That people object to council plans for selfish and uninformed reasons

[Bamboozle123]

I live in a village which has doubled in size over the last 5 years (still pretty small tbh).

It is well located, 5 miles from a major town and has potentially good public transport links but with really low service levels (hourly trains, no buses on a Sunday sort of thing). There are few amenities here - no petrol garage, supermarket, pub, cafe but does have a few corner shops and a primary school. Loads and loads of countryside and good walking.

The council plans to create loads more houses along the main road here, probably doubling the village in size again.

I'm really surprised that so many locals are objecting for what seem to be really weak reasons - e.g. don't support compulsory purchase of farmland, the village is "already too big".

Perhaps they are just going through the change curve but I don't see how they can't see the benefits in improving the amenities and services, providing more affordable housing in an area that desperately needs it, whilst still retaining almost all the countryside.

So AIBU to think they are being blinkered / selfish and actually this is a scheme for the greater good whilst also benefitting us residents.

Property shouldn't be sold to non domiciles. This doesn't help the situation

I'm in the camp of fighting wide-scale development. We live in outer London near the M25 and the traffic is already horrendous (and our local air quality fails the regs). There's also no capacity for extra sewage according to Thames Water, no spare school places and the GP surgeries are rammed.

Some days the roads are so gridlocked that I can't even drive back to my house as my road is blocked for two hours or more. Not only are there no plans to improve transport infrastructure but there isn't really any capacity to do so without compulsory purchase of private housing.

So, no, I don't support building on greenbelt land with no thought of the impact on the transport network and local services.

you ever heard of bacon, OP?

This

Why do we object? Because lots of people (including me) crave peace and quiet. We want fields and trees and silence, not houses and traffic and boy racers with exhausts that sound like fireworks going off. We have got two new estates being built at either end of my village. At one end, the woods have been hacked into once already. They cut down loads of trees a decade ago and stuck up a ghastly new build estate. Kids from that estate then colonized the woods, driving motorbikes in there, doing drug deals, dumping shopping trolleys, even vandalizing the trees (who draws graffiti on trees for chirstssake??). But of course that wasn't enough houses (it never is). So now another great chunk of woodland is being hacked down and they are building even more houses and flats. Meanwhile, at the other end of the village, a giant new build estate is going up.

The traffic is horrendous now, so god knows what it will be like when all those houses and flats are occupied. But of course even that won't be enough. No doubt in five years the fields next to me will be built on. It won't stop until the whole of central and southern England is one giant new build estate linked by out of town shopping areas. The peaceful village I moved to 30 years ago no longer exists.

Deep down, I know that left-wing people laugh at my anger. They love annoying and upseting people who've worked hard and saved their money. Most left-wing people are motivated not by sympathy for 'the poor' but by hatred for those who work and save. There seems to be this idea that anyone who objects to houses being built must be a rich, fox-hunting snob. In reality, most so-called NIMBYs are ordinary people who try and do the right thing. They work hard and save their money so they can live somewhere quiet. But they get shat on by both the left and the right. The right are on the side of greedy developers, who'd bulldoze Stonehenge or the Taj Mahal if they could make money. The left are on the side of benefit cheats who have loads feral kids and ruin their neighbour's lives. In the middle, as always, are the idiots like me who just try and live a quiet, civilized life, who work hard and ask nothing in return but a bit of peace.

They never build new houses in nice areas where council bigwigs with their massive salaries live.

😆 so not my point. Your remark makes no sense in the context. The OP was talking about people being selfish for not wanting increased housing in their area, I was responding to say that I did personally not want my village to be doubled because I bought there on purpose. I do not believe I'm selfish for wanting the environment I am comfortable in.

And as people have said doubling small villages does not solve anything. There are empty houses, second houses, derelict houses, brown field areas that are much better suited too helping the crisis.

Interestingly, it was the new people (that closed down the local firm that they had moved next to) that are still making the most noise about new builds.

JoonT "It won't stop until the whole of central and southern England is one giant new build estate linked by out of town shopping areas. The peaceful village I moved to 30 years ago no longer exists"

so much this. It's dreadful. I missed the boat - I wanted to leave London ages ago for such a place, but I didn't (elderly parents) and now I don't think there's going to be anywhere left like that.

my goddaughter lives up North and tells me it's heading the same way.

I haven't read all the thread so apologies if this is a repeat of what someone else has said or the conversation has moved on!

I live in a sought after town - it used to be very small but over the last couple of years has grown significantly with three enormous housing estates. I used to live near one of them but moved just before it started being built. I didn't object but in hindsight I really really wish I had.

The houses are extremely poor quality and built on a field which flooded every single winter. They haven't provided sufficient drainage, so now both the brand new development floods AND where our old house was floods as there's literally nowhere for the water to go. The residents have had a nightmare two winters, with their gardens completely waterlogged and some with flooded houses too. Our old neighbours are distraught.

There haven't been any more "enhanced" services, despite this being promised by the council. Our schools are completely full, the doctors is frequently closing due to overcapacity, the queue to drive into town is dreadful now (never ever a problem before).

Equally, the houses look horrible. Really poor design, bad quality and not "affordable" by any means - £450,000 upwards for a 80sqm terraced house for example. Above the market rate for other local "old" houses, but obviously this has hugely pushed up the prices of the houses in the area as people want one of the traditional, better built homes instead of one off the new estates.

Despite this crazy pricing, they've nearly all been bought as an investment and many of them are lying empty despite being sold. One guy (a wealthy local landlord I know) has bought two in his children's names. Some have been bought by foreign banks. All have been sold and yet when you drive round it's 25% occupancy at best. No cars on the drives, no lights on in the houses, some still with stickers on the windows.

People scam the system unfortunately and I'm sure our council isn't the only one who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery! We had a huge issue in our town with lack of housing before. Has it been fixed? Nope. It's been made a lot worse.

Near us developers 'run out of money" to build the extra school, surgery, dentist or leisure centre etc that was promised so yes I'm very cynical
They should be made to build those first as part of the pp.

Developers have an entire industry dedicated to ensuring they never have to provide infrastructure improvements.
In our town they were supposed to pay for an upgrade to a road junction as a condition of the new housing estate. Now the estate is finished and the work hasn't been done - they are playing a game of cat and mouse to dodge ever doing it - this is after they ignored a condition to leave an existing ancient hedge in place and ripped it out - which the council did fuck all about.
The stuff councils can ask for is minimal anyway but the fucking developers don't even provide it.

'more affordable housing'
🤣🤣🤣
In my bitter experience, a developer will promise 35 units and you might end up with 5 or 6.

I live in a large village with multiple new builds. They are all ££££, the traffic is becoming horrendous, you can't get a GP appointment, the vet is not taking new clients. No new buses. No road improvements. Loss of prime agricultural land.

I grew up here. The place I love is being massively changed without the consent of its existing residents. But I'm sure my reasons for objecting (and what a waste of time that was) were 'selfish and uninformed'.

Sounds like my local area, with the exception that not only is the GP oversubscribed, it's actually now being closed. Everyone in the area is now going to have to go to a GP in a nearby town which is also already oversubscribed.

The development plows ahead.

I also object to the fact that they make these new developments so soul crushingly ugly. There's actually two new build sites in a local village that have been done in the past decade that I always compare. The slightly older one has actually been tastefully done, and it's quite pretty to walk around. The second is utterly depressing and soulless, and it's this type of estate that seems to get built more frequently.

The things which make the first development nice are just small things, like room for verges and trees, and small details on the houses that give each one a little of its own character. There's no reason they can't make all developments look nice other than pure greed.

This is exactly my experience. I'd have no problem with well planned development with proper infrastructure provision - but we get gridlock, parking chaos, no public transport or cycling provisions, no school places and no GP provisions, just hundreds of 4 and 5 bedroom houses without enough space for the cars they need because there is no other way to get around.

People overestimate the power councils have in the issues. They have had their planning powers severely eroded over the last 20 years. Except in exceptional circumstances, turning down an application from developers will simply result in the developers appealing to central government. All that does is cost the council money they don't have to fight an appeal that, almost always, goes to the developers. So then the development will be built, and the levy income won't nearly counterbalance the money they spent on the appeal process.

As for what the levy is spent on, every council is required to have a policy, and must also publish the policy and the spend. So ask the council. Your local councillors could get this information in an instant if they don't already have it - some of it usually gets to them to spend on local projects in some way. And use that information to lobby for what it needs to be spent on locally to support / mitigate the new build.

Also my small town is having most of the new housing for the borough dumped here for political reasons.

Could be worse. A huge development near me came with the promise of a train station with a connection to London. It's been over 10 years since the development was complete. It's finally happening in 2024, apparently. The nearest station is a congested drive away with expensive limited parking or a very very long bike ride. I felt sorry for all the commuters who bought houses there.

These people already exist in your community, they’re likely in unstable housing. Services are already overwhelmed. Not building homes just exacerbates social issues.

I agree with you Op. If you want affordable housing for future generations, then at some point you will have to concede that the acres on the outskirts of villages/towns will need to be built on.

This country is so precious about its open spaces, whilst having amongst the strictest planning policies in Europe. Ask yourself, who does that serve?

Yes NIMBY's is alive and well IMO, I live in a naice safe labour seat commuter town with good ammenities and commuter links, with regular bus and rail.

Over the past few years both brown and greenfield sites have been rejected because of local opposition, as with most problems that need fixing as long as it doesn't impact them personally then they are all for it (especially online).

Everybody thinks the 'next town over' is more suitable to allievate the housing crisis, if you build them locally it will hit them in the pocket, but then again don't concrete over the UK just build away from 'me' personally.

It is widely recognised and is actually becoming apparent to a lot of my younger collegues at work how hypocritical a lot of older people are (I am their manager, luckily mortgage free now, but was the opposition to all our local objections because we need to build more houses)

I think it's easy to dismiss people as nimbys but too many of us have experience of new developments with promised infrastructure that doesn't materialise.

In the last small town (pop 12000) I lived in the council granted planning for 2000 new homes. The infrastructure was supposed to be added to the last phase of the development, 10 years later there are houses and thousands of extra people but no new school or GP surgery.

The department of transport assessed the average commute to the nearest large town,15 miles away, would be 2 hours at peak travel time because of the narrow country roads leading out of the town, there were no plans to improve the roads. Hardly surprising the locals objected.

What constitutes affordable housing is a joke when a supposedly "affordable" 3 bed semi starts at 450k.

I live in an even smaller town now with hardly any amenities or job opportunities, thank god the local landscape means they can't build anymore houses.

This is the problem with current planning laws and all the NIMBY’s

40 years old yes. Not nowadays

I've yet to see a new development that's increased the numbers of shops, schools, transport or GP places.

We've had enormous estates built near us (I'm in a city) and we have rules on how many houses can be built before a school or GP practice is needed, but all that does is make the house builders team up with 1 or 2 others so each company builds just under the limit! 1000s of homes, and no new school. Ours schools are heaving, our GP practices closed to new patients. The LA are aware, there's petitions and all-sorts to try and change it and yet still it happens. So the only option is to object to the houses themselves.

Same here. Hundreds of larger family homes but no additional public services or infrastructure to support them. Just more backhanders for the planning dept.