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?

Unless Rayner compulsory purchases .

Did anyone see the documentary last night about the floods last year in Spain, contributed by building on flood plains.

I just read your comment and I went to do a very fast and short research and I found that Labour really wants to force people to sell farmland for housing.

Sorry, but this idea from Angela Rayner to force landowners to sell off farmland for housing is an absolute mess waiting to happen.

Yes, we do need more housing – no one's arguing with that – but trying to solve it by grabbing productive farmland at below-market rates? That's just short-sighted and frankly a bit reckless.

First off, we can’t keep paving over the land that actually feeds us. The UK already imports a massive chunk of its food. Reducing farmland makes us more vulnerable to global supply chain shocks (which, let’s be honest, we’ve had more than enough of lately).

Second, it’s a huge erosion of basic property rights. If the government starts saying “we’ve decided your land is now worth less and you must sell it to us”, what’s next? Smallholders, family farms – they’ll all be treated like they’re just hoarding land, when in reality, they’re out there in all weather trying to keep rural life going.

And what even is "lower value"? Agricultural value before planning permission? It’s a legal quagmire waiting to happen. The only winners here are the developers who get cheap land. Councils are still underfunded. Rural communities lose out. Again.

Why not start by fixing the broken planning system and building on the masses of brownfield land we’ve got sitting unused in towns and cities? According to CPRE, there’s space for over a million homes on land that’s already suitable – no need to bulldoze fields.

Tarring all landowners with the same brush like they’re all aristocrats sitting on thousands of acres is wildly unfair. Most are just normal people who’ve farmed the same land for generations.

Honestly, if Labour wants to lose the countryside completely, this is the way to do it.

No wonder, Reform is going to grow even more in the next elections.