The countryside and its problems

Lots of areas were well drained.....until they started building on them.

I love the wide open skies of Fenland.

Up here in the north our countryside is changeing. The small villages are no longer self sufficient. Most have lost their shops and even post offices. The bus services are sometimes down to one or two a day so you can get to a nearby town and back home again if you plan it right. If you don't drive it's a nightmare.

I don't believe farming is a doddle. I know a farmer who is struggling and has ended up giving over some of the land to tree planting. Others sell off land for building on. Once agricultural land is lost to development it can never be regained and yet there is so much 'brown' land available to build on.

The changes sadden me.

I live in a small town which is expanding and areas which I used to know as fields or wild countryside where I played as a child are now new housing estates of little boxes made of tickey tacky.

[THR]

My mother and my stepfather bought a second home in Fenland, that's why I know the area. Well, my stepfather was killed in a traffic accident five years ago and the place was sold and I haven't been there ever since.

I just wonder, how do people like my stepfather who buy second homes in the countryside distort the local housing-market. There was an interesting article in a newspaper about Cornwall where a lot of Londoners with their money are buying second homes, therefore pushing house-prices up so that the locals with their income can't afford to buy a house in their own region.

Well, that's capitalism for you, I know, but it still seems somehow unfair.

[Sweetpea]

I shouldn't think there are too many of them. Houses are at a premium here at the moment, mainly to house the hoards leaving a London that is home no more.

[poppy]

Originally Posted by THR

My mother and my stepfather bought a second home in Fenland, that's why I know the area. Well, my stepfather was killed in a traffic accident five years ago and the place was sold and I haven't been there ever since.

I just wonder, how do people like my stepfather who buy second homes in the countryside distort the local housing-market. There was an interesting article in a newspaper about Cornwall where a lot of Londoners with their money are buying second homes, therefore pushing house-prices up so that the locals with their income can't afford to buy a house in their own region.

Well, that's capitalism for you, I know, but it still seems somehow unfair.

lived in Cornwall for over twenty years this has been a problem there since the mid 60s.
The thing is incomers cannot move in and buy up all the houses, if the locals don't sell to them.
You cannot sell property to folk for second homes and then take the money and moan.
The Cornish are happy to take the foreigners money but they want to keep the property as well.

[THR]

When I was a teenager and had no will of my own, I went with my stepfather every Saturday to the auctions in Wisbech, sometimes in Swaffham as well.

Wisbech isn't really countryside, it is a town really, but it is the central town of the Fenland-area. I think March is some sort of administrative centre though.

One of our neighboroughs died because of some fit and because the location was so remote the family couldn't explain on the phone the exact location of their house accurately enough. It took too long for the ambulance to find the place. Houses don't have addresses over there.

[Sweetpea]

Addresses, they certainly do.

As for the 'central town', there is a century long feud still running over that. When the college relocates from Wisbech to March, there is a move to list it as a University, which would make March a city!!!

It is also a lot less remote, certainly since I have been. It has grown massively in 5 years and continues to do so.

Wisbech is now 1/4 Poles.

[THR]

Well, the ambulance had turned the wrong way because they couldn't accurately understand the instructions given to them. This happened something like 10 years ago. Perhaps things are different today. Hopefully so.

[Sweetpea]

I think you will find it has. Besides, we have Sat Nav now...lol

Originally Posted by THR

There was an interesting article in a newspaper about Cornwall where a lot of Londoners with their money are buying second homes, therefore pushing house-prices up so that the locals with their income can't afford to buy a house in their own region.

Been happening in Wales and Scotland for years.

I lived in Onich. A small village between Glencoe/Ballachullish and Fort William for two years. The white settlers had just discovered the place. First three rabbit hutches (houses) ere built, then six more, then a couple more. THEN they wanted a shop closer than 25 mile away Fort William. Then they wanted a chippy, then they wanted a hairdressers, then.....

NOW the place is classified as a town, and all the original house builders are moving out because "I#Ts just another town".

WHO'S BLOODY FAULT WAS THAT THEN?

Trouble is, they are now moving into other small villages and starting the same process.

So it is not just money/house prices that is the problem, but the areas culture and attraction that are being destroyed.