One of my favourite places for weekend walks is the lovely village of Penshurst in Kent. It is in an area of outstanding natural beauty. It also oozes money. If you're after a decent family home in the area, you won't get much change out of a million, even in these straightened times. Now, however, there is trouble in paradise, in the shape of the Parish Council and Viscount D'Isle, the left-leaning owner of Penshurst Place, the local stately pile. The Council wants to build some affordable homes, rented rather than owned, in the village. The Viscount has been only too happy to oblige by making available a two acre field, slap in the middle of green belt land. He could, of course, have chosen to make part of the large estate which adjoins his home available. But maybe he thought this would be going a little too far in the cause of equality. Once, I would have been all in favour of this kind of intervention. Why should there not be a mix of housing in a Kentish village? I mean, all those cute little cottages were once the homes of farm hands, not city workers. However, having seen at first hand the effects of 'affordable housing' in unlovely Medway, I just cannot bring myself to condemn the villagers who are opposing this development. They are weaseling their way around the issues, but what they really mean is they don't want their doorstep sullied by a nasty development of cheap Barretts type houses filled with riff-raff. One resident apparently said that the only future he saw for the development was as a 'tacky slum'. And I'm afraid that unless a very tight rein can be kept on the kind of tenants who live in the new houses, he is probably correct. Can housing associations specify that they only want nurses, teachers and other useful members of society? I suspect not. Most people are decent, but one or two skanks can ruin things for everybody else almost overnight. I doubt there is really pressure for affordable housing in Penshurst. It's miles out in the country - the natural habitat of prosperous retirees and city bankers with a little pied a terre in town. The only local openings are for a couple of teachers at the tiny primary school and maybe a barmaid or two in the pub. So to me this seems like a form of spite, along the lines of: 'we'll really show those nasty little snobs this time!' And of course the Viscount, like most of his class, is completely out of touch with what it means to have to rub along with problem people. But really, there is a wider problem here. Where should decent families on very modest incomes live? And what on earth do we do with the people no one wants next door? I was very aware, when I finally managed to dislodge the problem tenants next door to us who had been ruining our lives, that all I was doing was moving the problem somewhere else. It wasn't something I was particularly happy with. Kent villagers revolt over 'feudal' sale of green - Telegraph
Got to say, as you have implied. Clare, there is always two ways of looking at things. Personally I think it should go ahead but maybe the houses should be offered to locals only. There are far too many upper class villagers that use big supermarkets and other places in the towns, but want to keep their own little bit of England. Town cramming has reached stupid heights with every last reasonable sized back garden being built on. So I say, lets drag those toffee nosed villagers kicking and screaming into the 21st century, which they like to use, but dont want on their doorstep.
There's no easy answer to that one. I remember the terrible day when the for sale board came down next door and a family of howler monkeys moved in.
