Patsy I feel your pain. I lived in Edinburgh for years in various properties and found one I really could call home. But things change and new people move in, all the regulars move away and it's not the same. Some of the new neighbours are a bit inconsiderate to say the least and they only just got there! I sold up a few years ago and moved to the sticks. I miss the city but I'd never go back.
CC
I lived in the sticks for years - then the council built an estate next door.
It was one of those new sort (at the time) estates where it was a mix of flats and link houses connected by narrow alleys. What could go wrong?! It had a mix of nice families put there while they waited for more appropriate housing and drug abusers who couldn't be homed anywhere else. Then it became a dumping ground for single mums. They seemed to attract every scumbag for a 100-mile radius and the area has become a bit of a slum.
Half the properties have been boarded up and their previous residents shunted into 'emergency' council properties rented from private landlords at a very high cost. There is technically nothing wrong with the housing on this estate. It's just the people. I had friends living there and they're well-built, well-insulated (for their age) bright and airy homes, even the smallest flats. It's just the people living there. No 'decent' people want to live there any more.
So, in their wisdom (and greased by a few back-handers, no doubt) our council have decided to just let it all rot and allow a new-build housing estate to go up instead. They say we need good quality housing for young families. Starting price of these new-builds for young families? £400k. Hardly affordable when the average house price in the area is less than half that. None of us locals are surprised that they're having a hell of a job selling them.
The old estate did have a playground that kids (and drug dealers) are still using. This new-build site promised one but unless it's going to be built on a five-foot roundabout it seems to have forgotten. Never mind, maybe it'll be included in the second phase. Though that's hit a snag with the landowner being unwilling to sell. The council is going to make a compulsory purchase order in which they will pay peanuts then sell to the national builder for... peanuts!
Wait... what? Yes, you heard right. The council has the opportunity to sell for a large amount of money to this developer. After all, they have deep pockets. They bought the first parcel from the council for £150k with permission for 110 plots. As the land is currently used for farming they're offering the landowner £80 and selling to the developer for... £90K. For 141 houses.
Our council is barking mad. One of the neighbours works for them and is disgusted by the waste of money and resources. Their DEI training bill is £200k. I wonder if QVC pays that much for theirs?
So, in my customary long-winded way, I'd just like to say to Patsy and CC that I feel your pain. It was the middle of nowhere when I moved here. Now, thanks to our council's insistence that we 'need' more housing (how about sorting out the perfectly good - and cheap - housing you already have and getting the police to come down hard on the anti-social behaviour and drugs problem?), I may as well have moved to a big town. With no local amenities, not even a supermarket within 12 miles, no spaces at the NHS dentist and a doctor's surgery that is overwhelmed by all the new housing estates that have popped up in the last 5 years (five so far, many unsold but still enough to swamp our already strained local services. And TERRIBLE new neighbours.
Oh, and the anti-social behaviour and drugs problem has spread in our area, too. We're right on the edge of our county so we no longer have a manned police station despite having the worst ASBO and drugs figures in the county. The council offices are 40 miles away in a quaint little town that's had the same population figures since the late 60s as they don't allow the building of estates in the area. They have two small supermarkets and a large leisure centre as well as 5 GP surgeries, 2 NHS dentists, a lovely library and a small hospital. For 1000 people more! But, hey! We should be thankful as we have our own anti-smoking officer working from the GP surgery. She used to work from our little library but that closed a decade ago.
I despair. Right Move here I come. But next time I'll be moving to an area just outside a town with the council offices in. Not on their doorstep indeed.
