To be sad about houses being built on Greenfield sites

[Orangemochafrappacino]

Its rife in my village at the moment. There are a few brownfield sites but these seem to be being ignored and farmland is being snapped up for development instead.

The rulebook for this seems to be slowly being torn up by this current government and I'm now hearing stories of developers being able to purchase land on a forceful basis and even proceed building giant housing estates without proper planning permission.

Has anyone else noticed this in their local area? I understand houses need to be built but it seems completely nuts, we are going to have no farmland or trees left at this rate.

I agree, it’s lazy. There is land with old buildings on that should be demolished and used first, but that’s too much like hard work.

the development on my road has squeezed too many houses in a small plot so no access for bin lorries or emergency services, meaning they have created communal bins on the boundary

That doesn't surprise me, I'm afraid. A development in a narrow lane in the centre of town was supposed to include provision of a turning circle for emergency services. Somehow, the developers "forgot" to provide it and the flats/houses are now too near to the road to make it possible.

I just hope they never have a fire.

I understand the reasons but still like the OP feel it is wrong. I live in the centre of town.

It's happening everywhere and it's all about money and profiteering.
We are already starting to see floods on streets as there's so much tarmac that there is no where for water to run off into the water table.
No sign of more infrastructure such as schools and GP surgeries.
More pollution as people will be driving further.
Will they just keep going until there's nothing left to build on?

@User112

Yet, when I want to build a eco-friendly house on the outer edge of our village, I am not allowed. I’m not allowed to self build because it’s green belt etc. But builders can build !

I don't know how long ago you applied for PP, @User112, but you might stand a better chance now.

The presumption in planning is now to approve development for housing. And if you could fit two homes on to the site, the chances of approval would be significantly improved.

I read that a million acres of agricultural land is owned by developers, just waiting it out for approval. They don’t want to build on brownfield sites - they are costly to clear and provide access to.

I am in a LibDem area - so much for eco credentials. They love housing developments! ( btw @MothralovesGojira - I think we might be same area!) A recent bunfight concerned their wanting to fell ancient woodland, full of bluebells, to make a link road to a new estate.

The estates sprining up on the outskirts of Edinburgh are ridiculous - acres and acres of badly built boxes with no nod to infrastructure to support the people moving in. Huge, soulless estates with narrow roads and garages too small for cars. Terraced and semi-detached properties with crap soundproofing. 'Open plan' gardens with no proper boundaries leading to disputes.

People from overseas buying off plan, BTL landlords buying off plan (and not just one property, but several at a time) should be stopped. Property with overseas owners who leave the property empty for years should be tackled. Existing sites should be built on/improved .

They are building a thousand homes on either side of our small town. 500 were built already on the site of a farm, 500 being built on another farm on the other side. They were being ‘sold’ as part of our outstanding school catchment area but the council changed them around recently to exclude them and shove them in inadequate ones.

Thousands of houses being built but we are an economicly deprived area there is no jobs here there are no shops here there isn't a lot of school space here either the hospital has gone fire Station was "relocated" there is no point to building the houses here we also have a fuckton of brownfield sites but they have "planning permission" so they are being built on too however they have had "planning permission" for over five years and nothing has been done but the agricultural fields are getting built on this year full speed ahead

We did get an upgrade to our train station however its piss poor service at best they take off carriages and drop trains so even commuting from our town is an issue

they are 100%private homes too people were touting how the thousands of homes would help our homeless issue, we have four FOUR homeless people they cannot live in homes due to there mental health issues and most homeless cannot afford to buy a home marketed at 300,000

We do have people in sheltered accommodation but again its private housing not rental its going to be out of there reach our housing association claims there is a backlog of people wanting social housing however they are slow turning around houses there has been one they have spent 6 months working on all they did was replace the gas fire and tidy it up a little no one is moving into it same with another house around the corner they have empty houses so where is the waiting list

Our council reclassified the greenfield (always been farmland, adjacent to ancient woodland) as brownfield so it could approve planning permission. Local residents were told that unless the council did this and approved planning permission we would be "forced" to have houses built wherever by the government so we should just lump it.

I've no problem with new affordable and social housing, with decent infrastructure and facilities, but that's not what's being built. We popped into a nearby new build site for a nose a few days ago - 20x houses on an infill site in a popular village, all £700k+ (the agent previously told us they were deliberately marketed at London escapees as no one around here can afford that!). They look awful. No gardens, all on top of each other, developer has left the road unadopted, there are two huge balancing ponds that take up most of the non house space and look awful, with builders rubbish in them etc., and the land that isn't on the actual plots has just been left as it was when they finished, debris, weeds, track marks and all. If I'd paid for one of those houses when they first went on the market, before building had finished, I'd be pretty pissed off with how it is now.

Not sheltered accommodation TEMPORARY accommodation

Really fascinating/depressing thread

Can I ask, do people think part of the problem is that home ownership is so heavily pushed and favoured in the UK? Because I'm thinking, who is actually buying all these tiny houses on cramped estates with no school or GP spaces and terrible traffic? Why are developers so sure they can make a profit?

I understand the appeal of living in the countryside but not on a massive estate just plonked down somewhere with everyone all crammed in.

It’s going on EVERYWHERE. Honestly it doesn’t matter where I go, what distance I travel, green space is disappearing and housing estates are springing up.

This may sound absurd, but it is not a conspiracy theory. I have insight into the NPPF.

There are about 20-30 ultra wealthy people who will benefit from the 3m - 4m new homes that are planned over the next decade or so. The housebuilding programme started with good intentions, but has been taken over by a consortia of families in the construction sector. Behind the scenes they are manipulating parliament. It has been designed as a smash and grab until 2030 on easy to develop greenfield sites with some casting aside of 'Greenbelt' if exceptional development needs can be demonstrated. Only one person makes that decision for each site.

Little regard is given to brownfield sites. They are more expensive to develop, but do get developed merely as a token. The redesign of living space to reshape town centres is expensive and requires joined up thinking. That does not suit the agenda of the those wealthy connected families to make money quickly, so the issue is kicked into the long grass.

There are some good ethical players, but they are small. There are some good individuals in local authorities, but they do not have the political power. The housebuilding programme is like so many other 'projects' where disaster politics provides the ingredients for serious amounts of quick and easy money.

Wars in the middle east are designed to sell the latest equipment to sovereign states with free cashflow. Covid has been manipulated to award valuable contracts. The NPPF has been hijacked so that the most profitable ways of building will prevail. There is little regard for the environment or heritage.

The Conservative party, once the bastion of rural life and tradition, are no longer conservative. that's the irony.

YANBU.

Honestly I have literally cried about this issue. I don’t even know what to say anymore, I feel such a great sense of sadness and anxiety around this issue and I think that’s because I don’t see it ending and I really do think England will just become one, big concrete jungle in the next 100 years.

As it is, I live in a tiny, rural village, surrounded by beautiful countryside and so far, we have batted off development within it. But it’s exhausting and you just know it’s inevitable at some stage. The whole county is getting built on at an expeditious rate. It’s just so, so sad. I think we’ll end up trying to emigrate in the next 10 years if it carries on like this. We’re such a small island in the grand scheme of things, we just can’t take all of this building.

Is there ANYTHING, practically that we could all do to try and stop this or is it really just an inevitable fate?

Oh, the other irony is these new houses probably only have a life of about 75 years.

@dreamingbohemian our (very deprived & forgotten) town has turned into affordable commuter belt for a large UK city, with 90 minutes train journey times.

So I assume that's the "target market" keeping in mind, they are also re building the train station and adding 2 massive car parks.

This is the problem with the housing market. The only consideration is profitability which is wrong but then the general public like their houses going up in value & it makes them feel secure.

The population of the UK has grown significantly in the last 20 years compared to the previous 35 years - 35 years to grow by 5 million, 20 years to grow by almost 10 million:
1965 54
2000 59
2020 68
This is what underlies housebuilding, because if there weren't people around to buy those houses, they wouldn't get built.

I live rurally and I find it unutterably depressing to see the little town where I went to school surrounded by massive new estates, almost all of them built on good quality farmland, in a dry part of the country that is predicted to get drier. Our food and water security are going down the pan, people are being urged to live on new estates miles from any facilities and then get blamed for driving everywhere, and those of us who live in areas being covered in concrete are powerless to stop it. The character of villages gets changed not just by the 400-house estate bolted on to one side, but by every little paddock and orchard having a couple of houses crammed onto it.

I'm a very pissed off bunny, as you can probably tell.

It's happening here in Surrey.
Beautiful fields being compulsory purchased & built on.
No changes to the infrastructure - 500 properties being built next to a single lane road.
The traffic used to be horrendous on that road & it's only going to get worse! Not to mention GPs & schools...

At least in my town they're building on brown sites in the centre of town even if they keep on putting up ginormous tower blocks with not enough parking spaces that can be seen from the A3!
The GP surgeries & dentists are creaking enough already...

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman

The population growth rate is under 1% per annum. Development in rural areas is growing significantly more than that.

@sandalwoodhaven, if I was 20 years younger I'd emigrate. I really value empty open spaces, and the pressure on the English countryside is massive. I don't what we're thinking: we cannot live without the natural world, and we also need it for our mental well-being.

@dreamingbohemian this is always my first thought as well. Where are the people coming from who want to live in the 200+ houses they are building? They say so many will be affordable housing but I don’t know who they are affordable for? Certainly not local people

I’m in the middle of doing my nurse training and am seriously considering moving to an island off Scotland to be an island nurse

[quote BG21031]@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman

The population growth rate is under 1% per annum. Development in rural areas is growing significantly more than that.[/quote]
Yes, I know. New development is being foisted onto villages and market towns: I see it every single day. I think it's happening in the wrong places in the wrong way - I thought my post made that clear.

But nonetheless, population increase underpins the problem.