Many years ago, my brother, with malice aforethought, abandoned me to the parish and moved to Cornwall. He had to for work, so I’ll kind of let him off. He bought a nice cottage in a nice village with fields in front and out back, with an uninterrupted view of Plymouth.
Now, all these years later, he’s selling his place, because inevitably, developers have been making their way up the hill, and the final nail in the coffin was a broad terrace ten feet from his front window.
Houses started going up over the back, and the upstairs windows will look right down his previously very private garden. So of course, he’s not particularly happy, but he knew it was coming. You can’t move into a village with land in it, and expect that it will never be built upon, because that’s how it works. Boundaries are drawn up on the local development plan, and all planning permission within this area will be granted, especially if it’s a developer with lots of clout.
A similar thing happened in Maenclochog. Houses are to built that no one really wanted, but Maenclochog was chosen because it had a school with dwindling numbers, two shops, and the resources to service a community. Population growth means that more houses need to be built. But where? No one wants them next door to them.
I saw a thread on Twitter where people had been saying, if you can’t afford London rents, then move out of the city. Ok. But then, the people who are struggling with their rent, are the low waged service workers. Who will bring the frappachinos if the servers all live outside the M25?
Ultimately, the same old attitude is being displayed. People want their services, and their service workers, but they don’t want to have to look at them, or live near them.
The land I bought for my OPD is agricultural land, which used to be part of around 100 acres surrounding a farmhouse. Over the years, the previous farmhouse owner pulled a great deal of blags, and managed to put two houses up without the council getting him to take them down.
After a time, they were granted a certificate of lawfulness in that they had been there for more than four years. He did, as they say, get away with it. The people who now own these houses, are the people that are now objecting to my OPD.
In the same way that my brother bought land in a village, and must expect more village to appear, these people bought agricultural land, but with no intention of using it for agriculture, and only securing themselves enough land to feel like gentry. Which means that the land around them was for sale. Someone had to buy that land. It could have been farmers, with machinery and cows and thousands of sheep, or it could be someone wanting to do OPD and have a small poly-culture farm, which, by way of Welsh Assembly Policy, is entitled to build a zero carbon dwelling from which to run the said micro farm.
The neighbours are very upset about this. Much more upset than my brother was, even though my OPD is in no way overlooking them or invading their privacy. The owner of the farmhouse stated in his objections that the land couldn’t possibly accommodate another dwelling. Respectfully, my old housing estate would have fitted into his agricultural land garden with room to spare. The bit of land he plays with and mows with his toy tractor would be holding around thirty houses were it within a town or village boundary, I’m pretty sure my brother would have preferred a largely unnoticeable single dwelling with lots of biodiversity.
The sense of entitlement, to assume that living in the countryside means lots of private space, and then making as habit of complaining about local farming activities, is somewhat galling. They could have bought the surrounding land to ensure that no one else did, as a friend of mine did once. Failing that, like everyone else, they are at the mercy of the landowner who gets to decide who he sells to. And he sold to me. He knew I wanted to OPD.
But to my neighbours – farmers, people who produce their food, and staff who produce their luxuries should be seen and not heard, like the servants living in the basement in the gentrified houses of old. They need their Asda delivery man and their postman and their garage services and their log men and their oil delivery guys and their garçon up the road who they call for every job heavier than opening a bottle of wine, but they don’t want them anywhere near. They want them away, to be clicked and called when convenient. They have purchased a postcard, only to find that it smells of slurry, and my God, don’t they let the world know about it.
If it hadn’t been for the dodgy geezer who put all these houses up without planning and then sold them for a fortune to people who knew no better, then they wouldn’t be able to own these properties. If I get planning, I’ll be the only one down here with legitimate planning that wasn’t done on a blag. That’s a thought isn’t it. In this crazy status game, I think that probably elevates me to a pretty righteous position.
I’ll always farm this land though. The animals aren’t going anywhere. Neither is the tree nursery I’ve been building up. Neither am I. I’ll still be here, whether I sleep here or not is irrelevant. So the point is, what do they actually achieve by stopping my planning? Not much.
In time, the boundaries will spread no doubt. And maybe in the future I’ll have the opportunity to sell to a developer. You could fit a whole estate on my little four acres. We’re not running out of room to house people. There’s tons of room. The trick is getting past the people that would rather you went cold than spoiled their view….
Postcards from the Hedge 