Should people raised in countryside expect to be able to stay there?

movedalot I've lived in many parts of the country also. I prefer living in the city but I think it's wrong that people who have always lived in the country and who wish to remain there have been forced out - especially when wealthy people are buying up houses as second homes and leaving them empty most of the time.

The fact is, there isn't enough housing being built for either buyers or renters and this is keeping prices artificially high. Thatcher's policy of selling council houses (and not using the proceeds to replenish the council housing stock) was a disastrous one that has contributed to the mess we're in now.

Around here 'Affordable' is a euphamism for Housing Association.

Living in a large village with about 650 - 700 houses, there are a number of sites where small groups of houses could be built without any damage to the rural environment and every year a handful are built. The village could probably absorb another 100 houses without any change to the community spirit, and that applies to most villages in my area. Obviously the smaller the village the smaller the number of houses, but to suggest, by definition, that houses outside towns should became the privilege of the rich is retrogressive and elitist.

Having said that I see no reason why anyone should have a right to live where their parents live. I am of immigrant stock, in the 19th century my family moved from Ireland and Northamptonshire to London. My parents and their siblings were born and brought up in London but only a few stayed in London, some stayed in the UK but several lived overseas for many years. My sisters and I all moved 100 miles +/- from our parents to live and work and my children have done the same.

All of us would like to have stayed nearer home but moved away to find work and affordable homes.

I'm not suggesting that everyone has an absolute right to remain in the area in which they were brought up. I do think it's fair though that younger people have at least some chance of staying near their families, and this is increasingly unlikely in many areas of the country because of the overall lack of housing and the fact that, in the countryside, the bulk of housing consists of more expensive houses, a significant proportion of which were built many years ago.

I agree that many less expensive housing developments are ugly and out of keeping with their surroundings, but I think this is more about laziness and lack of imagination on the part of the construction industry than cost. In other countries they are able to build reasonably priced well designed housing developments without resorting to streets of anonymous little boxes or flats that look like prison blocks.

Around Oxfordshrie it is often the smaller houses and Housing Association houses that are designed to fit appropriately into village environments. They are smaller scale and often terraced and fit in with other cottages around them. The bigger houses, whether built to order or in estates by developers are the ones that are over-sized, over-designed or in the case of developers estates crammed in at funny angles and almost always designed in some faux period style that is inappropriate for the site or the village.

For younger poorer people it is difficult to stay in the village but we have three small towns within 5 miles of the village, two of which are designated as growth points and have a lot of new 'affordable' homes being built. All can be reached by public transport. I appreciate that that is not always the case

It's the same the whole world over......many French villages have only retired residents and are dying. The young want to move to the town for jobs and social life. Some villages were kept alive by British immigrants who renovated almost derelict houses and lived there permanently, but the supply of willing Brits has dried up now. Most French people would prefer to buy a shiny new house on an estate close to amenities.

Same in Italy. We regularly go to a small village in Southern Tuscany - the old hill town is slowly being taken over by Germans and Dutch- whilst the locals have moved to small modern apartment blocks in a new town a few kms away!

Not really sure if people ever have absolute right to stay where they were born and bred, if there are no jobs there. I also know many young people who've been unemployed for a very long time and still expect the tax payer to pay for them to live in very expensive accommodation in London, where they say it is their 'right' to live there and won't go anywhere else (most of them not born and bred there either).

I will be shot down I know - but, with proper exception made for special circumstances (foster homes, handicap, Army personnel, etc) the spare bedroom tax is fair to me. What is wrong for children to share bedrooms - I did share with my brother until I was 11, my daughters shared for a very long time - and when the eldest went to Uni, we rented her room to pay for her accommodation cost elsewhere. Our cleaning lady had 4 children and they lived in a Council house near us- but when the kids left, they were moved by the Council to a bungalow in another part of town, so their house could be used by a family. She was sad to leave the area, but totally agreed it was fair- and adjusted very well. Totally agree that Councils should be building much more social housing, and much more smaller 1 or 2 bedroom bungalows and flats, as well as family homes.

I wouldn't shoot you down for that Granjura. Surely if someone else is paying for your accommodation you don't have as much right to determine where you live as if you are paying for it yourself? I am thinking about all the people who struggle to maintain themselves who would love to live in some of these places but cannot afford it.

When the cap on housing benefit was announced I saw a young woman on TV who had 5 children and lived in Islington. She said she would have to move away from there into a less desirable area and thought that was wrong because her children were happy there. I have friends in London who would love to be able to afford to live in Islington! There was no mention of a male in their lives and at the end of the interview she was asked where she came from and if she would go back. She was from Jamaica and said she wouldn't go back because there was no welfare! Incidentally, she had a huge flat screen TV and we didn't! Maybe she wasn't typical but it is that sort of attitude which makes others get upset.

I have followed this with interest as I feel no-one has the "right" to live anywhere, by which I mean, you go where there is work. We went to London when we married where accommodation (rented of course) was horrifying expensive - a 1 1/2 room attic funished flat in Greenwich not a "posh" area, for £45 a month which was about half my after-tax salary as a teacher. There was no question of buying and had I stayed in Scotland in the small town where I was brought up we could easily have afforded a house. Everything is topsy turvy now, but in my experience most young people do not want to live in villages when they first set up home. They want to be where there is a night life, where their friends live and where there is employment. There is "affordable" (depends of course) in many small towns but to me the great loss is of rented accommodation. Council houses have been bought up and are now sold on for many times their original price so that part is taken out of the housing pool available to the truly low paid or unemployed. Private rented accommodation usually comes at a price from landlords who have also bought up much of the cheaper end of the housing market as buy to let investments - there may be some on GN whose pension that constitutes. The fact is that there is accommodation - but not necessarily what some people want or where they want it.

I don't understand people saying that you have to live "where there is employment". I lived in a small village in Suffolk, and my mum still lives there. When I left school, I worked in Colchester - 6 miles up the road. A lot of the people in the village don't work in it - they travel to nearby towns - Colchester, Ipswich, Sudbury, Bury St Edmunds - or even into London.

When I lived in Lancashire, I travelled 3 miles to work. I travelled 6 miles into work from the outskirts of London to my job in Central London.

Surely most people have some sort of commute to work?

The problem arises when the 'commute' is more than people on low wages can afford. There are lots of towns and villages in formerly industrial areas where there is plenty of cheap housing but no jobs within miles and often poor or no public transport. Where there is public transport, the fares may be so high that they represent too high a proportion of potential income. People on good salaries can afford to live in the country and pay several thousand pounds a year to travel into big cities. People on stupidly high salaries can even commute across continents and live where they like. What we need is a revival of employment where people live, rather than more and more development of the SE and the Home Counties.

eloethan I think most of us would consider those distances as still where they live. 6 miles really isn't very far.

6 miles is hardly a 'commute'!

Lilygran Agree with you re transport and what you say about the concentration of development in the south east.

Movedalot Granted, 6 miles isn't that far if you have a car. My journey required a bus into Colchester and another bus to the outskirts of Colchester (about 40-60 mins each way).

Most of the people I currently know travel between 40 mins to an hour (or more in some cases, e.g. Rutland to Holborn, Ipswich to St Paul's, Horsham to Bank, Burnham on Crouch to Green Park, Hastings to St Paul's, etc., etc.).

That was what I meant, Eloethan - by "where there is employment" I meant access to their job. 3 miles is virtually walking distance - certainly cycling!
Most - I accept not all- work is in urban areas and suburban accommodation will depend on the area. Many people do have to commute long distances paying high fares out of taxed income simply because accommodation in or near the major cities is so expensive - not in the country.

Keeping a car on the road is a big expense for someone on a low wage, so if you live in the country more than a reasonable walk to work, you rely on public transport. That is laughable - sometimes only one bus a day in each direction. It is not comparable with London or any other city.

With a car, you often cannot count on minor roads being cleared of snow and salted.

I don't suppose you walked the six miles to work into London, Eloethen , though three might have been reasonable.

Affordable housing is also a requirement of the newly divorced who don't want to move away from friends and family. Single parents with jobs and children who are settled in school are often at the mercy of greedy private landlords.

Those pesky single mothers again - destroying the economy with their masses of fatherless kids!
Lilygran, thank you for your usual compassionate and well reasoned reply.

My sister has lived in her council house for 28 years. She brought up her four sons there, and has a network of support from other elderly people in the close. She can catch a small bus from right outside the door which takes her to the local shopping precinct every day, where she meets friends for a pot of tea and also joins women's groups for two days a week. She is quite severely disabled and unable to walk more than about 100 yards. She loves her home and has spent thousands of pounds over the years in decorating it and making a lovely, albeit very small, garden.
There are no, repeat NO, one bedroomed properties anywhere in the vicinity. If she were forced to move, she would lose her supportive neighbours, her means of transport, and much of her social life. In fact, I think it would kill her. She is 76 and in very poor health indeed, so I think the council is taking the view that she won't be occupying the house for long. Yes, I know all about the families waiting for houses - what a shame so many were sold off by previous governments and very few were built.

I wasn't criticising single mothers greatnan

Actually most affordable homes in our area( dorset)are covenanted, so local people get priority, and they can only be sold at the same % below market value as they were bought for ..... shame the tories didn't apply that rule when they flogged off our housing stock cheap, which used to be the affordable homes of our parents generation

Even in Posh Poundbury they were made to have social and affordable housing.
We also have very successful community land trusts here in west dorset....

There are jobs around here, but very low paid ones, the hardest problem being public transport - when I lived in a village three miles from Dorchester , the last bus left town at 5.30 = so if you worked in a shop you had no chance of using it, and in the morning you had to get one at 7.30 and hang around for 3/4 hour before going to work, as the 8.30 got you there too late! This meant many families having no choice other than to run 2 cars, which skews the indices of deprivation stats, makes rural areas appear more wealthy, and therefore get less central gov grant.

Rurality also makes public services more expensive to run, but somehow this message has never made its way to the brains of central gov, no matter who is in power ! they just keep pouring money in to inner cities and HS2, when the south coast main line is falling into the sea !

No, merlot, you were just pointing out that single parents are often disadvantaged by housing policies in their area. I agree with you.

While people are saying the 'bedroom tax' is fair - it hasnt been properly thought through - quelle suprise!

In private rented , you can still get housing benefit, but the 'spare bedroom ' rule already applied.. private rented is more expensive, but young responsible families ( like my DS ) have no choice, both working, = not enough points.

BUT, as the majority of social housing was built for families, they tend to have 3 bedrooms, so there is nowhere to relocate the over accommodated to, within social housing. Therefore they lose benefit - remember , benefit also gets paid to working families on low incomes....so , people will have to move out of social housing , into smaller privately rented homes which will cost more , therefore won't actually save any money at all, but will , due to ,market forces, push private rents up, which will in turn cost even more, and also cost youngsters not claiming benefits more, which means they cant save for their house deposits.. setting up a rather nasty vicious circle

All they had to do was make the bedroom tax apply to people that HAD REFUSED suitable alternative accommodation, and not made pensioners exempt, as they are the biggest house blockers of all, for whom 1 bedroom homes have been specifically built..........

moved are you suggesting that only wealthier people can live in Islington or similar areas? I did not understand your comments about the woman who may be moved out of her 'home' and your friend who would like to live there.

All areas need mixed housing so that different people: age/socio economic/family/single etc etc can make up the community.

I understand the theory of limiting public spending through capping rate subsidy but I am not convinced it is going to have the desired impact! I am able to offer support to my DDs because I can have the grandchildren to stay in one of my (3) spare rooms. Is this kind of family activity to be limited to middle class people like me? It does seem unfair that every older couple who live in public housing have to move to a one bed flat. They will not all be the feckless & undeserving that some right-wing media like to suggest!! My MiL, hard working & decent working class woman lived in her 2 bed council flat in trendy Wandsworth until she died aged 98. Then the council sold it to a private buyer!

Any moment now I can see that my spare rooms becoming cash cows for government: any unoccupied bedrooms in privately owned homes will be subject to an additional tax. Alternatively I could let them to families forced to move from Islington!

I wasn't thinking of you, Merlot, when I made my tongue-in-cheek remark, but of Movedalot's reference to the mother of five who wanted to stay in Islington.
Once children, who may have already had an unsettled background, are happy in a local school, it seems harsh to force them to move.
Yes, of course people need a spare room for family/carer/friends to stay, or if they need to sleep separately for health reasons. I hate the idea that because somebody is not well off they have no right to a normal family life.

Totally see what you are saying - and yet. There are 1000s of people of rent privately who have their own modest homes who a/ cannot afford to live in Islington although they'd love too b/ have had to move out of Islington because they couldn't afford the private rents c/ who do not have a spare bedroom at all, despite having worked so hard to buy their own house.

So the present bedroom tax needs to take account of handicap, age, and other circumstances - I totally agree. But sharing a bedroom is not a disaster for young kids - and 1 bed low rise flats need to be built in local areas to house the elderly who are no longer in need of larger houses - if care could be taken so that those elderly people can be moved together with their neighbours in the same situation, why not. Those larger houses are DESPERATELY needed for families - those who have to share 3 or 4 to a room have a greater need surely than those who'd quite like to keep 1 or 2 spare rooms for occasional visitors.

I'd hate to live in a one bedder. Where would I put up someone who came to stay or a carer if I needed one later on? In my area homes are being built with no community centre, no local shops where one can nip out for a newspaper or a litre of milk. They are mainly 3 storey monstrosities with piddly little garden space and virtually no storage. There's no space to swing a mouse let alone a cat so 1 bedders don't bear thinking about. I'm sure I'll get called 'selfish' but I've worked jolly hard all of my life and had my share of very difficult times and as I get older I want that little bit of space to have my books, enjoy the company of friends and relatives and potter.

I was brought up in the country and now live in the town and mourn the loss of the landscape and animals that once inhabited it. I've moved to accommodate DH's employment but found my own as well and either walked or commuted by public transport - or car -depending on availability. I'm sick of the Government telling me how I should live my life. Perhaps if they'd tighten the immigration laws like the Aussies we wouldn't be in such a mess!