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.

Leave now, sorry OP. I don’t live in a little village but a small town. And it was only 600 houses. The GP surgery couldn’t cope, even before covid. The traffic is ridiculous at rush hour. The town became too big for the small supermarket to cope so we are now getting a big shopping complex (pros and cons I guess). The new builds have lots of loud kids in the roads as there are lots of closes and the gardens are tiny. It also takes longer to walk out of the town to get to somewhere green as there’s an extra few streets of houses to walk down.

You've pretty much described my village situation. We've had 250 within the village and 1000 within walking distance. It hasn't brought the woe the villagers predicted. In fact the vast majority of PTA volunteers have come from the new builds! It's brought investment in the form of community facilities, upgrades to the school etc. Crime is predominantly auto crime (cars and vans) and only on the new developments. Many people have Ring doorbells so the perpetrators get caught but unfortunately they are let out to rob again The criminals come from the long established areas of the nearby town rather than 30% affordable home grown criminals.

The only downside is 50% of the school is pupil premium and 30% EHCP (additional needs). This means there is quite a lot of challenging behaviour in the classes. However they are growing the staff capabilities to manage it better.

Omg you sound a massive snob. Your post is basically saying affordable housing = criminals moving in 🙄
Where exactly do you think key workers like nurses, teachers etc (who arent paid enough to buy a property in many affluent areas, unless their partner is a high earner) live?
To be honest it sounds like you and your snobbery are what spoils the area - young families bring children and laughter and fun to villages full of gloomy old folk, what's not to like

It has completely ruined my village. Ruined it. My local woods have been hacked down to make way for two massive new estates, including blocks of flats, and a second massive estate has been built at the other end of the village. You’d think that would be enough, but no. We’ve now heard that the fields in the centre of the village are going to be built on. And the main road into town is going to have an extra five hundred houses built along it as well. That road is clogged with traffic now, so what the hell is it going to be like when an extra 500 cars are added? Anyone out there who lives in a big city and thinks they’re going to retire to the countryside is deluded. By the time you retire, there won’t be any countryside.

Affordable housing isn't the same as social housing

Such interesting timing seeing this. We are awaiting the committee for a proposed development of 50 houses in the field directly behind our house at the moment. Our village is tiny- 700 population with no amenities. It's also a conservation area, mineral safeguarding protected. My neighbours and I have argued loudly against it but the report has said it should be approved...

Absolutely I'm being nimby-ish (check out my new username). Except this is going to happen so it's a case of deciding what to do in our circumstances - and where we go! The nearest town might be a better option.

The UK has never in its history h ad so many people moving here (and there are 18m more people here than when I was born) so we are bursting at the seams. I would rather we encouraged about 20m people to leave but both political parties seem to want us to continue to have more and more people here.

I am in your position 15 years down the line @Yesimanimby , although we did not consider moving.

The new housing on the outskirts of the village has increased the population sufficiently to make the village school viable

• 15 years ago it had 2 year groups missing entirely, and was under review for closure.

The playground has been enlarged and refurbished. The football pitches has had new drainage. We've got a new bus route, and a really handy small selection of small shops. This was only made possible by the increased population. The roads are busier though.

We live in a quiet rural village and have had 80 homes added in the last 3 years. I'd say around 25% is owned by a local housing association, and most of the tenants aren't any bother at all - just the odd noisy/anti-social one that seems to get shifted on quite quickly.

Given that the average house price in the village is £600k, it's nice that younger families are able to live here and it's been really good for the village school numbers. I wouldn't say it's diversely affected the village other than the horrific increase in traffic and the fact that they didn't upgrade the sewerage system meaning that local roads are more prone to flooding than before.

Councils will be raking money in through the community levy charge (CIL). Developers have to pay this to councils who are then supposed to use it for infrastructure improvements/the community.

People need to start asking why improvements aren't being made.

It will be interesting to see what happens when developers are told to build more social housing as I'm sure it affects their ability to sell. Believe it or not margins are tight on house building.

Anyway, I agree with others, might be better to stay as this could happen over and over unless you move to a town/city.

if there was a 3 way fence I’d be sitting upon it.

1. I work in this area (sort of) and some older council homes are so so bad for your health. Cold, mouldy and riddled in asbestos & very expensive to run. Some of them push people further into poverty. So new homes are better and help people become more comfortable and improved quality of life.

2. my first home was shared ownership which was classed as social housing. Beautiful estate. Semi rural and full of similar families. This social housing estate had no antisocial behaviour. It was really lovely. It was a mix of social rent and shared ownership.

3. Moved to another new build estate that which was 5% social rented housing. Those few people made life hell. And we had to move again due to antisocial behaviour.

I don’t know what the answer is. But my 3- way fence sitting is rather uncomfortable. ☹️

Myself and DH live on a new build development at the edge of the village in which I was raised (having returned here from London during COVID). Whilst the part of the development we live in is nice, the affordable/social housing is a few streets away from our road, and brings endless problems to the development and wider community as a whole. Vandalism of the park and green spaces, anti-social behaviour, teenagers racing up and down the main road in motorbikes every night, not to mention the frequent domestic arguments that can be heard on a weekly basis... sadly it has shadowed our time here, and we will probably move eventually. I would advise that you consider doing the same.

Where did I say it was?

The UK birth rate is at an all time low, but new homes are needed +++. We need a handle on immigration badly. Yes newer housing developments have changed the feel of quieter rural areas, it is a shame.

By my area, there are many unsold new builds. There must be some rented,

A few new estates don’t have enough parking and the roads are single lane with trades vans parked over the footpath. So forget safely walking. It looks like a bad area with cars crowding streets and roads.

There is no local transport so the idea to have “1car” families is stupid (no doubt a council dumb idea to reduce co2)

There are not enough school spaces so siblings at different schools. Again, one car family but must drive kids to 2 diff schools, plus get to work.

They are still building more and more but local economy really no jobs …. So I’m guessing will be filled with people council needs to house …..

Our area has been desperately trying to reach a crazy population goal for past 10-20 years. does town get more funding if they become a big town or city? Or do council employees get a raise? It just doesn’t make sense.

I used to live in a small rural market town that had tripled in size due to multiple developments of new homes. Objectively, this was GREAT for the town centre. It was the only thriving town centre in the county. There's still a flourishing greengrocers, butchers and post office. A row of new shops have even been added, and a book shop and bakery have moved in. The village hall was constantly booked up with yoga, zumba, choir practices etc. etc.

There was plenty of moaning about the new development from longstanding residents, few of whom seemed to see the connection between more residents and flourishing local businesses and societies. 🙄

To be honest it sounds like you and your snobbery are what spoils the area - young families bring children and laughter and fun to villages full of gloomy old folk, what's not to like

Have you read people's actual experiences that they are sharing here? There is quite a lot not to like, in reality.

I’m curious as to where you are all going to move too? Anywhere in England that you move to could surely have the same problem.
I live in rural Scotland our national and regional population is aging and declining schools are closing because young families don’t want to be here because there’s no decent paid employment.
In my tiny village there are no plans for any developments. But if you want to do anything beyond fairly basic shopping it’s a 2 hour plus drive, require treatment for a heart attack the nearest hospital in just under 2 hours away or radiotherapy for cancer nearly 3 hours ditto any major surgery. We have appalling public transport and in fact pretty poor road infra structure. Although I can get a GP appointment easily and there’s plenty of spaces in our schools; an average comprehensive willl be less than 500 pupils and one local through school primary and secondary only has 400. Many of the leisure activities sport art music etc that many in England take for granted just simply don’t exist.
There is hardly any crime in my village mostly thefts from farms although I do know a local drug dealer has a drop off point here (not because I’m using him I hasten to add) many of us don’t lock our doors during the daytime and my friend went away for 3 weeks and didn’t lock hers!
I wouldn’t live anywhere else but this type of rural living isn’t for all.

It is a well known fact that criminals and other anti-social people prefer new- builds 😂

Is this East Anglia?

Like PPs have said, the "affordable" housing here isn't actually affordable for average income families.

It's mostly retirement flats that get built around here, even though most of them fail to sell fully.

Understand you wanting to move, but have you thought where to? There can't be many villages which won't eventually be affected. Do you ever think of returning to a city?

The fields on the edges of our village are slowly disappearing and a few larger gardens have been converted to fit a couple of extra houses on, too.

None of them are starter homes.

I can't see a positive to it at all, to be honest. Just lots more traffic, although I'm sure the village school and pub are happy.

They get approved because the planning thresholds for approval or rejection are so low, that I can tell (someone in planning may correct me). S106 money is ringfenced to that development. Very hard to access that money unless for something planned for in the S106.

I work at a council and have been quite shocked at how badly developments seem to be thrown together though.