But not for long if our local council has anything to do with it, it seems. This is one of the sites earmarked for 40 of the 116 new houses that appear to be planned for Great Somerford as part of Wiltshire's ambitious 2026 development strategy for delivering the 44,400 new homes John Prescott in his wisdom has decided we need. That's quite a lot of houses squished together onto a site this size.
Where all these people are going to work, park their cars, do their shopping and spend their leisure time, John doesn't appear to have mentioned. 116 houses will mean at least 230 more cars - the roads are only wide enough for a single line of cars and I can't see any mention of any extra bus services or plans to reopen the railway line that was sold off years ago. Villages don't need more commuters, they need people who are going to live there and make a contribution to the community. I've been sniffing around, as dogs do, but oddly enough, no one seems to know anything about the village's development plans.
Strange.
Now, I'm all for a certain amount of carefully planned expansion to keep the community vibrant, keep the school and shop going, bring people into the local pub. But 116 extra houses? Better get stacking those shelves, Debbie.
Find out more on Wiltshire Council's website or go straight to the map (you have to scroll down a bit and zoom in on Great Somerford) to see where else the affordable homes the council seems to think we're so keen to have might be popping up.
Oh, it's such a shame. I know we need new housing, but it does have to be in the right place. We lost the same view of sheep grazing in a small field to three, soon to be five, affordable homes. They're outside the village development plan, the village school was closed just before the houses were built and there's no shop or pub - so the little families who moved in now have to use their cars to get anywhere. Our protests were completely ignored, but I do hope someone looks closely at the plan for Great Somerford to avoid the frustrations of the infrastructure creaking under the weight of so many people. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteDitto. We are under pressure too. Or rather the Council is. Sell land, build houses - the roads, the utilities etc - someone else's problem. Ask questions, ask lots of questions? I heard that the site was haunted. Wasn't that where prisoners taken at the battle of Tewkesbury were beheaded? And haven't men been seen bleeding and bloody in just those same fields every October since, when the nights draw in and the mists rise. Of course it might just be the birds making that racket. But would you want to buy a house there?
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