Dying Villages.

[Deleted member 26715]

What happens nowadays is you just build the village with no amenities in the first place - example Nothstowe, Cambridge. 1200 occupied homes - no shop, no cafe, no GP surgery

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/15/whats-the-point-of-northstowe

What a strange article, explains the town, bashes the Tories, bashes Labour then reviews a house in Russia????

 

[Profpointy]

Most UK ports are the same. Used to travel through Liverpool and Holyhead on a regular basis. Early hours, captive "audience" for two - three ferries, and no-where to buy anything to eat or drink. Holyhead railway station relied on vending machines. During the daytime it'd be open for normal working hours.

Hollyhead is the only place I've ever seen a chipshop "closed for lunch". And on another occasion going for a curry (a mistake - should have gone for chips) heard
the waiter making a phone call "how do you cook popadoms?". What we got wasn't exactly a curry as you'd understand it, but seemingly something out of a tin.

As an aside I was once reading "the mabinogion", (a set of very old Welsh stories and legends) albeit translated into English and was recounting "the dream of Macsen Wledig" to a mate. Roman emperor Macsen (aka Maximus) dreams that he will marry a beautiful princess to be found on an island beyond another island, which turns out to be Anglesea, off the coast of (island) Britain. My mate commented "I find that hard to believe; I've been to Anglesea"

 

[pjd57]

As long as the fixation with cars goes on our village , town and even city centres will decline.
It will take decades , if ever to change the mindset of its " only 30 minutes in the car " in relation to where people live , work , send kids to school etc.
More people need to return to living , working , shopping etc within the same area.

But the political will isn't there to start the process .

 

[Deleted member 26715]

As long as the fixation with cars goes on our village , town and even city centres will decline.
It will take decades , if ever to change the mindset of its " only 30 minutes in the car " in relation to where people live , work , send kids to school etc.
More people need to return to living , working , shopping etc within the same area.

But the political will isn't there to start the process .

I thought that was what this 15 minute city thing was about, but then they allow planning to build houses with no amenities, we're due to have 1100 houses built on the green belt, in an area specifically marked by the Parish as not to be built on, but the District council has overruled it.

The new development will not have any shops, doctors, dentists, schools, it will have a cyclepath that goes from one A road to another A road & stops at each end there, no link into the town. The nearest shop will be 1 mile away either down one A road with no footpath, or 1.5 miles away down the other A road with a footpath after you have crossed an A road.

Will they walk, will they buggery

 

[Drago]

To be fair, a lot of towns and cities already have sufficient amenities within 15 minutes walk of many many people, yet still they drive.

But back to the villages. I used to live 3 villages along and I'm still still with the GP there. A couple of weeks back I cycled over so the lady doctor could stuck her hand up my bum - no bike racks, not a one, so I locked it to a bench, and they wonder wny everyone drives and makes local residents lives a misery with their parking - and while I was there noticed a poster in reception.

The notice was imploring folk to be patient and not have a go at staff, as it isn't their fault someone built 500 new houses, over 2000 new patients, on the edge of that village and provided zero funding to increase capacity at the surgery. Any extra cash the carncil may have received from the builders certainly isn't being spent on facilities in the affected area.

Surely it can't be rocket science to compel developers to provide certain amenities, and to build/fund them before a single brick is laid on a residential building, and the law be rejigged to compel carncils to spend those funds locally and not just swallow them into their general budget?

 

[Pale Rider]

Surely it can't be rocket science to compel developers to provide certain amenities, and to build/fund them before a single brick is laid on a residential building, and the law be rejigged to compel carncils to spend those funds locally and not just swallow them into their general budget?

So-called planning gain is included in permission for most new estates.

For small estates I've seen relatively small benefits, such as the creation of a bus stop or small play area.

There's now a roundabout outside my local Sainsbury's rather than a T-junction, thanks to permission for a small development of houses up the road.

For larger estates, the council can negotiate larger benefits.

In your case, you would need to check the original permission for the 500 houses to see what should have been included.

My limited experience suggests planning gains are usually delivered, although there will always be instances of the developer going bust before the Brucie Bonus is built.

 

[simongt]

Hardly any people use the local pub, but dozens turn up for a protest meeting when the publican finally says he's no longer prepared to pay to keep the place open.

Yup. That is so common; 'use it or lose it' as is said. Straw poll the protesters to see how many actually use the amenity they're kicking off about would reveal some interesting results methinks; erm, well, erm. - !

 

[BoldonLad]

Like it or not, it is the way things are going.

I live in an urban area which encompasses what were, several small towns. Development has caused them to merge in one urban area (South Tyneside). The population is approximately 150,000.

The Town Centres of all of the former small towns are all in serious decline.

Even the Centres of the two nearby cities (Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sunderland) are in decline, in terms of Retail premises, although Newcastle-upon-Tyne has a reasonably vibrant eating and drinking economy.

Online shopping (including for takeaway food) will only speed this process, in my opinion.

 

[simongt]

On the other hand, some 'developments' are just in the wrong place. A while ago, a long standing business vacated premises not far from us. The building was subsequently converted to small shop units. In the couple of years since, several aspiring folk have tried to make something work; ice cream parlour, general store, second hand shop, tattoo parlour, surplus food & drink shop, but because the site is in a place where folk are on their way in or out of the city, it's not a place anyone would usually stop, so these ideas come and go fairly quickly. It seems obvious, but some folk just keep trying with little luck so far.

 

[Pale Rider]

Even the Centres of the two nearby cities (Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sunderland) are in decline, in terms of Retail premises, although Newcastle-upon-Tyne has a reasonably vibrant eating and drinking economy.

Although even the Quayside on a weekend night is not what it was - so the young 'uns tell me.

In this limited environment, I reckon the success of a Newcastle United has a big impact.

A good home win for the Toon and the centre of Newcastle will be rocking.

 

[Andy in Germany]

To be fair, a lot of towns and cities already have sufficient amenities within 15 minutes walk of many many people, yet still they drive.

But back to the villages. I used to live 3 villages along and I'm still still with the GP there. A couple of weeks back I cycled over so the lady doctor could stuck her hand up my bum - no bike racks, not a one, so I locked it to a bench, and they wonder wny everyone drives and makes local residents lives a misery with their parking - and while I was there noticed a poster in reception.

The notice was imploring folk to be patient and not have a go at staff, as it isn't their fault someone built 500 new houses, over 2000 new patients, on the edge of that village and provided zero funding to increase capacity at the surgery. Any extra cash the carncil may have received from the builders certainly isn't being spent on facilities in the affected area.

Surely it can't be rocket science to compel developers to provide certain amenities, and to build/fund them before a single brick is laid on a residential building, and the law be rejigged to compel carncils to spend those funds locally and not just swallow them into their general budget?

Does the UK have a land tax? building land here is taxed at a higher rate besed on a number of factors, and the proceeds are used for amenities like trams or public buildings.

Except our village in Stuttgart with eye watering land taxes, where the local authority still refuses to countanance the tram being extended 3 km to the village, but we'll ignore that...

 

[Drago]

So-called planning gain is included in permission for most new estates.

For small estates I've seen relatively small benefits, such as the creation of a bus stop or small play area.

There's now a roundabout outside my local Sainsbury's rather than a T-junction, thanks to permission for a small development of houses up the road.

For larger estates, the council can negotiate larger benefits.

In your case, you would need to check the original permission for the 500 houses to see what should have been included.

My limited experience suggests planning gains are usually delivered, although there will always be instances of the developer going bust before the Brucie Bonus is built.

The problem is its not being spent locally in this case.

I think with the case of Northstowe I can see the developer winding up the legal entity that built the place and simply starting another, as happens conveniently rather a lot, hence my splendid idea that new facilities etc be built up front before a single house.

 

[PK99]

When I bought my static caravan in leafy North Yorkshire more than 10 years ago I had visions of tootling from village to village, picking up a snack here and a drink there.

Of course, what I found was very, very few of the villages had much in the way of amenities.

I would say we tend to get the services we deserve.

Hardly any people use the local pub, but dozens turn up for a protest meeting when the publican finally says he's no longer prepared to pay to keep the place open.

Same thing happens with local food shops.

Too many folk call in only to get what they forgot to pick up in Tesco.

Use it or lose it.

And FFS don't whinge if you don't and you do.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Surely it can't be rocket science to compel developers to provide certain amenities, and to build/fund them before a single brick is laid on a residential building, and the law be rejigged to compel carncils to spend those funds locally and not just swallow them into their general budget?

There already is a mechanism, it's called CIL Community Infrastructure Levy https://www.gov.uk/guidance/community-infrastructure-levy but what seems to happen, well in Nottinghamshire's case is that they either take to money & misappropriate it elsewhere. The last big development in our local town, the builders left land for the site of a secondary school, paid £3M to the council to help build the school & the money was spent on a school 35 miles away in the County Council leaders ward. Or the Council can do as they are doing with the latest 1100 houses not asking of a CIL in the first place which has been estimated as a £7M funding gap.

 

[Drago]

Use it or lose it.

And FFS don't whinge if you don't and you do.

That used to irk me living on Shetland. Some would moan about the tourists (although Shetlanders are a lot less up themselves over it than Orcadians or Western islanders) yet without them and their cash the very shops and businesses the residents rely upon would cease to exist.

To be honest I saw just as many pithed up or stoned locals driving like twits as I did tourists. Indeed, the tourists were often more polite and more appreciative of things the locals never gave a second thought to. It wasn't the tourists flying tipping old furniture, or dumping old cars at the end of their gardens instead of paying to get them towed and scapped.