Gutted a new house is being built directly facing my back garden?

[mentalhealth323]

I know this is a first world problem and the whole process I’ve deliberately not been a biased nimby.

Progress must happen, people need houses and don’t ever buy a house for the view (if you don’t own it).

I bloody well love my house, it’s nothing fancy, I’m not the greatest area but the back garden is long and very private. The USP for the house was the garden (ex council post war house) and the element of privacy.

Being able to go into the garden in a towel to grab clean washing, gardening in a bikini, work out without having to worry that I can only manage one push up…. Drink wine for five nights straight listening to my guilty playlist.

It looks like it’s going to be finalised (there’s already construction workers placing flags outside) and there’s going to be a huge three storey house built 10ms away from my garden fence directly opposite my house. Their fence will be on my boundary. There’s no way of blocking them from having the perfect view of 100% of my garden.

I didn’t contest the planning permission as they’re building facilities/didn’t want to be a nimby - it’s also a nationwide new build company and the council was very much on board… didn’t think we’d have a leg to stand on. I’ve known for the plans for a couple of weeks and I’m absolutely gutted/can’t shake it off.

YANBU, I dream of an unoverlooked house!

Plant some trees ASAP!

YANBU at all but we are a massively overpopulated island. I'm preparing them to start building on the village green opposite my house luckily there's a park so I don't think it will happen. There's not enough properties for people to live in
its why the housing market is out of control. we need to keep building t's sad but a fact of life.

I would have objected

It's my worst fear here. We are very private with farmland around us. We actually bought a chunk of the field at the front of our house and glad we did, as 5 years later part of the field got sold off for building. Not sure when that's happening.

We live in Italy where a house with an acre can be bought for thirty grand. The countryside is deserted, there are no jobs. Its a very British problem overcrowding. We swapped a back to back in Yorkshire for our place here, and so much stress fell away. I get that people have families and ties to the UK, but it is a rough deal in terms of housing.

We are currently fighting a proposed 45 housing estate built on our greenbelt. Our road is a country road and already gets very busy. It will ruin our village especially when they will move onto the next proposed site by us. The houses arnt affordable and neither are they council properties so utterly unnecessary. Anyone with money could buy up all the houses in one go and rent them out at totally rediculous prices. If it was council I wouldnt mind but sadly it's a private company. Sad times.

@theton

But where should they build houses? I'm a Londoner so have no experience of never being overlooked.

Somewhere they also plan for infrastructure. Hundreds of houses have gone in a very small area here & hundreds more are planned on a couple of fields and part of the common. It was quite rural here, in a year it won't be. No new shops/schools/dentist/Drs...roads are now very busy, hate to think what it'll be like in another year. It WAS a nice village.

They're not 'affordable', they're not nice, just cheaply built, mass built, expensive, small boxes. IF they were decent builders, building nice houses, responsibly, thoughtfully, it would be a bit different.

@Clovacloud

I have 1500 houses going up in the field behind me at the moment. When planning went in, I didn’t want to be a nimby so I suggested there be a gap between the old and new. I suggest allotments, I figured they’d liked that as a green initiative. The developers took that idea and ran with it, so now we have allotments, an access road and then houses

I really do feel for you though, get some fast growing trees in now as it’s still planting season. You won’t see the houses in a couple of years.

This is absolutely super @Clovacloud - I work in Planning sort of, (I’m a statutory consultee ‘vetting’ planning applications from a specific perspective), and this type of proactive engagement in the development process is sadly lacking. Well done to you!!

@theton

But where should they build houses? I'm a Londoner so have no experience of never being overlooked.

That is easily said but really hard to get done.

Developers should build houses forst and foremost where there are facilities. Brown sites and infills.

But, because it is cheaper, they repeatedly put in applications on green sites, farming land, the land that used to be there specifically to prevent urban spread. Eventually they get given the go ahead.

This means that smaller rural towns and villages are being ringed and swamped by ever increasing 'new towns' with very little additon to the infrastructure.

The small rural market town I live in is between the rivers, flood a lot, becomes isolated, has only A roads and pinch points at every possible exit. Yet tens of thousands of houses are being added to that burden. Applications always seem to include areas for schols, GPs etc, but none have ever come to fruition. Specifically here, a town of 5000 people now serves 12,000 people and another 600 houses being built - and no additional schools, GPs etc in sight.

And what kind of houses get built I hear nobody ask? Large ones. "Executive" ones. Commuter houses, the inhabitants work in cities a couple of hours away. Nobody local can afford them.

@Delatron

Yes I understand it’s more difficult going up against big developers. I’d still lodge a late objectionswith the council though.

Round here we fight tooth and nail. But its pointless.

Want to build 800 houses on a watermeadow? One Sec State says no? Wait a while... the next one will say yes and you can get started before anyone has the chance to point out, yet again, that we know the new houses won't flood because of the steps taken, but what about the existing houses that have never ever flooded in a few hundred years? Where will that displaced water go? Oh... too late!

One very angry and pompous twat even explained that they had pipework in the ground to take the water away - in a water meadow that has a famous poem written about it, said pipes to run below the fucking water table!

Going to add 4000+ cars to the already crippling rush hour traffic over pinch points? Hey, that's OK, we'll spend 10 months and squillions of poounds adding a lane to the roundabouts. No new roads, no new lanes, just an extra lane off one side of a roundabout. They don't want to make the link road dual carriage way, no! Nor will they raise the causeway road to the height originally recommended 30 years ago! no!

Want to build 2 new estates on a corner with a weird camber that floods? OK. Name one after a famous dancing horse, pretend you've included social housing and then also pretend you don't want to build opposite.. but start that work anyway. Leave mud across that camber? No problem. Build the roundabout as suggested; add layby parking for the school drop off that will now become REALLY dangerous - fuck off will they? Though it is there in the groundplan!

How many complaints lodged? DOn't actually know, as the site crashed.

Oh! And then let Stagecoach cancel the bus route that took secondary schools kids to school and people to work - cos over the last 2 years it has been really unused! FFS.

I could go on... and I imagine anyone who lives within 20 miles of me now knows where I am!

@Mintlegs

You are not being unreasonable, we are so overpopulated.

We absolutely are not. Only 6% of land in the UK is built on.

Sometimes there are no more brownfield sites to build on. That's what's happened where I am. So then they have to look elsewhere. I remember when the population of the whole of the UK was the same as the current population of England only, so I suppose new houses are needed.

Agree with absolutely everything you say @SamphiretheStickerist - planning legislation across the UK Govts is an absolute gift to developers.

I really sympathise OP.

Too late now, but this might help others, but you can object to something on the grounds of being overlooked. It wouldn't stop the houses being built but it can force a change of design or specification to protect your privacy.

Apart from planting trees there are lots of other ways to make parts of your garden private, screens and summerhouses etc, so you feel less exposed.

Plant some bamboo across your boundary fence

@Tobacco

Sometimes there are no more brownfield sites to build on. That's what's happened where I am. So then they have to look elsewhere. I remember when the population of the whole of the UK was the same as the current population of England only, so I suppose new houses are needed.

Problem is they don't look for the next brownfield, in fill or other site that might require preparation. They go straight to green sites.

And it isn't a convenience for the person living in the new houses as few of them ever work locally.

I'm not saying houses don't need to be built. I am just saying STOP BUIKLDING IN VIRGIN COUNTRYSIDE beacuse we need that for other things. Spend more money on developing more urban sites, make the developers bear the full cost of the preparation, they make obscene profits out of greenfield sites!

We also have a developer who had permission for 5 houses on the egde of a protected site. It had to have good parking and to be buikt precisely as planned to avoid destroying sme wildlife habitat.

Apparently a small group of builders took it upon themsleves to build to additional houses with out the developer knowing about it. He was told to bring the hosues down... oh, and to take off the 3rd floor of two houses and to put int he bloody parking. Did he? No! The houses have stood for about 4 years and I believe he has now got permission to carry on regardless.

This is the reality for small rural towns and villages everywhere. No care is being taken to ensure there is any infrastructure to support the new builds and blindingly obvious H+S matters just don't seem to count!

We have fields to four sides. I live in dread of them building.

Surely housebuilding can't continue at this rate? Everywhere you go now you see signs "land acquired by Redrow Homes" or some other developer.

Every single one of the homes you lot live in were probably once woodland and fields. People have to live somewhere.

@SamphiretheStickerist all those things apply to London too. Building houses in heavily populated areas without additional infrastructure & the houses are unaffordable.

IF they were decent builders, building nice houses, responsibly, thoughtfully, it would be a bit different.

All they care about is profit though. We have an economy largely based on ever increasing house price & 1 in 10 adults owns more than 1 house. Things won't change.

@Iloveyourbracelet

Every single one of the homes you lot live in were probably once woodland and fields. People have to live somewhere.

That argument is trotted out every time. Yes, of course where all of us once lived was once open land - if you go back long enough. That doesn’t mean that developers should be allowed to continue building unaffordable houses on green belt land, or on ancient woodland, or ignoring planning conditions, or on land not in the local plans, or by applying for retrospective permission, or not contributing hefty amounts to the local infrastructure and services that can’t cope, or not giving local communities a say in the planning conditions - and on and on and on and on.

@Iloveyourbracelet

Every single one of the homes you lot live in were probably once woodland and fields. People have to live somewhere.

Yes but 1800 homes in one go? Some developers shoe horn in over 2000 homes. Destroying the countryside and doubling the size of towns and villages, not to mention school places and GP services will be affected by this.

[quote theton]@SamphiretheStickerist all those things apply to London too. Building houses in heavily populated areas without additional infrastructure & the houses are unaffordable. [/quote]
I wasn't even beginning to suggest that wasn't the case. The ever increasing sprawl of London, spreading out ever more into the Home Counties and other areas is easily seen evidence of that. That Brighton is a commuter belt for London etc is madness, but it is the case.

As I said, I know we need more housing stock. But a free for all in planning is not the best way of achieving what is actually needed. It just cripples vast swathes of rural living.

@Iloveyourbracelet

Every single one of the homes you lot live in were probably once woodland and fields. People have to live somewhere.

Yes. And Henry VIII probably passed by here when it was an already 100 year old inn!

Sometimes what seems to be a clever line is just, well, stating the obvious?!