To find the extent of planned housebuilding terrifying?

[IRememberWhenThisWasFields]

NM for this as I don't want my previous posts to be too outing of where I live. Hope that's okay.

The background is that I live in a semi-rural area in England, in a village of approximately 2,000 people. It doesn't even have a shop. Our nearest town is about 10-15 mins walk away, population already around 20k. In recent years the town has increasingly encroached on our village.

Currently, the local council is having a consultation of where future housebuilding should take place, and I'm honestly so shocked at the amount of land that has been offered up.

Farmland on what feels like all directions has been earmarked for largescale future development. I know that we have a housing crisis in this country, but I feel like I could cry.

Many of the areas are where I've spent countless happy hours walking and where I regularly see owls, hares, deer and foxes. It's well known that access to nature and green spaces is hugely beneficial to one's mental health, and to think that these wonderful quiet, peaceful, green areas could be lost for more houses, traffic, pollution, noise, likely crime...it's just so sad.

And of course, it all comes from the national government and their target of wanting to build over one million more houses this government, no matter where they're placed, and seemingly with very little thought for infrastructure or how small communities are changing almost beyond all recognition. How people who've lived in these communities for generations are increasingly turning to anti-immigration rhetoric from parties like Reform, in part due to their areas changing so rapidly.

All anyone can say is "we need more houses"...yes, but is the only solution the increased destruction of our countryside? When will it end?

I know people currently searching for a house or who are used to living in built up areas will have no sympathy with this. I know I'll already get the predictable response of "well, your house probably used to be a field", ignoring the simple fact that we now have far less space than we did 50 or 100 years ago.

But AIBU, or does anyone else feel a similar way to me?

What's your solution?

I agree with you. What our local council wants to do in the way of housebuilding round here is horrific.

This coupled with the fact that you can’t seem to sell a house near me, but they’re still building more of the buggers. They say it’s to keep up with demand, but nothing is actually selling! Developers only seem to be able to shift stuff with incentives and even then they are having to work really hard.

It’s killing the local housing market though and leaving people trapped in unsuitable properties

You find housing for people to live in ‘terrifying’. It sounds melodramatic and OTT.

Do you find the steep increase in population equally terrifying. We currently have the city the size of Leeds being added to the population of the country through mass immigration at the moment. Where do expect people to live.

And no, the magical brownfield sites will not solve this. If you are ok with a population explosion in the country, then you have no choice not to be ok with mass house building.

Do they want to build houses, by any chance? Horrifying, indeed.

Oh look a NIMBY that doesn’t want the poor people to have a home near CV their exclusive village

Did you vote Labour? They were very clear on this, if nothing else. A friend was ranting about huge developments planned for near her, how they’d be losing the fields and views, the pressure on schools, roads and healthcare. She voted Labour, she knew this was on the cards, she didn’t imagine it world affect her area.

The real issue is second homes (either long term buy to let’s or holiday homes), and people living in houses far bigger than they need.

In a few decades our population will have shrunk and we’ll have far too many houses and not enough green space.

But then equally people need somewhere to live now. Give your feedback on the consultation and encourage others to do similar.

Huh? Unless the house builders are involved in some epic scale money laundering, then they are building because they can and do sell. And they make a profit. Which means there must be demand.

It’s killing the local housing market though

And the real reason comes out.

Oh no people won’t be able to make hundreds of thousands of pounds in profit just from purchasing a home anymore.

To add to my first post it’s not necessarily more houses in general that are needed, it’s affordable housing.

I’d much rather they build less houses but have them all be affordable, than build lots of houses and only have some be affordable.

You do know how economies of scale work, right? You can’t build a few of anything and expect it to be low cost.

Who mentioned poor people? Not OP. If you already can’t get your kids into the local school or an appointment with the GP it’s very sensible to worry about loads of new houses springing up with no new infrastructure to support it and nature being destroyed along the way.

How many of the new houses will even be available to poor people?

I think the phrase is Not In My Back Yard.

Exactly. Someone I know told me that their single friend was unable to downsize when moving from their 4 bed home, because they needed a spare guest room, the other bedroom as a home office and the third as bonus storage. Sorry, what?!?! This made me livid.

What makes you livid about someone owning a house and choosing to live in it? Are you the bedroom police.

This place is honestly weird beyond weird.

When you're used to living in a village of 2,000 people, and the thought of that population more than doubling, yes, it is terrifying. I am someone who prefers the quiet life, hence why I've not moved to live in the middle of a city centre.

Yup

It's worrying

And in a tiny island

There are simply too many people

I find it surprising when people say things that suggest the UK lacks green space. A few moments looking at Google maps satellite imagery shows that the UK has vast quantities of green space.

I mean it’s almost like you’re trying to find a reason for your nimbyism by putting in ludicrous and illogical caveats

Building fewer houses will not make housing cheaper.
Building more homes makes it more economically viable to sell those homes at a lower price and more properties on the market will reduce the demand therefore reducing the cost.

The solution would have been to allow 5-10% development annually across the rural communities and gradually allow for school extensions and road upgrades

What they have all done is ignore the need and that’s why we are now faced with large scale builds and vast estates.

The issue is whatever they do there will always be objections and now the huge house builders can throw the bribes at the councils so they will all get approvals.

Im Rural and in a conservation area and we have just been told there are 28+ homes needed in our village in the 3-5 years. Not one of us can actually work out where these homes will be going, but I’m sure a local farmer will oblige. I wouldn’t mind in the slightest if I meant my DS could stay locally but I’m going to hazard a guess the “affordable” homes will be over £450k and they will only build 2-4 of them as a sweetener.

it’s not so much the building that bothers me it’s the fact that we are overrun by big cheap developers, where a few nice self builds would be perfect.

Typical NIMBY attitude. What is your solution OP?

Labour despises the countryside and everything about rural life.

They are hellbent on destroying it. Houses, huge solar farms and anything on land but growing food is the objective.

Thanks for your predictable, highly-informed contribution to this discussion. 🙄

I think you'll find that one of the developers has previously submitted plans where they're wanting to build hundreds of market value 3-4 bedroom houses, rather than affordable houses. So they're not houses for 'poor' people by any stretch of the imagination.

Labour's numbers are totally unworkable. Developers don't want to build 'affordable homes'. So we're just losing land for houses that most people can't afford anyway. But hey, at least some might have solar panels! 😂

I have one. Air b&b s get taxed hugely, as do second homes, as do properties left empty more than 12 months. Frees up huge numbers of houses. Purpose built retirement properties for people in social housing frees up houses whilst allowing older social housed people to down size (remember a lot of this development the op is talking about will be "executive" 4 and 5 bed houses as this clearly will be a desirable area) these social houses could be in purpose built apartments or on plots with smaller arrdens, hence more building density....the bedroom tax didn't work, this might

secondly, there is a need to 're-look at the number of people who need houses against where housing is available. That is, there are places in the UK where demand is low and housing is cheap because of deindustrialisation. The levelling up of these areas which has been promised for years will attract people, especially with the increased numbers working from home.

If I give an example...in Bristol 30 years ago, the bedminster and southville areas were run down with an aging housing stock...because Bristol is an attractive place, people bought them, the area improved with bars, cafes, independent shops, theatres and is now very desirable...if we create that desirability in other places then it can be replicated