Landscape of country will change for ever

Re. Calverton residents fear village ‘may as well be a town’ after extra homes plan, in Saturday’s Post:

SADLY, the dilemma facing Calverton residents is now commonplace across the country, amidst inhabitants living in provincial areas.

They grumble about the volume of new houses planned for construction, surrounding their often small sleepy village conurbations. The scale of housing estates earmarked for insignificant parishes, can be a few hundred homesteads to figures in the thousands.

An example is a village, nestling in East Nottinghamshire, where 5,000 new homes are planned, that’s a ratio expansion for the village of some 50 to 1. The village lacks a shop, post office, school, or even a bus service. The roads around it are in an atrocious state.

The official explanation for the mammoth national house building programme: “It’s because more people are choosing to live alone, and a high level of couples are getting divorced.” However, the official reason doesn’t make sense, when the houses being constructed have three bedrooms, and even more dwellings have five bedrooms. Affordable housing certainly doesn’t feature in any pricing portfolio!

Within ten years, whatever can be seen of quintessential England, today will have disappeared under acres of thick concrete, the landscape will have changed beyond believe.

Readers must be wondering what has catapulted the nation into this building frenzy. A generalisation would be, after WW2, the indigenous English folk, became subservient to their elected representatives’ decisions.

Accepting whatever policies Parliament introduced. Taking the word of those in authority, as a given, never questioning their long-term aims.

Now, armies of people are against the national house building schedule.

But, no one will do anything about it, as it in the psyche of the English to watch the world pass them by, and do nothing to upset the status quo.

Nigel J Starbuck Bingham