Complaining about Village life?

[BumpkinChic]

I just don’t really get this.

I live in a rural village and almost every week we have someone complaining on the village online group about one thing or another… mostly over things that pretty much come along with rural village life. The top culprits are usually along the lines of:

”they haven’t told us they are going to spread manure and now I can’t open my windows because of the smell”

“church bells ringing at all hours”

“the internet speed is always so poor”

Why are you living rurally if you didn’t factor these things in? What is complaining on a Facebook groups supposed to do about manure? IMO a lot of these things are minor annoyances. I know not everyone has the choice of where to live but I know this is not the case for some of the regular moaners. And I know village life can sometimes be dreary but I love it and have always lived in small villages so I know I’m biased.

please enlighten me, I’m genuinely baffled.

That's rubbish. If they could be used, they would be. Many of the sites you're talking about are not appropriate for housing for one reason or another. Many are polluted. It isn't straightforward to convert office buildings into residential apartments. And again, sorry, but you don't get to be the only one to live in a house instead of a cramped, inappropriately designed city centre apartment. Good try!

possibly cheaper, dont need demolition of previous structures, and more land equals more houses, im guessing too theres other points

Slightly different but it’s like that awful nimby couple who bought a house next to Alton Towers and have then challenged every planning permission they have ever put in and sued over the noise of screaming and rides. There are other places to live!

A few years ago our town was in the daily fail because someone in the new houses, built many decades after the allotments were made, complained about the noises of the roosters in the allotments.

People complain about the church bells in the village where I live now. They also have trees in and near their gardens and moan about leaves and petals on the grass.

Also in Somerset!

Earlier in the week we had manure spreading, apparently one woman had to RUN to her car because she was "so sick" due to the smell trying to walk her dog. People in the comments very quick to remind her she lives in the countryside 🤣

Yearly entertainment in my local fb group

its fair points, plus they would be omg, if there is crop shortages in the supermarkets etc

@Antst who said anything about using offices as housing? Clear the sites and build proper housing on it. Bullshit that they are all polluted - there are loads of office developments that never got used or the companies went out of business. If they were safe for people to work on, they are safe to build on. I'm also not opposed to compulsory purchase for properties bought as investments and never lived in, to be developed into housing for local people who need it. There are alternatives to trashing the countryside

the problem then is your building eg 2-4, houses or eg 8 houses, etc where as to maximise profits ect ive seen developments of 100, 200, some even around 400 split across two development sectors ect, at a guess its all profit driven

ill admit i love the country side more than seeing new build developments

@LadyBird1973, it doesn't work that way. You're casting around for excuses to get what you want. This is a common one. Privileged older generations make up nonsense and Tory politicians use it to keep shutting down house-building for everyone else.

It costs a fortune to clear buildings off sites or retrofit office buildings for use as apartments. In many cases, it's impossible. And there simply aren't "loads" of unoccupied office buildings available anyway.

There are NOT alternatives to building in the countryside. If there were, we'd have housing on them. One of the main problems is that you lot have actually created a situation where we have no choice but to build in the countryside because you've shut down building for so long that the crisis is overwhelming. What we're about to see is building whenever and wherever possible because people have nowhere to live.

As for your attitude that everyone but you should be living in an old office building, good grief! The arrogance and entitlement. I don't see the older generations who have houses they don't need volunteering to move into apartments. That's what would go a long way to solving the crisis.

You'll have a place to live though. You have the luxury of whinging about housing for other people.

im not againts new builds as i can understand the need for them, its just preference wise id prefer countryside but that said its a pitty we couldent build underground cities etc, then its the best of both

Well, if we had dealt with the housing crisis decades ago by (1) starting to build new housing and planning it properly and (2) updating existing housing (British homes are some of the worst in Europe as far as insulation and mould), then we wouldn't have to build willy-nilly over the countryside now.

The very same privileged older people who moan about the countryside disappearing are the NIMBYs and landlords and investors who have exploited the housing crisis to stop building. If all they have to deal with is blighted views, then that is hardly a consequence for the pain they've inflicted on everyone else by depriving so many of housing.

A lot of fuss on our FB site about people “not English” in a van picking up items from skips.
I don’t get why this is a problem. If stuff is in a skip it was not wanted so why is it a problem if someone takes it? I’d be pleased if it were my skip, as there would be more room for my own rubbish.

...preference wise, it’s a pity we can’t build underground cities. The best of both

Is this a joke? It’s no one’s preference to live underground.

@Antst I swear to god you can't fucking read! I didn't say you should be living in a converted office block, only that the land currently occupied by disused offices and old out of town retail parks could be cleared and built on instead, since these sites have amenities already.
Sure, it's more expensive to clear land that's been built on, then to build in a field, but it's better.

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about 'you lot'. I don't have a big house or own property I rent out. But I do think that protecting the countryside is important - we can't keep building on flood plains or fields because preservation of our environment is important too.

Older people aren't obliged to give up their homes or to watch their communities be ruined, just because you couldn't buy a house!

Oh we did! We still have occasional issues with hunt followers parking on our land and blocking our access but the hunt master's a neighbour and owns most of the land around here (except ours). He delivers a bottle of whiskey on hunt days to apologise in advance.

I was merely talking about the village WhatsApp group who will pile on to anyone who is the least bit critical of their traditional ways.

I can read and I see that you're spouting the same unworkable nonsense that you people always have always spouted to keep people out of housing to save your views. Yes, you are one of the privileged. You lot never admit to it.

If you actually did think the countryside mattered, you and others of your ilk wouldn't have shut down building for so many decades. You would have encouraged it because it would have been done slowly enough that there could have been decent planning. We might have been able to figure out how to use existing buildings and/or sites. We now have no choice but to build over countryside because it's the fastest and cheapest option. You've brought what's coming on yourselves.

You don't understand. Time is up. You don't get to bleat about the countryside while millions of people either have nowhere to live or are in unstable, mouldy, freezing conditions.

Well this thread went down hill fast

Just like a village fb page!

There are many reasons why many people don't have adequate housing. They are not primarily due to other people objecting to more building than their villages have the infrastructure to handle. Or them believing that preservation of the countryside is important.

Jesus… can you lot take your housing bitching to one of the 100’s of other threads on the same topic?

its a pitty we couldent build underground cities etc, then its the best of both

Really? Would you want to be the first person to have to live underground - and consider it in any way 'the best'?

You have read far too much into this. It’s just hilarious to see a comment wishing an Aldi would get built as they think the village needs more amenities and then a bunch of older residents getting angry and saying they shouldn’t have moved here then! The anger on local Facebook groups over most issues is always a laugh