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.

We do need new homes though - we've got a huge housing crisis because the Tories haven't built anywhere near enough for the last 10 years, certainly not affordable homes. Like you I am worried that this could end up with the countryside being sold off for housing estates - it's disappearing fast enough as it is - but hopefully Labour will be sensible. Although the problem with Westminster - and this goes for all the main parties - is that they never consider rural dwellers, politicians live in an urban bubble and seem to regard the countyside and farming as some sort of afterthought. Rural poverty has been a massive problem for decades.

Actually, poverty is quite a bit less common in rural areas than urban areas (esp if you exclude London and look at basically any other region - rural Yorkshire vs urban Yorkshire, for example)!

In most countries, rural poverty is a real issue. The UK is unusual in that incomes are higher, on average, in rural areas. Probably in part because most of what's considered rural in the UK isn't actually very rural by the standards of anywhere else due to our high density of population and greenbelt policies. Most villages are not that far from their nearest city, compared with the US or even countries like France.

Rural poverty is hit and miss here there's a lot of bartering goes on plus good will. I can buy a whole lamb for the freezer, part of a cow. Let out my field for three months, sell eggs , have a dry stone wall rebuilt, have a septic tank put in get rat arsed on home made wine, enjoy honey from local hives. We exchange stuff.

We also did, tow neighbours out in bad weather, worked over night bringing in the hay bales . Run around herding escaped sheep and the odd pony.

@horseyhorsey17 So you think Labour built enough? They haven’t for exactly the same reasons. No one wants housing near them. So Labour will get lots of objections for 1.5m homes too. We do have some brownfield sites but the cost of cleaning il
is huge. Who pays? It will either be the housebuilders or housing association. HAs have to borrow to build. It’s not free money from the government. So if we are going to build we need land. There’s no option of “being sensible”. This number of homes will be where people don’t want them and will be on farmland.

I don't think it's that black and white. That also relies on farmers selling up. Maybe they will choose not to - unlikely given that farming has been destroyed by successive governments, with Brexit the final nail in the coffin, but we can but hope.

We will have to have a compromise between house building and NIMBYism. There's no other way forward. Doubtless the Tories and right wing press will blame immigrants though.

This reminds me of a thread years ago by someone who was incandescent with rage that someone's horse pooped on the road outside their house. She seemed to think riders carry a shovel and bag...

The reason for this is because poor rural people have been forced to move to the towns to look for work, and they've been replaced by rich urbanites who fancy a 'quieter life' after city careers. This is also why there's so much moaning in villages, as the thread is all about.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Village? I wish! Nearest neighbour two miles away.

Thoroughly enjoying this thread! I don't live in the countryside, too much of a town mouse to, but the school complaints resonate a lot. Recall my DS's school being told to keep the noise down during the children's outdoor break by a house next to the playground. Moreover, it was during Covid cold months when they'd all been confined to their classrooms the rest of the day. New residents, of course, who must have assumed the building was actually a centre for silent retreat, and the play area some sort of sculptural installation.

@horseyhorsey17 Have you heard of compulsory purchase orders? No farmer doesn’t want mega bucks from housing!
Housing areas are identified via local plans. Farmers might not get any choice. Labour might choose to abolish local plans as they haven’t produced enough housing sites. They seem to want to get rid of planning constraints which is quite a Tory type idea. We have unbelievably slow development processes here with local councils and a planning inspectorate taking forever!

HA putting in a few houses in rural communities is different as they buy at farm land prices. Housing developers don’t.

I hate to interrupt a good argument but I work in transport so it might be of help.

Complain to your council about lack of buses and ask if they are planning a transport on demand scheme. It gets called by a few different names but it basically means you can book for a bus to come to your nearest bus stop. They are undergoing trials all over at the moment and the more people requesting them the more likely they are to appear near you.

That is why i could never live rural. The smell alone would put me right off. My DSis on the other hand absolutely loves the smell. We went away the other year and just round the corner from where we were staying was a pig farm. I spent the entire week gipping every time we walked past it. Although I did discover right at the end of the week I was Pregnant and my sense of smell had massively increased. Unfortunately it had increased to anything that smelt disgusting. Anything nice smelling just smelt the same.

Exactly- They need to ask your permission- plus it’s meant to be drag hunting now- where a trail is laid over a known course with good jumps.

Unless you live in Eire?