Housing - affordable or otherwise!

Garden grabbing - a good or a bad? In my view an entirely undesirable development following the Labour Government's decision to class gardens as Brownfield development sites. And we have seen the consequences. In Teignmouth we have seen the loss of many of our lovely Edwardian and Victorian villas, picked off by developers who look for large houses with substantial gardens which are not in a Conservation area or listed - Marlyn House in Landscore Road is a case in point. Developers applied to demolish and convert the house into 14 flats - just below the number which would have required the developers to include affordable housing - knowing full well that conservation status had been applied for but not yet granted. We have been left with a deteriorating building on a site which has already seen the developers destroy the boundary walls and site clearance well in hand - will the council now feel it has no choice but to grant permission?

But it is not only in our seaside towns but also in our rural villages we see the damage. In Holcolme we have seen the development of four houses, on the market for £500,000 each, built in the former garden of Red House, Fordens Lane. The development was fiercely opposed by residents, who while recognising the need for some development (the original proposal was for three bungalows) were very unhappy with what was finally built which was and remains totally out of keeping with this old and historic village. Their view was supported by the Council's Planning Committee. What happened? The decision was made by the Regional Authority in Bristol to build come what may without any consideration or understanding of the local community! Worse still perhaps is the decision in Ogwell to build 180 houses in Reynell Road. This was opposed, locally by residents and the council and regionally - only to be overruled by Ruth Kelly in London who approved this development on greenfield land.

We must change the planning regime so that decisions are made locally, based on local knowledge and need, not regionally at the dictate of bureaucrats. We need to abandon Labour's inappropriate density targets ( a minimum of 30 homes per hectare) and planning red tape and replace it with a "family friendly" housing strategy which builds houses with gardens for families, not cramped one and two bedroom flats, the consequence of which has been the total distortion of the housing market. There is now an over supply of flats, many now empty and an under supply of three and four bed roomed houses the consequence of which has been the inflation of house prices which have risen more than eight times the price of a flat - taking them well out of the reach of the lower and middle income earners.

As some of you will have seen, I expressed my views quite forcibly on the Politics Show today, broadcast by BBC South West!

And when I have not been on my soap box , I have been getting to as many summer fetes and shows as I can - but the weather has been terrible and so many have been cancelled after such a lot of hard work and planning - it is a great shame. Despite the rain, I made it to the Puppy Show in Denbury on Friday, 22nd, at the kind invitation of the South Devon Hunt. It was quite an event as the hounds came in couple by couple to be judged - and the rain it did rain! However the weather did not prevent it from being a truly excellent occasion with a marvellous spread for tea. The open garden event at Houndspool in Ashcombe to raise money for the church was again a pretty wet affair - but for those of us who made it, we were treated to a superb tour of Whetman's nurseries and came away very much more knowledgeable about how new breeds of Pinks are created, tested and commercialised.

The movers arrive tomorrow - so my next entry will be from Sandford Orleigh!