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.

@RoseRoseRoseRose

I also think that as households get smaller we need to think more imaginatively about what housing we build. In countries like France/Germany with better urban housing stock, people live very happily for their whole lives in spacious purpose-built flats (not houses carved up in a weird way or horrible boxes built with the rental market in mind)

I don't want to be forced into smaller shoeboxes that people born in the 60s didn't have to live in. They built big houses with big gardens we shouldn't be denying the current generation the same opportunities.

You need the neighbourhood plan and your local parish council should be able to show your have sufficient house stock for 5 years.

One in ten British adults own more than 1 property & most of these owners will be older people as younger people are less likely to own 1 property.

What happens when they run out of land altogether I wonder?

We finally have to admit we are full as a country.

Remain as it happens but I'm not sure why that means I'm not allowed to be concerned.

The 'people need somewhere to live' argument falls very short in my area where they are ignoring perfectly good ex industrial brownfield sites and also completely failing to take into account the type of housing and infrastructure that we need. Also the fact that second home ownership is rife and many stand empty lots of the time as other posters have noted.

These developers and the government that are in their pockets are about money, ordinary folk having somewhere to live is just a by product of them making their millions.

It's the same here in Ireland. Houses first, schools, shops, public transport, parks are an afterthought.
And at the same time there are loads of derelict buildings and empty site in the city and town centres that could be used.
Not everyone wants to live in a 3 bed semi. Plenty of people would love to live in the city or town centres.
I think there should be fines or taxes on derelict buildings and empty sites. That might encourage people to actually develop them.

Not sure how true it is but I heard that it's looked upon more favourably if they include plans for a school /pool /surgery
Near us they never materialised only the houses

All those saying build on brownfield. Why should I have to live on contaminated brownfield sites in houses with no gardens. Everyone lives on a house that was once green fields why so nobody should be preaching about building on them.

PS I'm loving the mental gymnastics about increasing the population by immigration or large families not requiring more houses and green fields to be built over.

They are so boxed in though and are they being built to a high standard? Not enough parking or road structure.

I'm sure road pricing will be the next thing and where will all the petrol cars go to? Giant scrap yards?

Tony Blair and his mass immigration policies have not helped

In the news recently, John Lewis are going to start providing home to rent I believe

With more shopping going online
I'm already seeing thus occur in some places. What were industrial buildings & shops being turned into residential properties

@dottiedodah I can see that but then they little area of countryside they wanted to live in soon gets built on

@5823MintY I like this idea saves derelict city centres

We moved out of the (origanally) small town in Bedfordshire we had lived in as a family for decades, 4 years ago.
Of course the original town is still there but it is being surrounded by new homes, estates, roads ,bypasses and bypasses of bypasses.
What the answer is I dont know because none of them are empty!

I don't want to be forced into smaller shoeboxes that people born in the 60s didn't have to live in. They built big houses with big gardens we shouldn't be denying the current generation the same opportunities.

The best big builds with big gardens built now aren’t going to the current generation. They tend to go to older cash buyers who want to downsize. The houses aimed at younger people on limited means are small and in the south east may not have a garden at all.

Op here is a link to a successful battle, as said neighbourhood plan is key.

www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/tattenhall-celebrates-victory-over-housing-12943036

It's when they build on it then call the roads things like Woodland Close, Greenfield Drive etc, erm no its not anymore, you built over the woodland and green fields
The irony

@GivingItUp that’s so true

Ahem - farmers and house builders? Both in the pocket of the current government.

People need to live somewhere. But whilst public services - councils, NHS, education system don't make profits, no Hope.

It's political.

That net migration figure of 313,000 is from March 2020, before covid and the final brexit deadlines.

Since then EU migration has fallen off a cliff. They think a million people have left London alone. It's hard to get precise numbers because of all the travel restrictions, but experts in this area predict that net migration is going to be much lower for the foreseeable future.

Even if you think immigration is the problem (which I don't personally) then that doesn't mean you have to build on green land, it doesn't mean you have to build giant empty skyscapers, it doesn't mean you have to allow people to own hundreds of properties. There are ways to manage housing demand sensibly, the problem is that this government only cares about its donors and its base making money, and a small number of unaccountable landowners own huge amounts of land.

There seems to be little thought going into planning. Every village around us has new modern estates tacked on the end. Towns have huge box estates. The village houses are selling for ridiculous prices to people moving out of London. Local people can't afford them and youngsters have no chance. Bungalows are needed so older people can downsize and release family houses but none are built. Starter homes are needed for young families.
People moving to the new houses in our village are complaining that they can't get their children into the primary school.

The laws were relaxed recently, so I think you will see more people building extensions, loft conversions, bungalows being converted to houses, garden buildings, tiny houses, more van living etc

@KatieB55 yeah even in the new housing association houses they built they built very few bungalows or assisted living spaces

A local councillor mooted a plan to stop people demolishing bungalows and building houses in their place. He was poo-pooed, but thinking about it it did make sense, as once bungalows are out of the housing stock, they are never replaced. And it’s like dominoes, once one person rebuilds their bungalow as a house, the whole road goes as no one wants to be overshadowed on either side by a much larger property.

The houses aimed at younger people on limited means are small and in the south east may not have a garden at all.

Which isn't right my 2 bed ex council house with a big garden should be a starter home but it isn't.

[quote TheDogsMother]@LakieLady I know exactly where you are talking about and we moved away from the next door village to escape it. The A road is already ridiculously busy without this and its a disproportionately huge development for the setting.[/quote]
That A-road has no business being an A-road imo. Narrow, windy, not a single section of dual carriageway and most of it 40 mph limit. I've been on plenty of B-roads that are far better.

The traffic implications of that proposed development are horrendous. I don't know what the current assumption for traffic movements per dwelling is, but it used to be 3.6 per day. 3,000 more homes would mean 10,000 more car journeys on the surrounding tiny, rural lanes and one very busy and woefully inadequate A-road.

I haven't been able to unearth any more details on the proposals, so I don't know if they include a new road. But the lack of schools is a big problem too. The nearest two primaries are both full, and the secondary that serves the area is already at capacity and takes pupils from the nearest town, as the secondary is over capacity most years.

And I'm sure this story is being repeated in rural areas all over the country. Imo, development should be properly planned, with sites identified and designated, and landlowners and developers shouldn't be able to just apply for consent on spec for any old site that someone fancies flogging at a huge profit.

A proper, functional planning framework could be tightened up so that councils can't just get away with failing to identify sufficient sites for housing and that redevelopment of agricultural land and woodland were an absolute last resort.

And it could reduce pressures on areas that are surrounded by protected landscapes, which are especially vulnerable to over-development, because some counties are mostly AONB or national park. They have to shoehorn development into a much smaller area and I'm not sure that this is recognised at the regional/structure planning level.

When you look at a map of the SE corner of England, you can see that there's not a huge amount of land that doesn't come into one or other of the protected categories:

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:England_and_Wales_NPs_and_AONBs_map.svg

It's also the most densely populated area that isn't a city

www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/9qsdf8/historic_counties_of_the_british_isles_by/

The pressures to develop are immense. I think if the government was really serious about "levelling up", they would focus their efforts on encouraging businesses and services to relocate away from London and the SE. Instead, they are throwing money at SE towns like Newhaven and Hastings which, while they undoubtedly have their issues, are already showing signs of levelling themselves up, as many local people can't afford to live in the nicer towns like Lewes and Rye.

This surely couldn't have anything to do with the fact that both have Tory MPs with narrow majorities, could it?