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.

This is a loophole that has to close. Happens all the time and the thing we need most - affordable housing - never materialises.

This is a loophole that has to close. Happens all the time and the thing we need most - affordable housing - never materialises

I've often wondered how private housing remains affordable. Are the new developments sold below market value? Or is it more about shared ownership schemes? And do they stop house prices rising to the 'natural level' for the local area?

In our town, nearly all the new developments are £800k plus (some in the several millions) and I can't imagine how they tick any affordable housing criteria.

I live in a small apartment block on the edge of a neighbourhood that's mostly made up of detached homes. When the idea to build these apartments on a small empty field was original proposed the number of objections from the nearby home owners was ridiculous. Lots of "I walk my dog there" even though there's a gigantic nature reserve a 2 minute walk in the opposite direction. There are now 60-80 apartments in two 3-story blocks and another 20 terraced houses built on this spot. There's an underground car park for residents and a bus stop across the street. It's exactly these underused semi-urban spaces that we should be filling with high-density housing in my view.

Maybe more staff would be retained if buildings weren’t overcrowded and lists overwhelmed though.
Yes I know funding main issue.
Teaching 40 kids in a temp portacabin is a lot less attractive than 30 in a nice new purpose built school.

My lovely, small very desirable village is being ruined by new estates. As PP says - the infrastructure isn’t following. On our road the biggest issue is sewage. Somehow developers and the water company have agreed on their surveys that there isn’t an issue. There is. The field they are building on already floods in winter, which is going to get hugely worse when it all becomes hard standing. Already when there are heavy rains, some of the drains flood and people end up with raw sewage in their gardens. We have reported this again and again and again, and “officials” keep saying that adding more housing onto the existing sewers without improving them isn’t a problem.

The village we used to live in also had developments of executive homes. What was needed was starter homes and flat/bungalows so elderly could downsize to stay in the village.

You are being obtuse here, and in reply to the hospital post.

We have similar issues and are being swamped with outlying developments that simply cannot be sustained. Yet even the insurmountable geographical issue is being ignored.

Because apparently "people need somewhere to live" actually means "who gives a fuck if people can actually live, bring up a family, get to work, in these houses?"

Sometimes those of us shouting No! have really good, common sense reasons for doing so.

Bungalows are expensive to build, land is expensive so the numbers don't add. Much what people think it's difficult to get permission to build anywhere. The public doesn't hear much about pre applications where developers are told no. If the planning laws were made more liberal then a wider range of houses could be built as it would push land prices down. I think the average arce of land with pp for houses is about 1million . There might be a bidding between developers and the farmer gets a nice retirement fund. I doubt any have said no I'll take half and build bungalows and starter housing.

I doubt they will be built.

We have a ring of new developments around our market town. All had additional amenities included in the proposals. The only thing that has been included are a couple of fenced off play areas, that are not maintained by anyone.

No road improvement, no shops, no surgery, school, nothing. Just an additional thousand plus houses, and still growing.

Nearby is a development on a water meadow. Water issues meant planning was refused, by Rishi Sunak! Developers waited and reapplied with additional water tanks. Local houses that have never flooded in hundreds of years have now flooded. The holding tanks? Not built because, according to the official response, the development is not yet complete. Whe it is, in 5 or 6 more years, there will be 'adequate steps' taken. Until then... tough!

Developers do anything to avoid the additional stuff that they can't make as much profit from.

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

And yet all you need to do according to the OP is to campaign to the local council to have these things put into place - once the development has been built anyway of course.

It's almost like s/he's being deliberately stupid.

Because what generally happens is that a load of houses are built, the narrow roads stay the same, the schools become oversubscribed as do GPs etc, and the traffic becomes bloody awful.

We have been promised new GP surgery, playing field. None of these materialised houses were built, affordable homes reduced in number because they werent cost effective no promised facilities. They should be made to build facilities before housing is even started

We have had four housing developments in my small town. All promised a new GP surgery, play areas and a primary school. Never happened.

Government needs to do more to insist the infrastructure is put in place before PP is even allowed

Where my friend is they had some "affordable" housing built.
It was not even remotely close to affordable for the locals.
And most of the properties were bought by either BTL landlords, or HAs.

In some areas it has very little to do with the "NIMBY"s

We're the btl landlords allowed to,buy the affordable housing?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if it disagrees with your own and many other posters have given examples of why your neighbours may object. What boils my piss us when the council do as they like ; regardless of how many people object. If the amenities are that poor and you would prefer to live somewhere more densely populated, you are free to sell up and move. But I really don’t see why a village that does not want development should have it forced on them. What you see as progress, other people will view as lowering their quality of life.

Depends on the scheme but usually not, they're usually reserved for local occupancy and often first time buyers. No second home owners etc.

from our experience with the large development on our door step: they were going to do a detour on the other side so they wouldn't block our estates only access . they than suggested it would be one way - it wasn't. They increased density of houses the height of flats the number of parking spaces and decreased the infrastructure, we are talking of 3000 houses will we get extra gp's in an area where there are not enough will there be enough I could go on

That's good to hear. I think this wasn't always the case though

The objections need to be relevant though. Council don't do what they like , they need a reason within planning law , that central government sets , to stop an application. If they don't they could face very heavy legal costs. Most big developers can outspend councils in terms of legal costs.

Correct. This is because we have a government that has scrapped planning law and replaced it with a framework to allow large developers to build as many 4/5 bed houses as they like, and pretend it's to address housing needs.
There is a small army of jargon spewing planning people ready to tell you (in some arcane language) why you have to have what Persimmon wants to build on your local farmland, and why you can't have any road improvements (in fact they will often make the roads worse as part of a pretence that 90% of people won't use cars.

I think there's a degree of nimbyishm but I have seen a total difference in attitude towards green field sites and brown field sites in my area. The brown field sites have attracted some opposition, but minimal. The green field sites have been very hard fought. I totally agree with that viewpoint. I have limited concerns about an old industrial/military/office development being changed to housing, although there are still concerns about infrastructure.

But concreting over the countryside isn't justified.

The affordable housing is never actually affordable. A few years ago a new estate was built on the outskirts of the nearest town. The affordable housing was advertised at 25% more than the far larger, better built 1930’s semi’s immediately opposite that the average first time buyer couldn’t afford either.