Hello all, and apologies for coming to your forum with a sob story on my first post. I'm hoping there's someone out there who can give us at least a little help.
My detached house backs onto open green fields. For 20 years various developers have been trying to achieve planning permission for housing on there and have been continually unsuccessful. The local residents have formed an action group and kept fighting them off. This came to a head 5 weeks ago when another vote of councellors finished 8-7 against the proposed development of 300 homes. Yet for some reason another vote took place last week and suddenly the housing was passed 8-7.
We called the housing company, having heard this news, and their man came round, very sheepish and shamefaced with the plans. They are devastating to us. We've been trying to sell our home for 2 years and noone will touch it because of the uncertainty. Having seen the plans I can see why. Three of these new houses will come to within 6 metres of our back door and only outside space - a patio. This will block all our light - it only really comes in from that side. Our drive, which we have access rights to and previously just ran to some unused gate to a farmer's field, is now going to be a main pathway in and out of the estate. People will be walking 24/7 within 2 feet of our living room window.
So we're in a situation where we have three children under 5 and are depserate to move to give them a garden. We've found our dream home too. But we've had £50-100K wiped from the value of our property by this news, and no matter how competetively we price the property we aren't going to sell it. We're stuck.
My wife is totally devastated by this. I know now that the full plan has been approved there's little we can do about this. But I'm trying, by keeping the housing company onside, to see if they might so something for us. They've even offered us a little strip of land between us and the development, but it really isn't much comfort at all.
I'm going to talk to see if there's anything else they can do for us. Obviously the best thing that could happen would be for them to buy our house but I suspect it isn't that likely. But I want to also hint that without us "onside" we'll do all we can to make their life difficult. But what I'm looking for is any information about what I can actually do about this. Can I oppose this path, bearing in mind I only have access rights? Can I challenge them on the light they will blocked from my house, even though that's only 1-3 houses out of 300?
Any help, however minor, would be really appreciated. This news really has plunged our family into depair, just weeks after finding our dream home to move into.
My detached house backs onto open green fields. For 20 years various developers have been trying to achieve planning permission for housing on there and have been continually unsuccessful. The local residents have formed an action group and kept fighting them off. This came to a head 5 weeks ago when another vote of councellors finished 8-7 against the proposed development of 300 homes. Yet for some reason another vote took place last week and suddenly the housing was passed 8-7.
We called the housing company, having heard this news, and their man came round, very sheepish and shamefaced with the plans. They are devastating to us. We've been trying to sell our home for 2 years and noone will touch it because of the uncertainty. Having seen the plans I can see why. Three of these new houses will come to within 6 metres of our back door and only outside space - a patio. This will block all our light - it only really comes in from that side. Our drive, which we have access rights to and previously just ran to some unused gate to a farmer's field, is now going to be a main pathway in and out of the estate. People will be walking 24/7 within 2 feet of our living room window.
So we're in a situation where we have three children under 5 and are depserate to move to give them a garden. We've found our dream home too. But we've had £50-100K wiped from the value of our property by this news, and no matter how competetively we price the property we aren't going to sell it. We're stuck.
My wife is totally devastated by this. I know now that the full plan has been approved there's little we can do about this. But I'm trying, by keeping the housing company onside, to see if they might so something for us. They've even offered us a little strip of land between us and the development, but it really isn't much comfort at all.
I'm going to talk to see if there's anything else they can do for us. Obviously the best thing that could happen would be for them to buy our house but I suspect it isn't that likely. But I want to also hint that without us "onside" we'll do all we can to make their life difficult. But what I'm looking for is any information about what I can actually do about this. Can I oppose this path, bearing in mind I only have access rights? Can I challenge them on the light they will blocked from my house, even though that's only 1-3 houses out of 300?
Any help, however minor, would be really appreciated. This news really has plunged our family into depair, just weeks after finding our dream home to move into.
