Save our village

Seeing horses grazing improves any walk. Round here, there is currently plenty of opportunity for that. 

Horses are flight animals, attuned to every threat. So, to see them quietly grazing speaks of calmness, peace, the possibility of relaxing and not being under threat. In these difficult days, we could all do with that, couldn’t we? 

So, I’ve long enjoyed stopping on a walk, leaning on a gate and watching the horses grazing. Just the thought of it makes me sigh and relax my shoulders. 

One of the village’s great attractions when I moved here was its rural quality: people rode their horses round the lanes, and often it seemed that there were as many horses as there were people. That’s my kind of place, because it says that everyone is aware of the horses and slows down for them on the roads. People, it seemed, were considerate and willing not to rush to allow a horse and rider to survive. 

The presence of horses says that this is the countryside, not urban sprawl. 

On a recent walk, I saw 18 horses grazing in their paddocks, a further three out for a hack, and nine horse boxes taking horses off to competitions. 

All this is under threat. A developer has bought a string of paddocks and is proposing to build 60 houses on the first two. 

Sixty houses may not sound like a lot if you live in a city. Here, that represents a 20 per cent increase in the size of the village and a total change in its nature. Imagine if you increased the size of a city by that much. Coventry, for example, has 146,700 homes. Add 20 per cent more, and you’re creating a further 29,340 homes. People would have something to say about that.

Adding 20 per cent here would change the nature of the village, from a rural setting where horses graze and people ride round the lanes, to just more indistinguishable sprawl. People have something to say about it here too.

The local planning authority is making a decision in March. If it gives the go-ahead, the 60 houses are just the thin end of the wedge. 

The developer will doubtless use this as precedent for the other paddocks. More houses will be built. 

A local farmer wants to sell an area of land for 40 more houses. 

A survey showed that 95 per cent of villagers don’t want to see development on this scale. We all know that more houses will come, but it’s how, where and why they are built that matters. 

Adding cars to the roads

Sir Keir Starmer’s aim of building 1.5 million new homes in the lifetime of this parliament is the motivator for all of this. It’s a laudable aim. But the way that it’s being rolled out, here at least, is poorly thought-through. 

Logic suggests that the majority of those homes needs to be in cities with good infrastructure, where there are jobs, and public transport to get to them. 

Sixty houses in this village will be costly to buy. They will also require every adult to have a car, as there is no public transport. So, add 120 cars to what are frequently single-track roads, without pavements or streetlights and what do you have? The potential for accidents, is the answer. 

My fear is that if those houses are built, not only will there be no horses in fields, it will no longer be possible to ride round the village for fear of idiots driving as if they were on a major road. And in the blink of an eye a way of life is gone. 

So, until the council makes its decision, I shall walk round the village, lean on the gates, appreciate the horses and the countryside that surrounds them and fervently hope that we can understand the importance of rural life, and not, if you’ll forgive the pun, drive a coach and horses through it.