Not posted in a while. Been lots happening both personally and in the news of course. But despite starting two or three posts, I just wasn't feeling it.
However, today I went for a short drive around the area where I used to live. So I thought I would briefly muse on that. I have very rarely gone back since I left home completely. It is not a particularly nice town and I had little attachment to any friends who had not also left. Maybe one or two but that was it. My parents divorced a short time after I left and that was that. House gone, no need to visit the place.
There were a couple of things which really struck me today, in the suburbs where I was brought up. The first was the complete de-greening of the place. Nearly every lawn where we had played has been turned into a double driveway. Many trees and hedges have vanished. And a lot of grass verges have been co-opted into people's properties - and therefore their driveways. It wasn't a posh neighbourhood but I remember it as leafy and pleasant. It was rather odd to be confronted with such mass environmental change and it worries me to think how many other places are now the same.
The other very clear situation was house building on a large scale. Developers have finally managed to get access behind some of the classic 'ribbon development' roads on the outskirts and are taking full advantage. But none of it looked to be 'affordable housing'. And I could not see how the infrastructure is going to manage. New schools and roads will be desperately needed from what I could see. And the huge swathes of fields which have gone was quite shocking when you had not been there for such a long time.
It all appeared to be a microcosm of the sorts of issues facing many towns in the UK. Not enough housing for those on lower incomes, lack of investment in everything needed to sustain modern life apart from these houses, the one hospital is on the other side of the town. And the car is king. It is already king in the existing estates and will have to be king on the new ones because you will not be able to get anywhere without one. The only public transport is buses. Similar issues are happening where I live now.
Once again on this blog, I must go back to 'this is not a poor country'. We have money. It is just not being spent properly. Theresa May leapt to the defence of the NHS when Trump attacked it. Brilliant. Now spend some money on it. Ministers pondering on the housing crisis - sink estates, hundreds of people in B&Bs, the issues following the Grenfell tragedy, etc? Cancel Trident and spend the money on houses - council houses. As for the environmental changes I saw, I don't see how, at present, we can escape from the car trap. Homes are built further and further away from facilities but there is no other transport. Many houses accommodate at least two working adults. Unfortunately, it is the green in our lives which is having to give way.
Actually, I lived in that place for so long that I remember there being fields in places which are now thirty to forty year old estates. Change has to happen. Of course. But I don't think nearly enough thought is being given to the planning situation now and that is something which should worry us all.
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