A Plot on the Landscape

In August 2007 we took a few trips out to see some new homes being built on the western edge of Milton Keynes.  The development is called Oxley Woods.

The houses are eco-friendly homes perhaps best described as ’semi pre-fab’ that use a number of technologies combined to provide environmentally friendly, efficient homes.  The designs are quite challenging due to the fabrication methods used, but the interiors are fairly conventional, and the street layout uses more traditional concepts of creating a social environment that encourages interaction between residence. Rather than the much more common approach in the area of cramming as many houses into as small a place as possible. Forget about people, gardens and car parking.

We had a good look around the infant housing estate and the show homes provided by builder George Wimpey and came away generally impressed. It’s a shame that more places cant be built like this. Not only did they look different and interesting, but the properties also did a great job of feeling homely, spacious and open on the inside.

However, when you consider what we hope to achieve with our self build, as tempting as these were to buy into, especially considering the various special rates and incentives we’ve been mailed from time to time since our visit, they’re just ‘not quite right’. That I suppose is the joy of the ideal of self build. Sure we can maybe steal some ideas and get some inspiration from what architects Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners have achieved together with Wimpey, but it doesn’t mean we have to buy into it lock, stock and barrel.

Plenty of photos can be seen on my Flickr pages.

Crikey, a serious lack of updates to the blog! Here we are towards the end of November and nothing new since June. So what’s been going on? Well, the situation and plans have changed, but things are still shuffling around and slowly moving forward.We’re probably looking at something of a two year plan with the self build.

With a baby due in January, we’re pretty preoccupied as it is and trying to organise and manage anything on a tight schedule will be pretty much impossible with us sharing working and baby duties. You can only juggle so many things before they all fall to the floor, so we’ve been very mindful of that in our thinking of late!We figure that in a couple of years we will be more stable, the baby will be a toddler (so we can give them a hard hat and tell them to muck in I suppose!) and we’ll be in a better financial position as well. In an ideal world anyway!

This new, more relaxed schedule also gives us some breathing space and time to really focus on the design stage and planning of the entire plot, both our new place and the updating of the present building to make it all one scheme that is as thoughtfully planned and executed as possible. It will also hopefully be the case that some of the ideas and technologies we would hope to use, especially those regarding energy efficiency and sustainability, will be more widely used, builders and fitters will be more confident, and with any luck they will be more affordable too! Of course, it also provides many chances for us to dither and change our minds, so we need to stay focused.

In the New Year, probably after the baby has arrived, we hope to spend more time talking with the architects and getting our plan closer to reality, or at least into 3D models we can play with. We can move on with things like the site survey and more detailed design stages. But before we do, we also need to take more time looking through our favourite books and websites and really trying to nail the feel of the building and the surrounding environment we wish to achieve.

There is one down side to the new plan, and that is we’re having to spend more money on our current place than we wanted, fitting a new (cheap!) bathroom, while other fixtures, fittings and appliances that we thought would just about make it through a twelve to eighteen month build schedule are giving up sooner than we figured. But such is life, and in terms of anything that isn’t nailed down or plumbed in, we’re already looking forward to the new house and thinking about what could look good in our imaginary bedroom, kitchen, living room and so on.The other plan is to use this blog more again, to help me track and store ideas and inspirations as much as to vent and grumble as time goes on! We’ll see…

Probably not, but I couldn’t help rolling my eyes and cursing (once more) the “evil developers” when reading this article from the BBC website.

Apparently said evil doers are buying up properties with large gardens or on large plots of land (that’ll be us then), and destroying them by building flats, mini-estates, and all kinds of other monstrosities that are killing the neighbourhoods and ruining the living environment.

As much as I dislike this sort of behaviour, and I really like living here in the wilderness (at least until Milton Keynes comes along and swallows us whole one day), I do wonder if we should give the developers a call and find how they do this!  Doesn’t it just seem so stupid this can go on, when we’re struggling so hard to hatch our tiny little plan.  We don’t even want to chop down the trees here, we LIKE the trees around here!   Hell, we may even plant some more in the process of getting rid of the ugly tarmac.

Not that any of this matters in planning law.  Blinkered as it is.

But maybe every cloud has a silver lining, just some more than others?

We had our report, or strategy, from the planning consultants arrive on Monday, and it really didn’t make pleasant reading.  Due to the planning history, and (much) more the point local planning policy, it’s time to get real and write off any chance of achieving the initial goal of two new homes/properties for the family on the site.

It’s frustrating to say the least, especially when they’re building about four hundred homes in open fields only a couple of miles away at Cranfield, and over a thousand in open countryside only a couple of miles away in the other direction to expand Milton Keynes.  Yet we cant use our own land to build a couple of new homes for the family.   The planning system really does truly suck.  While I can understand the spirit of the policies regarding “open countryside” (yes, ignore the properties either side of us in our “Hamlet”, both residential and commercial, we ARE apparently in open countryside, but NOT green belt), and the desire to preserve this green and pleasant land, it seems very rigid, and poorly balanced.

We cant re-jig, use space that is currently car park, and modernise and improve the plot and local area in general on a very small scale, while all around us, large open fields and farmland are being obliterated by developing towns and cities, with plans to do even more of the same over the coming years.  It’s madness.  If they want to preserve the countryside, why is John Lewis building the warehouse from hell just down the road (now THAT has spoiled some views), or building loads of new homes on the outskirts of Milton Keynes.  Why cant “they” consider our new places as part of their targets for thousands of new homes in the area?!

Anyway, enough ranting!

We’ve arranged to meet and talk to Al from the Planning Consultants next week, to discuss alternative, scaled down proposals.  Whatever we want to do, it’s not going to be easy, and we’re probably in for the “long game”, but we just want to be able to use this space better, and make it a better living environment for our family, and a better working environment for the company.  Shouldn’t  be too much to ask!

Prior to the bad news coming through, we also had a chat with the head of the Parish Council.  He’s amazed we got so firmly rebuked by the planning department with our pre-application, and is willing to do anything he can to put some weight behind our plans.  Not sure how much real help the Parish Council can give, but it’s nice to know someone appreciates we’re just trying to make it so we stay in the Village, and in Mid Beds, in a place we’re happy living in.

We want to build an environmentally friendly home, we live and work in the same place, we’re after just the sort of thing the government and various environmental groups keep saying they’re all for.  No commuting to and from the office, building on land that’s already paved over and not attractive, improving living standards and the rural environment, building a low cost (to run), efficient home, and improving the current house (which is appalling for energy and running costs).  You know, doing “the right thing”.  Only it feels just now that nobody wants us to.  It’d be much easier to buy an inefficient box home miles away from work, pulling people out of the rural communities they apparently want to protect, and increasing our “carbon footprint” as we start commuting to work.  Great.

Anyway, we’re not giving up, every avenue must be pursued  and investigated, at the very least to stop us wondering “what if…?”, and at the most, so we can work this out and get us a place to live, in a place we want to live!

But not sure it’s worth the paper it’s printed on?

We received our local newsletter last week, which is a (very) small publication with details of local happenings, election news and such. This edition did have something of direct interest to us, in the form of a letter from the Chairman of the Parish Council.

The published letter was concerning planning an development in the area, and it seemed to be “talking to us”. Now, if this sort of thing carries any weight at all I doubt it, which almost makes it as frustrating as encouraging when in our situation, but this is an extract:

We have recently responded to the East of England revised plan for development in Bedfordshire - the report will be published in July 2007.

We care about our residents but the development programmed for Milton Keynes is causing great concerns to our lovely villages and many other villages in Bedfordshire. At Broughton Gate 1,500 dwellings are being built; at Fen Farm John Lewis will be opening a distribution centre in 2009, employing 280 personnel at Home Farm in Cranfield there is a development in process of 400 dwellings and there is concern that there may be 3,00 extra dwellings built in Aspley Guise so I can only hope that our residents from Hulcote and Salford will try to keep our villages rural and undeveloped as much as possible. Any small development should be for residents only, i.e. siblings etc as we do not have the sustainability, water, sewage infrastructure in place for any development at present.

With the help of our MP Nadine Dorries and many other Government members and opposition Members of Parliament, our voice is heard loud and clear. Our County Councillor Roger Baker and District COuncillors Alan Bastable & Ken Mathews have been very helpful in the pasts and will continue in the future.

So, as you can see the letter is very against development, with exception of our sort of project, for family and siblings. Even now we’re unsure what weight, if any, the local Parish Council and Councillors carry in these matters. It feels frustrating we want to develop and improve out little corner of the Village, but the initial response has been nothing but negatives and set backs, words of warning and advice to take the most “softly softly” approach we can.

It seems insane that we’ve seen nearby (literally within a few miles) green fields being obliterated for new developments to expand Milton Keynes, both residential and HUGE commercial/industrial in nature. Yet all we want is to use our own land to make it look nicer and improve the way it’s used to set the family up in local (good quality) housing, and we’re just swimming against the tide.

General feeling now with myself and Abi is a combination of determination and extreme frustration.