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?

You're probably far less likely to notice developments in a city than you are in a semi-rural area, though.

Apologies in advance for my naivety on the subject, but why don't we build entire new towns, new railway links, new hospitals, schools, doctors, shopping centres?
As I understand it, there is lots of space to build, but instead of building new cities, or improving the infrastructure, we tag a few thousand more properties onto areas which are already struggling with school places, A&E queues across the carpark, getting a doctors/dentists appt, traffic delays due to sheer volume of traffic are commonplace, and then we do very little if anything to improve the infrastructure, leaving people feeling resentful and vulnerable to nostalgia of a time and place from yesteryear and its here where we look to blame someone, anyone for the deterioration in our lives and in our quest to blame someone, racism rears it's ugly head again.

Many people don't see building more and more houses as beneficial to the country anymore. They see it as a never ending process where we will never have enough houses, and we'll just continue building until we have no land left to build on, and the infrastructure won't support all of the people. We already have a NHS crisis, a social care crisis, a dental crisis, a housing crisis, an education crisis.
Please would someone explain to me how adding more and more homes and therefore more and more people without a huge investment in will alleviate these crises, or are we hoping that a significant proportion of these families are not going to use the services so as to not put any extra strain on the already struggling services? 🤔

Apologies for my lack of knowledge on the subject but I'm hoping to learn something useful about what options are available and what they look like.

Yanbu Op. Makes me want to cry too. Our precious countryside is being destroyed, exacerbating the climate and nature emergencies and making people ever more cut off from the natural world. A major problem is that housebuilders make a.lot more money out of these green field sites where they can advertise a countryside location. And that most of the houses aren't actually affordable for first time buyers, instead they are 4-5 bedroom houses which do nothing to fix the crisis in affordable housing.

You're probably far less likely to notice developments in a city than you are in a semi-rural area, though.

Nope, I've definitely noticed how much Vauxhall has changed 😆

I also live in a village of about 2,000 people. We just had 47 new houses built which I was one of the few voices in favour of, especially when the revised plans increased the number of affordable ones. It was a sensible decision and doesn't at all negatively impact the village.

What I am vehemently against, as were thousands local residents are the plans that have just been approved for our nearest town with hundreds of flats being built on an area that is a huge social space, recently restored. One massive block was built in the last few years and is at about 10% occupancy and yet apparently we need hundreds more flats for nobody to buy and for a beautiful bit of outdoor seaside land full of bars and food outlets with individual character to be turned into an indoor, souless shopping centre.

Because the people in charge of running the country in parliament and Whitehall are thick, corrupt bastards. That’s not meant as insult, just an objective observation.

Yanbu Op. Makes me want to cry too. Our precious countryside is being destroyed, exacerbating the climate and nature emergencies and making people ever more cut off from the natural world

Would you live in smaller home so that other people could live there without creating a bigger footprint?

If you haven't figured it out, the rich people move out of the cities into these new homes.

And their old homes in the cities are used to house poor people as no one wants to live there as they are wrecked,.

Finally, the voice of reason.

This is a side-effect of increasing life expectancy. I have several 85+ relatives, all living in 4-5 bed houses. A generation ago, people lived shorter lives so those houses would be for younger families.

People don't want to downsize or move to a retirement complex, so houses need to be built for their grandchildren to have families.

This is a side-effect of increasing life expectancy. I have several 85+ relatives, all living in 4-5 bed houses. A generation ago, people lived shorter lives so those houses would be for younger families.

Yep although people want to just blame it on immigration...

There was supposed to be a big development in our village. But it looks like its been blocked "temporarily" by National Highways as apparently the motorway network can't cope... they have to improve the motorway junction (or add an extra one) before anymore large scale development.

It was a brownfield site. People didn't mind the houses as such... but the schools are full, you can't get a dentist, the doctor is over run etc. If services improved, there would be more support. Even something like a Lidl would help.

The road network is genuinely insufficient... there's a major tourist attraction and the queue on a summer day back up for over a mile!

Houses are more important to the country than you being able to see owls and deers like you're in a Disney movie or something.

A tiny percentage of this country is built on, let's get building houses and infrastructure stat.

Both things can be true. Every time a million people (net) arrive they are going to need a few hundred thousand homes.

There seems to be an oversupply of little one bed flats near where I live with no outdoor space. Many of the scarce detached homes are therefore too expensive so they are bought by developers and then bulldozed or converted into flats/HMOs. They are always bought eventually so someone is buying them, but it seems a shame that there aren’t more 3 bed properties available that would suit a greater range of buyers and renters. I think we’ll end up with too many tiny homes and miserable people in years to come.

I do understand that empty nesters might want to stay in the area they are familiar with and with their GP, hospital, friends close by and so on. However, I wonder if the Government gave generous incentives to encourage such people with big houses and gardens to downsize, would that encourage some to move on?

Off the top of my head, and not worked out at all, but I'd be thinking 50% subsidy on legal fees, no SDLT, subsidies for removal of goods, things like that. But only if they move to a smaller home suitable for the size of their household. There could be massive building of bungalows or two story apartments with nice balconies and communal gardens. Oh I don't know, I realise that people can become very attached to their homes and community. I am just thinking out loud here.

What’s your solution. My house was a brownfield development, ex industrial area but we only have so much of that available. Most people want houses, everyone wants parking - we need to build them somewhere. We have more households than ever before and it’s not just immigration, it’s divorce/ living in single adult households that’s the main driver of it alongside people living longer. Where I am there are 27k people in a place that had just 6k 20 years ago!

Do you have a source for a million net migration?

Another issue that hasn’t been mentioned is the increase in university students, lots of houses in my local area have because student housing or converted into student flats and I’d be surprised if that was a problem specific to my area.

I really understand where you're coming from and empathise. But...... England's green and pleasant lands are where people want to be. It's also cheaper to build on this land than it is to redevelop industrial sites.

It's the same in Scotland too.

Something like 90% of the land in England undeveloped. https://fullfact.org/economy/has-92-country-not-been-built/

Green space on your doorstep disappearing does not equal green space in the UK dwindling to nothing.

However, I wonder if the Government gave generous incentives to encourage such people with big houses and gardens to downsize, would that encourage some to move on?

Why should there be incentives? The country is broke and many will have plenty of equity.

Some of them shouldn’t be here and need to leave the UK but actually getting rid if them is another matter

Both things can be true

I never said immigration hasn't contributed to population increase, I just said people living longer is also a factor.

It all started going downhill when you allowed them to build 'New Road' OP.

Now there will be twelvty thousand homes, right on your doorstep.