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.

That's the problem! Perhaps, as someone said upthread, to a more established and busier suburb with a bigger garden but absolutely no room for any other new developments. And better public transport. There's an area like this not too far away.

This is the only way to guarantee no development. Even then it depends on how you structured the land ownership. Unless it's all owned by one company through which you all have a veto then a point may come when the value of the land to developers will be too high to resist and some will sell up.

So what? I can talk about social housing if I want to, as have many other people on this thread, you don’t get to control what I or anyone else can post about.

Probably had time to fill in the forms to object to the development, though 😢

Massive developments on green field sites are simply wrong. They are a non-renewable resource. A lot are prime farmland, essential for food security. Instead of subsidising crackpot energy schemes, I wish the government would subsidise the cleaning up of brownfield sites for development and protect our green spaces.

Yes, I don’t know who came up with the idea, but it is 100% mental: “If we only pave narrow roads, we can pack more houses in. And we’ll be seen to do the ‘right thing’ to reduce car emissions if we only put one parking space in front of each house.” EXCEPT: there is (if you’re lucky) one bus per hour from 8am-5pm (weekdays only), no trains within walking distance, and CFs who have 4 cars per household. Everyone is raging because they’re all packed into tiny plots like sardines, and are fighting over who gets to park where on the street. Rural bliss…

Does this include "council" housing?

And don’t forget compulsory purchase.

I live in what was a small town, frequently mentioned in "top rural towns to live in" articles. One of the plus points was the good state secondary school. However there has been so much building that now only half the town and none of the surrounding villages are in the catchment area. As it has narrow roads running through the town it's gridlocked at busy times, no bypass planned, no extra provision for doctors or dentists, and no plans for more schools. Also the affordable housing promised on the planning application has mysteriously whittled down. The green spaces are covered in concrete and it's completely lost its charm. Poor planning and lack of resources, both pretty universal it seems.

It’s hard to know from your post if your worry is social housing or the amount of homes being built. In my area new homes have been built but the village is a drive through village so there is a fair amount of traffic anyway. Social housing seems low compared to the homes privately owned/rented. Most of the housing is not affordable and above average in price due to them being new builds.

I will be completely honest and say that whilst the majority of social housing occupants are decent people or mixed as anyone in any other housing can be there is always a segment who are utter shits who keep their property in a mess inside and out and whose feral children run wild causing immense annoyance and distress to others with antisocial behaviour.
I live in a big village/ very small town and almost all crime originates from the two social housing estates. Addresses are quoted in local police arrest reports which confirm this.
Personally I would never buy a property too close to social housing.

OP..I live in a village which has and is getting large developments. Because it's a nice place people want to live. You cannot control what sort of people move in, if you don't want neighbours you need to move to somewhere very rural and isolated. The fact is this is going to be more and more common, particularly in the South East as people move out of the capital in search of a better life and affordable housing. What galls me is the lack of services, my village now needs a doctor's surgery, we have a first years school and a shop fortunately. When the national council house stock were all bought up under the Tory right to buy policy and not replaced, it was inevitable at some stage mass council housing would be required to replace. When interspersed with new build it's not normally so bad. But again the lack of investment in policing does not help with problem individuals and moving them on. You could have a problem individuals nove into the house across the street, difficult people are not just people with less money. Focus on what you can control instead of worrying about what you cant. Lobbying for better services is proactive. Review planning applications for suitability to the area but you won't be able to block them based on nimbyism.

I think it depends if your area had a falling role school and failing shops.
Ours didn't it was busy and successful and pretty much at capacity, often listed as an exceptional place to raise a family.
So there probably isn't just one answer. But if everything is working well now it will work less well with lots more people and no new infrastructure.

The main problem is the amount of traffic on roads that were not built to take it. Some roads have become rat runs for commuters. There is not much work in the rural place where I live, and only two buses per day, they have to drive.

We must be in same town!
DC had a play date in another New Build near train station. I needed to collect child but there were NO visitor parking places …. Great place to live if you have no friends, or they only arrive by train, pay extortionate rates at the station which was a long walk or are happy to walk from 2-3 miles away. Each property 1 car only, but must pay extra for permit.

Off street parking / garages now non-existent.

I wonder how many of you are able to afford to live in these lovely country villages because you moved to London to work, you bought property and were able to sell it at a profit and buy somewhere more peaceful, so you could either raise a family or retire in peace?

And out of that number, I wonder how many of you would be willing to acknowledge that you contributed to a) pricing the locals out, and b) destroying local communities that had existed for generations so that the area could be gentrified?

I live in leafy suburbs and they build an estate down the road from us. I didn't even realise the flats in that estate were social housing until a friend mentioned it. It's not changed the area at all other than a little more traffic.

I lived in a village that's vast becoming a town...

Our local authority no longer build housing of any type its all developers.
If a building company want to build more than a set amount of housing, think its 13, they have to factor in x amount of social housing and build these too, which are then tendered out to management companies.

We've had a few large estates built, talking over 200 + builds in local villages, with planning just gone in for another 380 and unfortunately yes crime rates have risen, car theft/damage, stealing property, shop lifting and such, but what I find more disturbing is the age of those committing the crimes are mainly in their early/mid teens.

Every other year we go to a county show about 15 miles out of the village and its ever changing, there's been so much development over the last 7 or 8 years built on open fields its now pretty much joined up with the next town to it.

Open spaces are becoming minimal out this way.

I live in a new build on a relatively small development. The residents of the 'village' dont like it because they've lost space which used to be where they'd walk their dogs and some of them live in houses which directly back onto the development. The village is characterised by very expensive, one-off designer houses and older manor house style properties a lovely golf course etc. I get it, i really do.

We've just had the first of the social housing tenants move into their flats/apartments. Some have young children. However, the allocated play areas for families won't be ready until at least end 2025. So nowhere to play safely, just a small balcony or the car parks. Madness, and unfair to parents and their children and neighbours who have to retrieve balls from their gardens.

The ONLY anti social behaviour I've seen was by young children who have managed, twice, to lever off two sets of iron railings on a bridge made by the developer to allow safe access to the remaining protected green space. These children don't live on the new development. I filmed them taking off on their bikes and followed them to the houses bordering where I now live. One of the lads who lives on the development was threatened by youths who were lurking at the gatehouses and smoking weed. Also, not youths who live here but it's quiet and dark at night so......

There weren't enough council/social houses when I was in my 20s. That was 40 years ago. I can't remember when my local council last built houses in the area but there are homeless people living in tents along the busiest road in my local city. It's shocking.

NIMBY alert

Carneys, probably leaving dog poop everywhere,work vans parked up outside the pubs, dogs barking all day long.

It's not good . It's not the housing it's the people that go into them . We have a new town of 6000 houses being built 2 miles away and most locals are worried . Housing has been built and built here and all has come with increased traffic congestion, anti social behaviour and so many have no care and respect for the area around them .
My village when I moved in 15yes ago was a quite mostly retired population with the odd tractor rumbling by and has now changed beyond all recognition.

Same here...far from being a village, but there was a sense of community, despite quite a large population. Vast housing estates being built, very near an area of outstanding natural beauty, ridiculously congested roads, lots of drug abuse, lots of fast food outlets, anti social behaviour, crime, every bit of green being built on; it feels like a city now...not in a good way.

It's the other infrastructure as well.

Three times in a matter of months the sewage blocked the drains and backed up, workmen had to come out they understand and said the sewage pipes just couldn't manage with the sheer number of buildings they were old and needed upgrading.

In one of the villages the main road through was closed for months while sewage/water was taken away in trucks, it filled up the street, it really was awful.

Schools, Dr's surgery, dentists places, and the like are also thin on the ground.

Our village has no GP surgery, no shop, and a primary school that has an intake of 15 kids per year. About 100 new houses have sprung up out of nowhere and I don’t know quite where all the children in the village are going to go to school as there are bound to be more than 15 four year olds in the village at any one time. Nightmare!