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Hughenden Valley residents went to look at plans for rural affordable homes

7:30am Friday 12th March 2010 in


EMOTIONS were running high at an open day for rural affordable housing in Hughenden Valley with one resident saying if it goes ahead “no piece of green belt land will be secure.”

Hughenden Parish Council is working with English Rural Housing Community and Impact Bucks to propose 10 rural affordable homes in Warrendene Road.

The land is in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Green Belt and working agriculture land.

Warrendene Road resident Ed Furness said: “No piece of green belt land will be secure if this goes through. It will set a precedent if it goes ahead.

“Large swathes of land were bought up four or five years ago by land speculators. The whole reason for them buying the land was they thought they could get planning approval.

“Hughenden Parish Council said this would never be developed. What they are doing now blows all of that sky high and this land will be developed.”

Parish clerk Lynne Turner said: “On this exception site it does not mean it would open up to normal future development.

“The exception in this case is because it is for the rural affordable housing aspect in the parish. People who want to live there would have to have a strong local connection.”

Mr Furness added he is concerned about the way the parish council came to this decision as the subject was discussed during parish meetings when press and the public were excluded.

Chairman Peggy Ewart said: “It is not possible to give any indication until a decision has been made. We could not publicise it in advance.

“We keep confidential all the sites we are looking at until we come to some kind of tentative decision.”

Draft scheme layouts and basic sketch designs were on display in the council offices on Wednesday with the chance for people to register their housing need.

Jean Fox, rural housing enabler for Buckinghamshire from Buckinghamshire Community Action, said: “We have already established a need. We surveyed the village in 2006 that there was housing need for people who couldn't afford to rent or buy and there was a huge need- about 120 people registered.”

John Howson, who has lived in Warrendene Road for 37 years, said there are not enough local amenities nearby for people from affordable housing to use such as low cost shops and a reliable bus service.

The comments made at Wednesday's open day will now be looked at before the next stage is decided.

Comments(14)

demoness says...
8:45am Fri 12 Mar 10

Yes, lets murder more animals birds and wildlife.
God these people make me sick.
Leave the green belt alone - once it has gone, it will be gone forever .

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Punchy says...
8:48am Fri 12 Mar 10

Suck it up you snobs, for decades you've been living the life of riley laughing at the Wycombe's concrete sprawl.

Now it's coming to a place near you you cry foul. Get with the program people, you part of Wycombe now and just another ****. Bend over and take it.

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MCarey says...
9:28am Fri 12 Mar 10

Leave our green spaces alone there wont be any left for the next generations just endless houses and no wildlife

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demoness says...
10:03am Fri 12 Mar 10

Perhaps you could explain to us lesser mortals how having a genuine concern for our planet is somehow snobby?
I find your attitude offensive and rude Punchy - I always thought your posting style was to the point and mostly gave a good alternative view.
This post has let you down and makes you look ridiculous.

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Ewartwhatyoubulldoze says...
10:09am Fri 12 Mar 10

Nice argument Punchy. You're clearly representative of the intelligent, moral-high-ground occupiers in this matter. Maybe you should stand, or perhaps bend over, for Parliament?

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sparky49 says...
11:41am Fri 12 Mar 10

Its only 10 houses and it is for low income familes, hence affordable housing. As for the reliable bus service, a number of years ago th elocal bus company ran a bus to Speen, they pulled the last one at 10.30 pm as it was not used, outcry, how could they!! the bus was reinstated and surprise surprise still no one used it. so to use this as an excuse is not valid. We could build a few smaller council estates for those that are not able to afford to buy.

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TheT0nemeister says...
11:59am Fri 12 Mar 10

sparky49 wrote:
Its only 10 houses and it is for low income familes, hence affordable housing. As for the reliable bus service, a number of years ago th elocal bus company ran a bus to Speen, they pulled the last one at 10.30 pm as it was not used, outcry, how could they!! the bus was reinstated and surprise surprise still no one used it. so to use this as an excuse is not valid. We could build a few smaller council estates for those that are not able to afford to buy.
There is a flip side to this Sparky. There are plenty of people on lets say above average wages that still can't afford to move out into places like this. Its kind of unfair to say affordable housing should be for the low income families in areas such as Hughenden.
Times have changed and for the younger generation, in work there is no such thing as affordable housing... The only way for the younger generation to be able to get an affordable property is to find someone and have a bunch of kiddies and find a low paid job and then be able to benefit from the affordable housing sysyem. There is no incentive to go out and work anymore as by doing this you are offered no benefits.

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pennman says...
12:34pm Fri 12 Mar 10

Leve the greenbelt alone please. It exists for a purpose. There are plenty of places that are affordable in South Bucks and lots of specifically available joint/shared ownership properties for those on low incomes. If people want the good life they should work for it, not rely on the Labour party to give it to them.

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Ewartwhatyoubulldoze says...
2:14pm Fri 12 Mar 10

What Sparky49 says is perfectly valid but 10 houses is just the start - the Trojan Horse to breach the outer defences without us realising. The site in question is 3 acres. Once 10 are built, another 30 will follow on that site. Then the whole field, of which this site is less than a tenth will follow. If they get away with this apparently innocuous first stage the rest is inevitable. Neither the Parish Council nor the WDC planners will ever have the defence of Green Belt land in AONB to refuse future planning applications for developments that contain 30% affordable housing. If the corner of this one field falls, we are talking a major domino effect.

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KateP says...
11:02am Sat 13 Mar 10

According to Jean Fox 120 people registered in 4.5 hours. This equates to one every 2.25 minutes. Knock off the 30 minutes I spent talking to this person and it leave 90 seconds. Hardly time to write your name and address and of course there would have been a queue. During the one and a half hours we were there 3 people were seen registering and no sign of a queue. May I suggest Jean Fox accidently added an extra nought to her figures.

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Ewartwhatyoubulldoze says...
8:55pm Sat 13 Mar 10

KateP wrote:
According to Jean Fox 120 people registered in 4.5 hours. This equates to one every 2.25 minutes. Knock off the 30 minutes I spent talking to this person and it leave 90 seconds. Hardly time to write your name and address and of course there would have been a queue. During the one and a half hours we were there 3 people were seen registering and no sign of a queue. May I suggest Jean Fox accidently added an extra nought to her figures.
KateP, I think in fact she may have added an extra "1" followed by an extra "2". I think Jean was talking about a Parish-wide survey that allegedly happened in July 2005, but which no-one in the Parish remembers seeing. Apparently, the response rate was 32%, but no-one can produce a copy of the results and it was never independently audited. Mind you, it doesn't really matter what Jean Fox says as she has absolutely no role in the representative framework of Hughenden Valley, Hughenden Parish or Wycombe District. BCA is a pressure group with charitable status and, I've heard, £450K of taxpayers money to spend on doing whatever they deem noble.

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KateP says...
9:34am Sun 14 Mar 10

The figure of 120 quoted by Jean Fox was the number of replies to the 2006 survey but still at odds to the number of 40 quoted to me by a parish councillor on Wednesday. EHRA's 2009 Annual report says that the number of sales and resales for the year was 7 and lettings and relets was 27. EHRA also says that the bulk of the development programme continues to be homes for rent. EHRA say "The initial purchase price will depend on the percentage of the property that you are buying; this is calculated by us and depends on the property values in the area and development costs incurred" This would put buying homes in Warrendene Road out of the reach of most people who would have to go back to the bad old days of throwing good money away on rent.. The average rent charged by ERHA is around £100 per week - £5250 in a year which could be used towards a deposit. Schemes such as this do no favours for people who want to own their own homes. Of the 656 homes currently owned by ERHA only 269 homes are part owned. In my opinion the council's original flyer is misleading.

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Kania 2000 says...
11:39am Mon 15 Mar 10

Don't understand why all the considered sites are not made public, unless there's much to hide?
At least then we would know what other sites were considered and rejected.
Can anyone explain why such a large site will only have 10 dwellings?

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KateP says...
1:38pm Tue 16 Mar 10

ERHA buy up small bits of agricultural land on the cheap and tend to build a maximum of 15 houses. The Company that did the survey made a mistake and surveyed Hughenden Valley rather than Hughenden Parish hence most of the sites in the Valley. The PC keep it secret in case it pushes up land prices. This isn't a way for people to get on the property ladder - most of the houses owned by ERHA are rented.

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