had been built on and used to ride my bike where the fucking huge bypass was that was built to reduce the heavy volume of traffic through the town that has arisen due to all the interlopers who moved in twenty years ago .

Honey that's fantastic!

Pretty you are correct, the large development was turned down by planning. The lack of a local plan doesn't help. The area has submitted three time and it's been rejected each time because they haven't met the numbers needed for the area. We need a local plan desperately.

The problem is that so many villages are being over developed with very expensive housing, when what is actually needed are cheaper, "affordable" homes for locals.

Huge developments are being forced through, against local planning decisions, with most of the new houses being out of financial reach for those who need it most.

My home village is in the process of being increased by 25% - 25 fucking % - with a doctors' surgery that can't cope with existing demand and the local primary and secondary schools being near to capacity.

All because a landowner got greedy and sold to a large scale developer, who rubbed their hands with glee at getting clean, virgin soil to build on (they'd declined to purchase a brownfield site as they'd have to pay to clear it first).

The houses are mostly 4 and 5 beds and going for £600k+. Local rural wages would stretch to mortgages of £200k at the most, but guess what? It's commutable to 3 cities if you don't mind a couple of hours in the car so is attracting higher earners from out of area.

Local people have lost their green spaces but are seeing no benefit.

But, hey, developers have got to make money and the well off need to have their high salary cakes and eat them in the country (where all they do is moan about the horse shit on the roads anyway).

At the moment we have planning applications for the big development, another application for 9 executive houses, an application for 60 houses, a few single developments and some extensions.

ALL being opposed by the action group. Although the executive homes can bugger off

I've started a thread about this though, Harriet. Why blame the developer. They need to charge high for the houses if the land is being charged at premium prices. So only the big boys can afford to buy it and get any return.

BTW we don't have a housing crisis in terms of lack of houses - there are houses in some towns going begging. What we have is an over-concentration of economic activity in some areas of the country- meaning the available houses are all in the "wrong" places - where there are no jobs etc.

Local objections are not grounds for refusal of planning permission.

If the developments are being refused by Planning Dept or Committee, then it is on the basis of material considerations, not whether the locals like it or not, surely?
^ This - as posted by PrettyBrightFireflies and earlier by me - NIMBYs can't stop development just by saying "we don't like/want it".

But don't let the facts get in the way of another rant against older people.

Well 9 executive houses aren't affordable housing

Remember the only people who can object are nimbys. If a development doesn't affect you then you don't object. I hate the word nimby, it trivialises important objections.

Also don't ever believe a developer who says they will put money into schools! It. Doesn't. Happen. (East Herts resident)

Developers often get their section 106 contributions waived. They often appeal against the affordable housing requirements (and often win) - sometimes reducing provision to nil.

If it's a condition of the development going ahead, then schools are included. I could name four off the top of my head that have built new schools plus a playground. They can't not build the school, it's a legal obligation.

Are you saying that the developer was able to build the houses but not a school that was agreed? I would be interested to know which development that was.

Bit boring but a list of fairly recent appeal decisions.

OP do you live in Royston Vasey?

Evil pensioners v mega rich developers
Scaremongering letters from people who live there v letters from lawyers paid £600 per hour
Little old lady v slick city developer

Such a fair battle between such well-matched teams there.

New homes is about nothing but profit for huge corporations - don't kid youself tha it is about anything else

You are on the right side there OP - polish your altruistic halo

Our local little old ladies hire QCs that are far more expensive, they win too.

Three groups near me have a QC working for them.

My experience of neighbourhood plans (not the same as all community-based planning activity) is that the 'little old lady' pensioner who leads them WAS actually a corporate lawyer paid £600 an hour just a few years ago!! More widely, there is a sense in which those who object and get involve tend to be more middle class, more entitled and more skilled at committee-based activity than many others who do not (a long-held, well-worn objection to participative and communicative planning theories).

The problem is that so many villages are being over developed with very expensive housing, when what is actually needed are cheaper, "affordable" homes for locals.

Huge developments are being forced through, against local planning decisions, with most of the new houses being out of financial reach for those who need it most.

Oh god yes. This is the problem.

Developers often get their section 106 contributions waived. They often appeal against the affordable housing requirements (and often win) - sometimes reducing provision to nil.

We recently had a developer in our village get through a development of 6 half million pound houses. The area is affluent and the only way we managed to stay local was through affordable housing on our estate.

So the local council which hates our village as it is more affluent than the rest of the borough, decided to waive the section 106 and instead have it built in a less affluent part of town, where houses are much more reasonably priced.

Its bonkers. The council think they have 'got one over' our part of the borough. The problem is, its just going to end up polarising an already unequal divide in the area. Young people can not afford to stay here and are forced elsewhere. It makes no sense and there will be consequences to schools / health care provision if they continue to do this.

Worse still, the developer makes more money as a direct result of the decision.

We simply do not need any more houses of this size in this area. We benefitted from our affordable house, but there is still a shortage. We are in a house that is bottom of the rung of the ladder and are looking to move up to the next. There is also a huge shortage of average sized 3 beds locally.

We get all these complaints about a housing shortage and no where to build so we are nationally building the wrong type of housing because this is what the developers are making the most money from.

You have to start asking questions about planning rules at a national level - not just local - at this point. It is not just a local planning issue but one that is reflected by national strategy and short sightedness.

YABU. I live near a beautiful field and would be gutted if a ruddy great housing estate was built there. I moved here to live in a very quiet rural area. If I wanted to live in a built-up area, I would have done so. Also, I wouldn't want the extra traffic, impact on local services either.

YANBU. I used to get really annoyed when people in my local village complained about new houses being built, when we were renting... then we managed to buy a house right on the edge of the village, and now I don't want any more houses built near me. I wouldn't sign a petition though, because I know young families etc are being forced out of their home villages because of lack of housing. I'd just prefer to keep the nice fields next to my house as fields.

I do think it's quite natural to prefer your village to stay the same, but provided you're not a total dick, you shouldn't actually try to stop houses being built.

Theres plenty of brown land to develop, I dont agree with building on green land. Unless thats a good place to live to commute to a local town where the jobs are, then any houses wont be for first time buyers.