If you live in a leafy village, has new affordable housing negatively changed your area

[Yesimanimby]

Almost 1,000 new homes are being built in fields surrounding our semi-rural, leafy village. The new homes will become part of the village, doubling the size it is now.

Atm we have hardly any affordable or social housing here, nor flats. The new development will be 30% affordable housing with blocks of flats in a prominent position at the village entrance.

I appreciate there's a housing shortage and new homes, especially affordable and social housing, are needed.

Up until now it's been quiet (sleepy) here and with a very low crime rate. Public transport links are terrible and will remain poor.

We won't be directly backing onto the new homes but everything is within easy walking distance.

DH and I are debating whether to move as it's very likely to change the nature of the place we've enjoyed for many years.

If you've had a big development like this on your doorstep - either newly-built or older, what has been the impact?
Pros and cons, although I'm probably more interested in the downsides as that will tip the balance on whether to sell up.

I live in a leafy village, surrounded by other leafy villages, interspersed with bypasses going through. There has been plenty of new housing development round here, and it has had a considerable negative impact on the area.

Almost none of it is 'affordable' housing, unfortunately. The overwhelming majority are 3-4 bed semis and detached commuter homes.

There is a severe shortage of affordable housing for young people in this relatively rural / edge of commuterland area.

Why would you even begin to think that young people (born and bred in the area and needing somewhere affordable to live) might cause issues for you?

I'm on a Facebook group for a similar new development, a little further away but still quite close. It's evident from the posts there that there's an element of antisocial behaviour on the streets that simply doesn't happen where we are now - cars being keyed, feral teenagers stealing from gardens - you get the drift.
That's what concerns me - I'm interested in hearing the experience of other people who've also had recent big new developments nearby, good and bad.

What has been the negative impact for you?

Run.

Run like hell.

It changes everything I'm afraid.

Crime rockets up, the social contract is generally ripped up, and everyone starts caring far less about the area so also increased antisocial behaviour.

Infrastructure is NEVER added as promised so there is increased pressure on local schools, dentists and GP surgeries.

And that is only the first 1000 hones. There will be more added. And more after that. Once one lot os approved the rest come thick and fast.

I’d move simple because of the 3 years of disruption from building, then as PP said, maybe 3 more.

Thanks. You've articulated my fears. We need to think hard about where we run to as many other areas are seeing the same kind of big developments.

I'm confused...you are asking OP why she "would even be able to think" a big housing development might cause issues for her as if this is completely ridiculous having just said a big housing development has had "a considerable negative impact" on your area?

In terms of the "affordable" housing on OP's development, every new build estate has to have at least 10% but in most areas it's much higher, so there can't actually be that much difference between whatever was built in yours and the proposed development near hers. "Affordable" housing also sometimes doesn't end up being that "affordable" - e.g. with maintenance and grounds fees the flats could end up costing the same as a house per month, and there's usually no guarantee that they will be reserved for people "born and bred" in the area.

In any case it sounds like OP's concern is less about who will be living in the new houses than the fact they will be there at all, and it's fairly obvious that usually big building developments do only bring negatives - more people trying to use already stretched facilities (roads, doctors, etc.) Lots of noise - first through the building work and then when a village of 6000 triples to 18000. Increased crime.

The only possible potential benefits to the people already living there are if the new development includes plans for public services that people in the existing area lack (e.g. new school, GP surgery, shops, public transport), or if for example the local school was due for closure due to low pupil numbers but the new build would bring sufficient pupils. Doesn't sound like that is planned for OP.

Other than that ideally you could argue that several hundred new houses all paying council tax would benefit the council who might spend the money in that area - but tbh that's unlikely and it will all just go into the general 'pot' and be spent on social services.

I'd tend to move, too.

I wish there was a way for this development to be spread around equally, like 30/50 new homes per village, enough to maybe save the village school; but successive governments are in thrall to I think 6 big house builders who are only interested in the easiest wins; who won't consider anything less than 500 little boxes.

But, sadly I think the situation in England is so skewed, so much political power and wealth is in the hands of ever fewer, it'll take decades before we see a sea change.

Yes and all negative as far as I can see. We’ve had a similar amount of houses built with a few hundred more planned. There is only one road out the village onto the main road so the traffic queues are horrendous. School is full, struggle to get a GP appt. We have a small pharmacy in the village and they said to me the other day they’re running 5 days behind processing prescriptions because they can’t keep up. I’m in the centre of the old village and there’s groups of kids hanging around being noisy late at night, non stop cars parking outside my house to nip to the village shop.

Yes it changes the nature of the place.

As someone has said, starting at £500k they are hardly Affordable. So they’ve mainly been bought up by Air B&B investors.

You see people walking from the train station because there are hardly any taxis.

Air B&B has also changed our culture enormously. Most of the time is loud badly behaved groups.

I

Yes, changed our small town. Anti-social behaviour, issues in the schools, allocations to social housing for those with societal issues which really need support and are just left and causing issues locally. Congestion from cars and parking is just mad! Vandalism, particularly on cars has significantly increased. All services are sinking as no extra GP, school places.

Along from where I live they have built an estate of affordable housing, i.e. Housing Association. The police are never away from there.

I struggle to see the benefits to anyone living there already - double the population, no easy transport links, and no plans to upgrade the infrastructure of the area to cope with the influx? Sounds awful, frankly.

So a significantly sized additional.development will change the area. How much deonds on whether they become a separate village with their own facilities or combine with yours. But, yes, there will.be an impact.

Ask local council(or) to provide answers on infrastructure planning like gp school etc.

Not a leafy village but a small town where all the surrounding farm land that had lovely PROW walks have been eaten up by huge developments and even more are forecast, every last green space is being taken up and even centre of town small business plots have had new builds squeezed on them.
The biggest problem is infrastructure - ours were built in stages by different developers so it seems none of them had to provide anything to get built.
The GP is insanely difficult since the new builds went up and is looking to move out of the town centre to expand which means it won't be walkable (or accessible by the crap public transport in our area) for anyone.
We have a weird cross road style junction at the main through road of our town and it has become ridiculously congested since there's now 1000s more cars navigating it at peak hours.
The town centre is also impossible to drive around because there's really limited parking so everyone parks on double yellows but its a narrow road so it holds up traffic massively.
Currently the school still has spaces but only because lots of people send their kids private or to the smaller surrounding village schools - I imagine it's going to get harder though.

Where I live has doubled in size in 15 years, through houses being built on gartden ground, a specific affordable housing scheme, and a new build estate.

There's been no increase in services or facilities in the village. But the GP surgery is pretty good, you're not waiting weeks.for an appointment, and the primary school probably better for being bigger, and affected no worse by funding cuts than it would've been anyway (was 60 pupils when we moved to the area, now 130). There's no nursery, but a good few volunteer-committe led clubs and activities.
I'm not aware of much incrrase in crime, although there are more issues with anti-social behaviour and bored teens, just because there are more of them and most people don't know everyone!

Live in a similar place and already have 500 of the 1000 houses that are built and in all honesty , it's ruined it for us. We're from London and moved because of the crime rate etc and it's slowly creeping up here. 2 murders from stabbing in the past 3 months alone. It's very scary. Drug dealers are on the rise here too which is something else we moved because off. It's still not as bad as London..but heading that way. We're skeptical to move as these new housing estates are popping up everywhere all the time and worried we will move and same will happen in a few years time.

I was about to say, the problem is all of these lovely small villages are going to also have large developments if not all ready in planning then will come soon.
It unfortunately does and will change what sounds like a lovely place you live

I think it depends who the social housing is being prioritised for. If you’re near a hospital or care home or prison it will be mostly key workers which is fine - we have two massive council estates near me (10-20min walk) full of carers. Except for a load more cyclists we haven’t seen any changes to the area.

Villages, unless there are lots of amenities and walking distance to a city, don’t tend to be where LEAs house non-working people but maybe you can talk to the council about what kinds of people they hope to attract to the estate to reassure you? It should be in the plans.

Why would Air B&B investors want a £500k house? Just curious.

You’re better off moving to an established city suburb area. It sounds obvious but if you’re walking distance from several schools, have no ‘spare land’ / views, then the area often pushes out council housing organically.

I moved from a small village (with v few facilities but at least was pretty and surrounded by fields) before they built 500 new houses a few hundred metres away from our house. The traffic was already terrible and I was not sitting around waiting for it to get worse.

Exact same problem here

Yes, it is a lovely place, boring but green with access to decent shops within a few miles.

Can I also say though, the reason these small sleepy villages are changing is not all to do with the affordable housing, a lot of the affordable housing (in my experience anyway) is going to people who are local and have been brought up in these places. What's changing these places is people moving from big cities for "the life in the country" because their money goes further and they can have much larger houses in these sleepy villages than in the cities but these people have no idea and don't want to know how country life really works and so are changing our small country villages