Best of luck to your daughter for her exams and university prospects @Fat Controller . As for you and your BH, there's a lot to be said for leaving London so I hope that goes well.
Thank you - we've poured everything we can into her to make sure she had the start we didn't and thankfully, it seems to be paying off. I've wanted to leave London for quite a while now and especially so since our neighbours through the wall changed just before the pandemic.. whilst things have settled in more recent months, they still aren't the best neighbours in the world, plus we can see this area sliding. I'll be much happier away from the noise, away from Heathrow etc. Country boy at heart, you see.
Although I haven't read it through completely I'm pleased to see that they recommend using the idea of Development Corporations. The pace at which governments work nowadays and the lack of the will or ability to follow through I wouldn't hold your breath on it. I worked closely with one of the corporations and the whole idea was to get the job done quickly and get part of the town up and running whilst still continuing to expand it. It all slowed down once the local authority got involved.
Best of luck to you @Fat Controller with your intended move - the Angel of the North will welcome you with open arms As for New Towns I think Milton Keynes was one of the more successful ones when it came into being - late 70's/early '80's I think ?. Infrastructure was well planned and altho it wasn't the most attractive place on earth, it became a popular area. Don't know what it is like now.
It's mentioned in the New Towns Taskforce Report: A Renewed Town in Milton Keynes; reinvigorating the city centre and expanding to the city periphery whilst reshaping the way people travel, by delivering a Mass Rapid Transit system.
I am on a small community forum, just local folks within the county I live . Today a person posts this --------looking for bags of leaves...only leaves, and only if you have several bags. Thanks! So I replied, come on by you can have 100 bags of leaves, bring your own bags. LOL.
Actually I think what they want is someone else to have Bagged all the leaves for them, and they simply come and pick them up. We do not bag leaves here.
They might also be hoping for bags of clean, dry leaves for some purpose other than making leaf mould.
Oh, I get the whole country has changed and is changing, but I'd rather have that change with at least some peace.
Most of the people around here who thought they had a safe haven in the countryside are finding big housing developments landing on their doorstep. Country lanes clogged with traffic. They have had one of the main routes out of town towards Hastings direction closed for 2 months here. It's gas mains replacement, this is after they closed it in the same place for 6 weeks in the summer. The diversion is miles out of your way so we have 40 ton artics blocking country lanes and unable to make turns, it's been chaos. I thought we were going to stop using gas, but the amount of mains they are replacing I would say not in the next 50yrs or so.
Fortunately and more by luck than judgement when I moved to Devon I ended up in a quiet cul-de-sac and at the back of my garden is landed owned by the charity that owns Paignton Zoo. Thanks to the ground conditions steep, rocky disused limekilns and small quarries even if the rest of the Paignton Zoo site is built on that ground will not be developed anytime soon. Locally Torbay Council have allowed a large number of housing developments, but no doctors, dentists, schools, pubs, small shops, recreation spaces, or space for small businesses. Just off the main road between Paignton and Brixham in two miles there is Morrisons, Asda Sainsbury, Aldi and Lidl and more than seven sets of traffic lights.
Part of the problem there though is that you're still in the South East - it always has been and always will be the most densely populated part of the country. The areas I am looking at, the towns or villages could literally double or triple in size and they'd still be small with plenty of open space around them. In recent years, my hometown has actually seen a population decline.. not massively so, but it seems to be self-regulating and that isn't really a surprise as there is a limited amount of work there to sustain growing families. Much as I personally would be more than happy to live literally in the middle of nowhere, the only house for a couple of miles in any direction, that just isn't practical as I am the only driver it the family... and, like it or not, we are getting older, so we will need to think about being nearer doctors, hospitals and so on. This is just one randomly chosen street in one of the places I am looking at (this one, being my favourite of all the towns) and the key is easy to see: You are nicely in 'civilisation' with good broadband, local shops, decent road links etc and yet - within 10 mins walk, there is nothing but miles and miles of nothing.
