1/5
GoogleI want to be very clear here that no criticism on people who have bought houses in this estate is expressed or implied. Avant homes and Gateshead planning department on the other hand.... The estate is sadly typical of many housing developments I see both across the region, and across the country (I travel a lot for work). There are too many houses/plots crammed into the allotted space. I believe the estate was originally going to consist of 140 houses or thereabouts and got bumped up to 180. Houses are generic, off the peg designs, nothing to differentiate them from other developments by the same builder that I have seen. Wasn't there a clause in the planning application stating that the houses are supposed to designed to fit in with the "local vernacular"? What happened to that Gateshead planning dept? And while we're on about "what happened to that Gateshead planning dept", what happened to ADEQUATELY INFORMING THE RESIDENTS THAT A HUGE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IS BEING PLANNED, and fyi, planning departments around the country, printing out an a4 sheet detailing the application, putting it in a polythene pouch and sellotaping it to one (1) lamp-post does NOT = "adequately informing". We found out about this when we overheard two people talking about it in the chemist's at Rowland's Gill. Otherwise we'd have probably found out about it when the bulldozers rolled in as did many local residents. Funnily enough, the exact same thing happened with the last development. Over the last decade or so the amount of traffic passing through the village has increased to a ludicrous degree. The amount of cars parked on the streets has ballooned. Whos bright idea was it to slather nearly 200 new houses across the village which = what, 300 additional vehicles using the narrow roads leading out of and into the village everyday ? Looking at this development, the weird and grotesque mini tower block across from the old co-op, the housing estate of macmansions built alongside the local store, the ugly new estate along from the Chopwell Woods entrance road, you would never believe that up till the 1970s, Durham council wanted to, planned to and had actually started to demolish the entire village! Perhaps planning departments should reflect that there exist many options between overdevelopment and obliteration. Anyway, we've been here for nearly 30 years, for the most part we've enjoyed living here. Now were moving out, it's no longer the village we moved into. It's sad, but it's by no means unique either locally or nationally. You can wave the "housing shortage" around to justify this but it really doesn't. the housing shortage is a shortage of affordable homes, not generic semis starting at 1/4 mil or so I think? It should be a national scandal.
