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Posted by: TallDarkAndHandsome Feb 10 2018, 08:07 PM

Its pretty obvious all villages should be destroyed as they are pretty much apartheid. Not a brown or black face to be seen. Shocking. All on ITV now. Disgusting...

Posted by: On the edge Feb 10 2018, 09:01 PM

Not a brown or black, or indeed any other new face to be seen in villages. Who, in their right mind, would want to live in one round here? No shop, no pub, no school, broken roads, no mains gas, intermittent electricity, one bus a week and not on main drains...ugh.

Posted by: newres Feb 11 2018, 05:52 AM

Ghettos for the middle class.

Posted by: SirWilliam Feb 11 2018, 09:34 AM

Define a village? If we take a few local examples one can see that there is no particular criteria. Compton is a village yet it has a pub,shop, and a wide social demographic. Farnborough is still a village yet has no comercial outlets and is basically a few houses surrounded by farmland. Though there is real evidence that most are inhabited by the nouveau riche as opposed to those born there, but that I'm afraid, is life in a free market. What the relevance of skin colour is I have no idea, are you suggesting we set aside certain properties for ethnic minorities? Doubt it but I'm sure the odd libtard living in the old rectory would welcome a family of Eritrean migrants moving in next door...........Or would they?

Posted by: Andy Capp Feb 11 2018, 10:57 AM

While middle class.

Posted by: SirWilliam Feb 11 2018, 11:03 AM

Apparently Hampstead Norreys has been nominated. Now no disrespect to the locals but it has never struck me as idyllic, but of course that doesn't mean it isn't "well kept".
Good luck to them anyway.

Posted by: je suis Charlie Feb 11 2018, 11:47 AM

Remember what we agreed about trying to type with your forehead?

Posted by: TallDarkAndHandsome Feb 11 2018, 01:34 PM

Where is the Mosque in Hampstead Norreys?😂

Posted by: je suis Charlie Feb 11 2018, 04:56 PM

Next to the soy boy school.

Posted by: On the edge Feb 11 2018, 06:10 PM

I suspect no self respecting immigrant would want to go anywhere near one of our 'no services' villages. Was a very clever ploy; encourage the nouveau riche to take over. They will look after themselves and so 'the authorities' avoid the significant extra financial burden of properly servicing myriad tiny communities. Makes much sense. The off spring of those born there clearly don't want to stay anyway.

Posted by: TallDarkAndHandsome Feb 11 2018, 06:51 PM

Not at first.

Posted by: je suis Charlie Feb 11 2018, 06:56 PM

Market forces.

Posted by: On the edge Feb 11 2018, 07:10 PM

Totally, and beginning to work very well indeed.

Posted by: On the edge Feb 11 2018, 07:13 PM

Once they've made sufficient money why not? Exactly how the post war London terraces were pulled up and gentrified. As the man rightly says; market forces.

Posted by: TallDarkAndHandsome Feb 11 2018, 07:31 PM

Indeed why not. They will have earned the right to live in a white only enclave.😂

Posted by: On the edge Feb 11 2018, 07:53 PM

No, it's a money enclave, many of the best estates are owned by sheik or Russian money. No one cares where the cash comes from. Today, there are still a number smaller dwellings for people a little down the pecking list - ex Quango execs, retired bank managers, BBC people and the like. My mate calls them Wonderbra homes, places for people who like others to think they have more than they do!

Posted by: je suis Charlie Feb 11 2018, 07:56 PM

Hold it! I'm going out for popcorn?

Posted by: TallDarkAndHandsome Feb 11 2018, 08:15 PM

Whats the solution? Ban people with money coming into the Country and only allow immigrants without a pot to pi55 in? Perhaps a land grab like Mugabe's idea?

Posted by: je suis Charlie Feb 11 2018, 08:18 PM

Ghetto for poor people?

Posted by: On the edge Feb 11 2018, 09:46 PM

Why do we need a solution? Towns their suburbs, for economic service and health care delivery, efficient use of land and transport, less expensive physical nfrastructure, are clearly the best place for the main bulk of the population to live. Trying to deliver all these things to scattered rural communities as expensive as it is unnecessary. However, choice is all and it would be wrong to eliminate that. So, nothing wrong with people buying and living in rural areas, always provided they are willing to pay the extra. As today's society demands so much; close at hand schools and medical services, mains water and sewerage, regular refuse collection etc, etc, the 'extra cost' is necessarily high, so only the real rich can afford the cost or a private alternative. What's wrong with that? People 'born and bred' don't have prescriptive rights to stay in the place they were born unless they can afford to do so do they?

Where does the 'land grab' or 'penniless immigrant' come into this? Indeed, it's quite the reverse! In essence, just what Nick Ridley so rightly recommended to the Country a Landowners Association a few years back.

Posted by: Biker1 Feb 12 2018, 08:56 AM

I think it's probably the availability of the motor car that has caused the demographic and amenity changes in our villages, yes?
Take that away and the attraction of remote village life may be somewhat different!

Posted by: SirWilliam Feb 12 2018, 09:23 AM

It is all part of the desired image, the village des res, the rover 4x4 parked ostentatiously on the frontage and coffee mornings with the neighbours. One should not confuse village people with their not so close cousin the country resident who have been there since the enclosures act and will still be the guardians of the our green and pleasant land long after the former have gone back to the smoke. The motor car is, as you rightly point out, the catalyst that encourages village living because without it they would be empty.

Posted by: On the edge Feb 12 2018, 11:48 AM

Arguably the mechanisation / industrialisation of agriculture was the greatest driver for change. There are now very few real jobs left in the countryside. Easy individual transport hastened the speed of change, making public transport wholly uneconomic. Now retail, even petrol stations, pulled away from village settings again for economic reasons. Sure, a few might like the dream of 'working from home' in a chocolate box cottage, until the reality kicks in a couple of years later. So there might be a farm shop with prices that would make Waitrose blush, but no village shop or post office, no pub, not many places to walk, and half an hours drive to get anywhere useful - that's not adding in the gripes from your pregnant wife. So, inevitably back to town they head. Sure, there might be a few local characters, been there for ever, but aren't there similar 'characters' in town? That 1950s sunny image is more a nightmare mid winter, when the oil lorry can't make it up the unsalted road and the septic tank holds more liquid than your fuel tank.

So, those who like to enjoy the countryside are far better off indulging themselves simply by driving out when they have an opportunity. Half hour each way us nothing for a pleasant day out. The other way, when you've made it, is to take a place in the country as a holiday home. What the really successful do, your country estate and your town house - now that's a real,aspirational dream.