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.

Not affordable housing, just more housing in general. People living here don’t want any more houses - everyone opposes them at the consultation stage. Makes no difference though, they go ahead. Schools are already full, the roads aren’t equipped to deal with the increased traffic and the shops with car park stopped being fit for purpose at least 3 new housing estates ago. Increased crime/ anti social behaviour aren’t an issue though.

another problem is that people don't live in the same sized groups either anymore. Marriages break down and families split meaning 2 homes are needed to house people who would've previously shared the same one
(and that would have been smaller in size generally and could also have housed older relatives as well ). it is also seen as being undesirable for children to.share bedrooms as well now so.peoples expectations of the kind of house they want is v different these days. All of this impacts on the amount of homes needed and the land required to build them.

@flapjackfairy Divorce and parents separating is a real driver of upward house prices. Many seek two family homes. Loads of single people does the same. Many families are not having even 2 dc now but although people hate families having second homes when still married they don’t see it as the same issue when divorce is the reason for two family homes. This certainly drives the need for houses.

@TizerorFizz But don't they have to have enough room surrounding the building that it would be enough space for houses? That's what I've always thought anyway.

But don't they have to have enough room surrounding the building that it would be enough space for houses? That's what I've always thought anyway.

Basically, you mean, "by the time you've factored in the amount of space that has to be left empty around each tall building, you might as well have built houses"--that kind of idea?

I've heard that logic but have a hard time believing it, to be honest! I live in an apartment block (in Tokyo) that has 700 (!) units in it (we are 37 storeys high). If I look at our plot, including the plaza area thing that surrounds the building itself, there is absolutely no way whatsoever you would get 700 houses there; by my calculations, you could get about 50 max if you allowed no garden at all. Maybe 40 if you offered a useless hankie-sized garden.

The space at the bottom of our building is bollarded and car-free, and it's where all the kids whizz around on bikes and scooters and engage in street play and so on, so I'm happy and think the space serves a purpose. I have a few friends here who live in skinny townhouses with a tiny hankie garden, and they all have to take their kids to the park anyway because very small gardens are mostly pointless for kids to play in IME.

None of which is an argument for putting tall blocks of flats in villages, needless to say - they are inherently suited to urban areas near train/Underground stations.

I'm not sure where you're planning to move to if you sell up OP. We've had a population larger than the size of Liverpool moving to the UK every single year, for decades now. People need to live somewhere. 'Sleepy villages' will soon be a thing of the past in the UK.

@GreenTeaLikesMe probably one of those things that they started off doing and didn't bother with when they thought they could make/save some money. You know, like using dodgy cladding 😠

@MidnightMeltdown Maybe some sleepy villages will go big where I line very msny are intact with no building at all. You can buy in national parks and AONB with little chance of development. Depends how far you want to go, and definitely how much you want to spend. As I said earlier the over £1m semi where I live!

It’s pretty much set out where there will be development. I know where the development plan says and it’s mostly towns here not in AONB. Restrictions in AONB have pushed far more development into non protected areas. It’s not shared around!

Elsewhere I do know of large developments planned for large villages. The LA will be planning new school or extensions on existing one. We have a RAF site due to close a few miles from us. It’s Brown field so will be developed. It is already! In addition to mod houses it’s got acres of workshops, offices and even playing fields. A new school is planned. Surely that’s better than using fields? It’s attached to a village and no doubt they aren’t happy but the protected land adjacent to the RAF site remains protected but the village isn’t designated as AONB.

If people who live in villages would rather not have so much development there (and I do concur to an extent, for reasons I stated upthread to do with the cost of trying to provide services in sprawly rural areas), it would be better to support denser brownfield development in towns.

However, this means everyone needs to be grownup about using cars less in cities (rural dwellers, for example, might need to get more into habits like parking in park-n-rides and using trains/trams/buses to get into the center of town when they want to go there). Because a) brownfield building tends to mean that all the car parks get built on; b) people who live in dense urban areas without much access to cars will rightly and reasonable want car traffic controlled in their new neighborhoods, because they will want streets that are safe for them to ride bikes etc., and because nobody wants to live in a place that is being used as a thoroughfare for other people's cars.

@TizerorFizz this is true, also around the big land owning estates - there are lots of these still - who don't want to sell land. Relatively small family farm land is where these mini estates in villages are coming from. They will run out of this land too. We need more brownfield and post industrial building but it costs the developers more.

@CountryCob Of course it costs more! That’s why it’s not done as much as it should be. Eventually the home owner pays. That’s ok in high price areas where it can be absorbed but in lower priced areas, it can be a price hike too far. Ditto all the environmental and road alterations that are needed. Developers will push for the easy sites that they can sell at a price they know buyers can afford. Maybe we need a fund to clean up brownfield sites that is funded by the government? LAs should bid for it when they establish housing need and brownfield sites are the best solution.

Planning permission is supposed to be presumed on brownfield sites but that’s not working. LAs don’t have an inventory of them.

This new report here is relevant. Yes, it's about cars specifically, but it also talks about the increasing shift of housing towards rural areas.

Trapped behind the wheel | New Economics Foundation

Over the past few decades, new housing developments have become more not less car-dependent, with the increase in car dependency being particularly marked after 2018. We are going in the wrong direction.

Around 1 in 4 new homes is built in a rural area, even though currently 1 in 6 of the population lives in such areas.

As I said upthread, I am not interested in playing tiny violins for rich people in posh villages who suddenly have to share with the plebs (I don't actually care very much about them, and I don't live in the UK any more and wouldn't live in a rural area if you paid me, so this is not about me and my personal interests).

I do care about the long term consequences of creating a population that is more straggling and decentralized, because of the much higher cost of delivering services to them. The cost of, say, taxiing a child to a special school from a rural area is eye-watering. Ditto the increased cost of trying to provide social care in these areas. There are people on here saying "You need to expand the road network if you are going to house all these people in villages," but how is building and maintaining all that extra road going to be paid for, and dealing with all the extra potholes? And so on. Even bins and lighting are more expensive to provide in these kinds of areas.

It's mad that councils are going out of their way to expand rural housing for people who are likely to need a lot of expensive government services in years to come.

@GreenTeaLikesMe You are missing the huge point about where land is available! There could be some brownfield sites in cities but not enough.

Most developing is actually attached to towns. Not villages. Certainly not small villages. There is development around transport hubs and, for example, there’s lot of development planned around East/West rail around 50 miles north of London in a fairly big arc. However there are services already and just need expansion.

Rural areas have never had special schools. There are new secondary and primary schools though in what were previously quite small towns. There’s a growing population and built up towns can often only expand into nearby villages. Most people in those villages are not happy! The truth is there is no easy answer and we aren’t going without cars any time soon.

Maybe in some areas, particularly south east and midlands. But not everywhere.

If it is quality of life you are after, move north. A long way north. Over a border.

No. We have not had net migration at 450,000 a year for decades. Thats total rubbish. It has only surpassed that very recently.

This is why a new ring road around a market town filled with housing estates is the lesser if 2 ecological evils. At least they stand a chance of accessing public transport or being able to walk to work. In certain European countries the LA buy suitable land in bulk for agricultural value put in necessary infrastructure and then sell the land on to developers to fund the costs incurred. That is what town planning looks like. And some of the larger estates building walkable areas with services. Some of these estates don't even have pavements outside. There is greenbelt agricultural land closer to cities.

@CountryCob Some small Housing Associations only buy at agricultural values. The one that builds here does that. However not estates. Just infil of a few houses in small villages for local people. The scheme depends on the landowners not being able to get pp easily and actually being decent people! Larger LAs don’t have the funds for this. However most new roads are partially developed funded. I also think infil within a ring road is a better model but it’s often farmland. There’s just no easy answer.

I think migration will peak and go down for a number of reasons, and (not to be horrible but) deaths among the boomer generation will start to go up gradually. The population will probably start declining from the late 30s or so. But in the meantime....it's true we need an awful lot of units.

I just wish the UK would dump greenbelt laws and shift towards transit corridors instead ("build urban rail/trams, and then anywhere within walking distances of a station or stop is easy to build on, anywhere NOT within walking distance is really hard to build on," roughly speaking). It is a good rule already in use in many European countries, and it helps to ensure that transport-housing is joined up, makes sense and doesn't result in clogged roads, parking mayhem, and boring isolated housing areas where there is nothing for teenagers to do and they need to be driven absolutely everywhere.

Brownfield development needs to be made quicker and cheaper by slashing red tape. At the moment, brownfield development is expensive in part because of daft rules which over-protect wildlife in these areas - ridiculous amounts of surveys and adjustments because of worries about bats and newts in these brownfield sites. The actual outcome of these well-intentioned laws is that brownfield development becomes expensive and hard, and builders decide to carve open green fields around villages instead, concreting meadows and requiring loads of additional road space and car use, which of course is far, far more ecologically destructive. It's ridiculous - a perfect example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

@GreenTeaLikesMe Developers do not decide where developments go! It is local and area development plans that should be finding land. They have been drawn up by local panels and planners and there are consultation periods. Often newcomers have no idea of this process. A plan with no housing allocation, in a non restricted area, won’t get government approval. One issue we’ve had is that in trying to protect areas such as green belt and AONB, all the development is pushed into smaller areas instead of it being shared out. If there’s no plan for housing, then developers can speculate. It’s foolish not to have a plan.

Brownfield sites might have bats and newts. The cost of cleaning up annd demolishing factories and chemicals is a much bigger issue. You would be surprised that often locals don’t want even brownfield sites redeveloped! There is a presumption they will be but LAs are very slow to agree to this,

Around my LA, we do have restrictions on building in the AONB and green belt. We are not even allowed any new homes where I live. However north of me is the East/West rail project from Oxford to Bedford and all the development is around the stations. That’s the point of it. The last government axed the new road planned as an additional link. The idea is to force people onto the rail but cycle ways are built to the stations (we will see if they get used - they don’t now). So there is some integrated planning and certainly where I’m aware of larger development, cycle routes and the norm now. But - trains don’t go everywhere! They are linear and the destinations of residents isn’t. The big issue is actually lack of a supermarket in the town I grew up in on this route. Locals got difficult with Tesco so there’s nothing. Everyone gets the car out or deliveries. It’s foolish to have a town with a secondary school but no supermarket!