Villagers of Little London feel pinch from capital exodus

RESIDENTS in a Hampshire village named Little London are angry that people leaving the capital are pricing them out of the area.

Locals in the historic settlement, which got its name almost 400 years ago from Londoners fleeing bubonic plague, said wealthy newcomers looking for a “country pad” are snapping up expensive houses in the area that they cannot afford.

But potential housebuyers trying to escape the city 50 miles away have been warned there is “nothing here” as there is not enough infrastructure to cope with the number of residents.

The village, north of Basingstoke, has just one pub, no shop nor street lights, and has a population of only a few hundred. Carol Donner, 65, has lived in Little London for 13 years and said the area is gradually transforming into London.

She and other residents are now working together to stop the overdevelopment of the village. The retired teacher said: “There’s quite a few of us that are getting together and we have met up and come up with ideas and things we need to do. It’s an ancient village, there’s not many houses and it’s got no infrastructure at all – we don’t even have street lights.

“We have got nothing in the village at all and it’s just being concreted over by people who are being greedy. They are coming from London because they want a country pad and they are just going to concrete over here.”

Among submitted planning applications are plans for multiple houses, battery storage facilities, and conversions of barns into business units and event venues.

A plan to build three detached houses in the village is one of the many applications that prompted a protest from residents. The application saw 40 objections from frustrated locals.

Mrs Donner added: “It’s just ridiculous. It’s not a village where you can buy affordable houses because there’s no infrastructure, even if you thought you could build affordable houses, it’s not the right place for them.

“It’s greed over need and it’s the wrong houses in the wrong place. We can’t stress this enough, this is just a village with some houses and a pub.”

There are 12 villages called Little London in the UK, although there used to be over one hundred, and the name derives from the outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1665.