A housing company is hoping to win support for plans to build 1,700 homes in a village by inviting locals to look over its ideas.
Dudsbury Homes says it wants to create an “intimate community” in Alderholt on the Dorset-Hampshire border, which according to the last census currently has a population of 3,262.
But locals have voiced worries over infrastructure and over-development.
The developer is holding a public meeting at the village hall on Friday.
Dudsbury Homes says it wants to ensure its proposals for Alderholt Meadows can “carefully and collaboratively evolve” before they are submitted to Dorset Council.
But Tanya Wynyard, landlady of the Churchill Arms pub in the village, said the meeting was nothing more than a “tickbox exercise to get the village on side”.
“The village can’t cope, there’s not enough infrastructure here, the road network and sewerage system. And we wouldn’t be a village anymore,” she said.
Andy Gardiner, who voiced his concerns on social media, said: "Can’t see it happening any time soon…doctors will be overloaded and our wait times will go through the roof. We can’t get dentists to sign up new people already.
“I’ve seen it before…the developer promises everything but they do what they need to do for profit and then disappear without delivering the promised.”
Another village and a way of life in danger of being destroyed by indiscriminate house building …
This is a huge problem and one that has reared it’s ugly head in my region. Several new developments were built with cast iron assurances that the drainage systems were of far greater capacity than any storm could impose on the water clearance methods. Fine in theory but in reality one partially completed estate development has already flooded to such an extent, another yet to be started development has been put on hold pending further drainage and hydrology investigations.
Yes same here, we are only a small village, but they are going to put 1300 new homes, a play ground, Dentist, GP surgery and parking for the residents, we have all signed a petition to stop it, but they don’t take any notice of you, they are still doing it.
sounds a bloody nightmare and I was having some thoughts of coming back ! Penelope Keith makes the hidden villages of UK sound so good but maybe that is the secret - they must be kept secret?
They can promise a dentist and a surgery, but how can they guarantee they can find the dentists and doctors to practise there? GPs in particular are thin on the ground everywhere, so where are they going to magic them from?
Exactly … the character of not just the village but that of the parish and even the borough will be adversely affected by the sudden influx of “foreigners” …
I worked in local government planning in 2006 when the vogue then was for barn conversions. Most were for one family, some were for several and a few were for hamlet-sized rebuilds. Inevitably, there was occasional local opposition to such plans but it rarely centred on size, except for the “hamlets”. Locals were more concerned with the appearance - they didn’t want new buildings to “stick out like sore thumbs”.
Nowadays, the vogue is for “brand-new” estates, with hundreds and thousands of new buildings, to be “bolted on” to existing rural communities, totally disfiguring the landscape …
This has been going on for long enough now and consequently the future of this country is clear.
Even if some future government attempted to stop the increase in population due to unsupportable birth-rate increases and especially continued illegal immigration, I am sure that the damage has already been done and cannot now be undone.
Our inept politicians have, in my opinion, done more long-term damage to this country than Hitler ever did.
I have noticed over the last couple of years that farmland is being sold off in amazing amounts,and houses being built.
Yet i don`t see any schools/Gp surgeries /dental practices etc.
I think that local councils are rubbing their hands together with all the extra council tax income.
It is really sad to see so much country side being built on,and the poor wildlife is being forced out of their inhabitants.
Certainly, we already have an apparent shortage of GPs and hospital waiting lists are becoming longer.
Yes, local councils seem to have a one-track mind: how to look after themselves.
I see that the protestations about housing up to 1500 illegal immigrants at the old RAF base in Lynton on Ouse have been ignored. The migrants have been smuggled in under the cover of darkness. The village has 700 residents and so will be outnumbered. I feel sorry for the women and children who live there, who will no doubt be harassed or assaulted.
