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.

There are plenty of houses and flats- far too many are owned by landlords and far to many of those by landlords and housing associations who allow them to fall into disrepair.
Additionally, cities are full of buildings which are falling into disuse daily and which could be converted back into living accommodation- which is what many were originally. Newcastle, for example, is full of beautiful Georgian houses which were turned into retail premises on the ground floor and upper floors used for smaller businesses like accountants etc and many are now disused. They are beautiful properties. Many small towns have the same issues.

We don't need to rip up the countryside for housing estates.
Take properties back from landlords - no one should own more than 3 properties max. Compulsory purchase at cheapest rate possible depending on state of property- like HS2 did.
Sell to those who want to buy at very cheap rate- they can pay builders to do up or do it themselves.
Government buy up town centre properties and sell them to builders to renovate and sell at reasonable prices.
It could be done. There are people who own 20+ and up to many hundreds of BTL properties.

Many of these people buy up smaller starter housing on new estates- just to earn money from letting it. The government encourages them because it removes responsibility for social housing from the State. They have no appetite to address this issue.

in a sense there are many that already do although maybe not 24/7, eg various military underground bunkeers etc
but that said yes it would be quite intriguing

There’s plenty of land in cities that can be built on - but the thing is, it’s mostly got cars parked on it right now.

So (and I’m being completely serious, not facetious or deliberately trying to be an arsehole here), yes, we could build nearly all these homes on brownfield sites. However, this will mean accepting that rural and suburban types will find it harder and harder to drive their cars into town and will have to start switching to public transport and parkNrides - partly because most of the parking spaces will get built on, partly because when you have a lot of people living in urban centers, they increasingly put pressure on to keep the cars out of cities (because they want to be able to walk and cycle easily and pleasantly in cities, so they push for more congestion charges, pedestrialization schemes and getting roads narrowed for bus lanes and cycle lanes).

I’m kind of repeating what I said on the “15 minute cities” thread, but: the UK’s cities have basically got a choice. Option 1: They can stick with the car-centered development model (but this means accepting that a lot of countryside and green belt will have to be built on, and a lot of pretty old-fashioned townscapes will have to altered to make way for bigger car parks and ring roads and stuff). Or, Option 2: They can insist on maintaining their pretty cities and pretty surrounding countryside (but this means accepting that people are going to have to switch to public transport for an increasing number of journeys and that heavy restrictions will be put on driving and parking).

The UK, other than London, has refused to make these hard but important choices, which is why our cities outside London remain poor by Western European standards.

in a sense there are many that already do although maybe not 24/7, eg various military underground bunkeers etc
but that said yes it would be quite intriguing

But mostly by necessity rather than free choice. You might as well say that trenches were clearly where soldiers (by choice and conscripts alike) dearly wanted to spend their time during WW1!

A lot of people enjoy the adventure of camping for a week or two in summer, but would be absolutely horrified to be told that they must now live year-round camping in a tent with no alternative option.

Yes, a lot of people do get to move house in their lives (not always 'upwards', mind), but a great many others don't. Imagine being told (or realising) that, for the rest of your life, you would never get to live in a home again that had a single window that would give light or be able to be opened for fresh air. Would you really, genuinely choose that for yourself and your family?

There’s plenty of land in cities that can be built on - but the thing is, it’s mostly got cars parked on it right now.

...or option 3: instead of stuffing living, breathing, light-and-air-enjoying human people permanently underground, might it be an option in some cases, where a public transport option might not be the golden solution, to dig these same underground bunkers and move the car parking down, so that houses can be built above ground?!

depends on how grand the bunker is

I remember back in the late 80s our local free paper (The Blackmore Vale Magazine.

I loved the Blackmore Vale mag when I lived near Shaftesbury. Does it still exist ?

https://blackmorevale.net/

Oh that’s great it still exists.

An anonymous poster to our village FB complained that the sound of a lawnmower, I think probably ours, was ruining her enjoyment of her G and T whilst lying on her sunlounger. This was at about 6pm on a Saturday. DH had been at work all day and the forecast was rain on Sunday.

I don't know - a heads up on fb for when the fields are about to be sprayed, would be nice. Would save people from hanging their washing out on those days.

There is an app that bee keepers use where farmers will input data when they are going to be spraying. It is so beeks can shut their hives for the required time so bees don't get poisoned. Maybe use that for your washing?

That's a good idea about the bee keepers app, thanks

@DustyLee123 you have just made me laugh out loud….. calling the police over the farmer with his gun…. I was not brought up rurally but I have adapted to it over the last 40 years, although I still do not like plucking, gutting and cleaning shot from game birds…. Never done it. Rural living really is different.

Because they then fly tip the stuff they don't want

We live by the sea and there are lots of complaints about seagull noise. What do people expect?

We live in a village and it’s a nightmare! We currently have Onion Manure (don’t ask) and it stinks but every year they do it and all the new kids on the block moan about it.

@caffelattetogo i don’t live near the beach. But about twenty seagulls have made their home here as someone keeps feeding them. The noise in the morning is awful. The mess as well.

People need places to live. As the population increases, so will the size of villages, towns and cities. I don't think this is a left or right wing issue, except that more better off, retired people vote Conservative. Nobody likes having things built next to them- we all want a supermarket, but built next to someone else. Just not us.

I also live somewhere rural, I admit I have a moan to my husband sometimes about the muck spreading lol but it's one of those things. I love the sound of church bells, it disgusts me when I hear people complain about them , don't move near a church!! It was there way before you were mate. why do people feel the need to complain do they think the country and all things related will change for them, just mental

I am lucky enough to live in a fairly rural area and have a horse. He is kept at a local livery yard…….very recently a house 2 minutes down the road from said livery yard was sold. New couple moved in and as I was riding down the road (unfortunately we have to use a couple of roads to get to the bridleways) my horse had to answer the call of nature on the road in front of their house. The new owners of the house were outside and the man was absolutely furious that my horse had left a No 2 outside his drive……….he wanted to know when I was coming back to collect it and/or if I was going to get off and remove it immediately. When I said no he decided he was going to report me to the Police and the local Council. God forbid what he is going to do when it gets to muck spreading season and the whole area reeks in a two mile radius!!!! And please no horse hating replies!!!

@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.

I live in a small semi-rural town with a Tory MP and Tory Council. In the last 5 years they have passed applications for 4000+ new houses on green field sites. The developers always minimise the affordable homes provision and get it removed if they can, they ignore planning conditions (on one new estate recently they ripped out an ancient hedegrow against a condition that it be left alone, and just ignored a condition that they were to fund a junction improvement.

I am 61, still paying a mortgage and have never voted fucking Tory - but it's a myth that the Tories are stopping houses getting built - they are ensuring the permanent loss of productive farmland (because it is cheaper and easier for the developers) to estates of 4/5 bed houses.

Local village green where cattle are allowed to graze during the summer months as they have done for years - village Facebook page had people complaining that the farmer didn’t pick up the cow pats after the cows 🤦🏼‍♀️

Is this for real? Amazing.

We had a person moaning our lane doesn't have streetlights or pavements. IIt doesn't have pavements, but it does have streetlights.

This reminds of the time when our village bulldozed an ancient woodland and built a new build estate on it.

I wasn't against it. Many were, but I appreciate we need to provide people with housing and sometimes it means having to do this. It was done relatively sympathetically, and half the woodland was still left standing.

However, it attracted former Londoners seeking a quiet countryside lifestyle. These Londoners though had a right old fit when the remaining woodland opposite their nice new estate was cut down. Even accosting and verbally abusing the men carrying out the tree surgery work.

Local Facebook groups were overun with:
I moved here for the views!
I moved here for a quiet life, not more ugly houses and people!
I suppose this is all being chopped down to make way for a hideous new build estate! I don't want to look at that!
We weren't consulted about this! How dare they!
This is ruining my peaceful enjoyment of the countryside!
Disgusting!
The dust is making my expensive bifolding windows dirty!
Blah blah blah....

The remaining ancient woodland wasn't being chopped down for a new estate. It was being coppiced. A practice carried out for hundreds of years to maintain the health and variety of species in that woodland. And the new build estate these angered Londoners are living on is literally called Coppice Lane, because it overlooks this beautiful woodland that is coppiced at regular intervals.

The hypocrisy and entitlement was staggering.

"I'm fine if half an ancient woodland is cleared to make way for my nice new fancy countryside home, but if anyone else wants to do the same (even though that's not what's happening) I'm gonna lose my shit and abuse the workmen and create lots of outraged Facebook posts and start a petition to have it stopped!"