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 British homes do you think foreign companies are buying?
Foreign investors tend to be involved in property in expensive, soulless new build towers in the city, Vauxhall, Stratford, Greenwich. They are extremely high end developments and it has nothing to do with Paul & Sharon buying a 3 bed semi in the midlands.

Well it’s almost half as much as your made up one.

I’m another who lives in a small village with no amenities, or shop, very limited bus services . Dr is 4 villages away. The village next to us, continues to get more and more houses with the same lack of amenities. We get flooding every year because of houses built further up the hill. We only have 300 houses but have added 30+ in the last couple of years. Sewerage is failing, flooding. lack of school places in a very large catchment area, so to the OP, I share your concerns. Developers are getting an easy ride with the new Govt. Out of the new houses, the few social houses have been filled which is great but several of the houses are over £1m. Unsurprisingly they haven’t sold.

So a lot of those labelled Nimby aren’t necessarily so, we just need the infrastructure to support the growth. Theoretically, larger developments should bring these extra amenities and infrastructure but they rarely do.

I have already addressed both these points.

Maybe it once was a field - however, that doesn't escape the fact that we have significantly less space to build now. Just building millions more houses for ten, 15, 25 years is totally unsustainable. We don't have infinite space.

And yes, for me personally, it is terrifying to have thousands more people (a good proportion of whom will undoubtedly make the area significantly worse through crime, antisocial behaviour, etc etc) when you're used to a relatively small, tight-knit community.

But, as I say, I don't expect everyone (and particularly those who've always lived in an urban area) to understand this.

I’m sick of seeing good agricultural land with fertile soil built on, whilst brownfield land is left derelict. We need something called a land use framework to decide collectively what goes where, balancing the need to produce food, timber, fibre, biofuel, with housing, rewilding, recreation land, etc.

We dont have a shortage of housing actually we have a shortage of affordable housing, thats the problem.

The problem with building vast housing is that they dont build more schools, dentists and doctors surgeries, there is no infrastructure around them, the roads on estates arent big enough so people end up parking half on the pavement, theres no cycle routes and often no pavemenrts from estate to estate (I drove past one recently which came off an A road with no pavements, fast road, no public transport on it). No shops or amenities nearby.

they won’t build on all the sites put forward. It’s normal for a council to do am’call for sites’ exercise and see who puts what forward. Then a lot of assessment of the land goes on and it has to meet certain criteria, plus they will also understand how many houses pa they need to build

There should a total ban on airbnb model in residential areas in cities. Second homes should be rented out or occupied at least 50% / 60% of the year, or else heavily taxed. Ban on people buying from abroad where the property will not be their main residence or rented as above. There should be a temporary stop on building any "executive" type housing on green field sites. Incentives should be given for regenerating brown field sites instead - looking at run down high streets and adapting for living/services. Decent apartment blocks built with some outside space. I grew up on an estate built after the war where a primary school, church and shops were foreseen as part of the development and the country had fuck all money then.

The development close to us included a fantastic secondary school that we are making us of, additional local green spaces and much needed local amenities.

There are going to be great improvements to the local transport infrastructure.
Some pubs and restaurants no longer have to close because of increased business.

It has brought more diversity, more people some of whom are lovely into a much needed stuck in the past not in my back yard area.

We need a bit of hope for the youngsters in this country, they need jobs and options, transport links for independence and yes an option to buy a house of their own.

House prices need to drop, that is why houses are not selling at the moment, drop the price and they will sell, before the hiked interest rates people were stretching themselves beyond what was reasonable for a balanced life to just live. They still are. People working hard a 40 hour or more week and still worrying about their children needing new school shoes, is that right?

This obsession that houses are there to make money and not be homes is so much part of the problem.

You may have to look a bit further to walk in nature OP like many already have to do.

Make sure the developers add value to their development.

The affordable housing for families they are building near me are flats with no outdoor space, not even balconies, in the middle of sprawling matchbox estates with tiny gardens. Hardly makes for an ideal childhood. Meanwhile all the boomers have their sprawling estates in the countryside.

And bingo the ageist card

I don't have an issue with the housebuilding itself more the lack of infrastructure. I hate that developers are not held to account and planners just sign off. I live in a village and in heavy rain we get raw sewage flow down the main street. School kids get covered in it on the school run. Yet every development in the village gets rejected by our local authority but then signed off by a planning inspector who works 80 miles away. We already have to use a doctors surgery in a neighbouring town and the secondary school is already on the limit for places.

I highly recommend this book, written by a barrister who specialises in housing/ homelessness law, which argues that building more homes is not the solution to the UK’s housing crisis;

www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/23/against-landlords-by-nick-bano-review-valuable-ideas-for-how-to-solve-britains-housing-crisis

And they're making it harder and more expensive to drive, so won't even be able to access the ever-dwindling countryside that way soon (unless you're rich). The masses blocked into their 15-minute city, attached to a computer. But it's what people are voting for, so presumably it's the future most people want for their kids. I feel sad I had an outdoorsy childhood, I rather wish I didn't know what was being lost.

The vast majority of land in the UK is agricultural. Massively so. People need somewhere to live and we need somewhere to put scaled up cheap clean energy.

Things people don't discuss

Second homes

Student housing

Airbnb

There is significant foreign investment in housing in popular rural areas actually.

Well what do you think the land where your house is was like before your house was built?

Brownfield sites developed first

Homes that have been empty for years (how many? possibly 5 )should become the property of the council to be sold to people but only if used for long term housing

People should get even better tax breaks for letting out spare bedrooms

Holiday homes should be banned

AirBnB should be taxed at much higher rates

Would be interesting to see how much of that "agricultural" is unusable though eg hills / highlands unable to be built upon in massive areas of Scotland and Wales. Hence why they keep building in same places and taking greenbelt away. It's like we learnt nothing about the importance of outside space in Covid.

Oh do back up your claim then.

Okay, I’ll help.

governmentbusiness.co.uk/news/22112022/report-highlights-lack-foreign-investment-rural-areas

Yes, but at such a big scale? That land isn't finite.

What happens in 20 years when we suddenly don't have enough space to grow food to support everyone who lives here? Or entire species that are at risk of extinction due to the loss of habitat?

It's not sustainable. We need a sensible conversation about how many people this country can realistically support. Because we're probably approaching a tipping point.

It's not sustainable. We need a sensible conversation about how many people this country can realistically support. Because we're probably approaching a tipping point.

We have an ageing population with already more over 65s than under 15s so without immigration I guess it's assisted dying?

And for 2023 it was 906,000 so what is your point exactly?

I am so sorry for all the children growing up who won't know the beauty of the British countrysid

Young people aren't even having dc in part because of housing costs...