From the Basildon Recorder:
A DEVELOPER has been accused of trying to “sneak” extra homes on to a controversial green belt site.
Campaigners from Save Our Spaces Billericay are angry Banner Homes submitted a planning application to build a further 19 homes on the former Billericay School Farm, in Noak Hill Road. Banner Homes has permission for 51 homes, after an initial application for 70 properties was rejected by Basildon Council.
Billericay School sold the 1.7-hectare site to the developer for £5.5million...
Here's a picture of the Basildon, pop. 40,000, from Google Maps. To give you an idea of the massive devastation this will cause, I stuck on a white square* (showing an area of 1.7 hectares, i.e. 427 foot square)) on the affected area:
* It's more of a rectangle shape actually, see here, but a rectangle is more difficult to cut out.
All That’s Wrong
3 hours ago
7 comments:
I hope they don't also protest at supply and demand being out of kilter so their children and grandchildren can't afford a family home.
AKH, impoverishing your own children is the Achilles' Heel of Home-Owner-Ism - you would think.
But people are so brainwashed, they say things like "Isn't it great that our house is worth so much? We can 'release some equity' in order to pay the deposit for our children to get on the property ladder!"
What is so bizarre about this bit of NIMBYism, is that the school farm is going to be built over anyway. What difference to anyone other than the buyers of the new houses does the housing density make?
Having sat on a planning ctte for 4 years, regularly attended residents assoc meetings etc etc its pretty clear why they are moaning.
They know for certain the infrastructure will not be delivered as promised. More cars, on depreciating roads. More people, fewer schools. More dog walkers less green space. And so on...
They are right.
Why does this blog not sympathise I wonder? And start pointing the finger not at the effect, ignorant NIMBY's, but the root cause.
We all know what that is dont we?
Robin has the right of it; it's the infrastructure that's the associated issue, and usually the straw that breaks the camel's back.
People move to semi-rural areas to get away from crowding and resource-competition. They don't want to see it follow them.
"More cars, on depreciating roads. More people, fewer schools. More dog walkers less green space. And so on..."
This is all special pleading. The only thing these people really object to is that the value of their houses might be affected. We are talking about an extra sixty or so people in a town of 40,000, FFS. If the existing residents are worried about the traffic then they should try and use their cars less (but no, it's always "other people" who should do that), if they are worried about the state of the roads, then they should get on to their local authority, ditto schools (and who's to say that the schools in Basildon are overcrowded, anyway, or that the 19 new households aren't going to be retirees?).
"Why does this blog not sympathise I wonder? And start pointing the finger not at the effect, ignorant NIMBY's, but the root cause. We all know what that is dont we?"
Yes, we do. Just read the next post but one. The root cause is decades of rampant house price inflation so that a phoney boom could be fuelled by debt raised on overpriced homes. Take away the artificially high prices and the pressure to develop disappears. Just look at Ireland.
RS, I refer you to B's comment. The drivel about 'pressure on local services and infrastructure' is complete codswallop, as it will be people from the Billericay area who buy in the Billericay area, ergo, the same number of people, cars and children in the same area. And the people needed to PROVIDE 'local services' need houses too.
JM, but these people who move to semi-rural areas (i.e. not Billericay) are themselves imposing a burden on the people who were there before them, and so on ad infinitum.
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