Outsiders Aren't Welcome

Gemx wrote: Affordable housing could also bring valuable skills to your village, The NSE is a large employer of very skilled proffessionals, hardly any of which live in Chalfont St. Peter because there is no affordable housing.  Sadly this means that a vital on call system costs the charity a lot of money each year by having to accomodate staff.  I doubt they have "nightmare families with feral kids"  I agree with the artical, local connection is key, it would be nice to think that my son (6) could stay and raise his family in the village without having to win the lottery!  I don't think that we should tar everyone with the same brush though. x Great debate topic by the way! very contraversial!

Chillies wrote: We could also open this out to look at the wider issue over planning permissions in the village in general.   Why does the County Council continue to allow people to buy good family sized affordable housing stock and then demolish them to build 5/6 bedroom identikit houses and then allow 2 people to live in them?   Surely occupance should at some stage become part of the planning process, because it isn't at the moment by the looks of some parts of the village.

CSP definitely needs more low cost housing for low paid but key workers, such as postal workers, hospital staff, shopworkers etc. Even a 'millionaire's village' must accommodate its vital support workers. Unfortunately, when Clancy Developments tried to build some on Copthall Lane, local objections led to detached private houses being built instead. I can appreciate people's fears about 'nightmare families' and petty criminals but the reason we have several of these in CSP is that Chiltern Council allows neighbouring South Bucks Council to house their 'difficult overspill' in CSP (GX, which is in S Bucks, has virtually no social housing). There should be some rule by which social housing which is constructed with local taxpayers' money should be offered first to local residents with low incomes. Very few of our children will be able to afford to live here (until they inherit what the inheritance tax leaves them of our own estates). By the way, I understand I am forbidden from mentioning 'travellers' in any of my comments, because some ill-informed people think they constitute a racial group.

Gemx wrote: True enough! The grounds are attractive, shame about the houses though! Also families are not able to live in these houses (well at this time anyway)   My partner has been working at the NSE as a locum for 18 months, they recently asked him to stay and as we live in Gloucester, the best idea was to move to chalfont, sadly the house prices are twice that of our gloucester home, so we are going to rent and keep our investment in the shire in hope that we can one day make Chalfont our permanent home.   "affordable housing" is always a risk to the dynamics of a community, but it can work if the residents are welcomed and integrated properly.    The divides usually arrise not because they are different to everyone else (as they are not) but because people never fail to live up to expectation!

go back 30 years, familys of staff were encouraged to live in them.

Henry wrote: The NSE has built houses and accomodation for its staff within its attractive grounds.

yep, the NSE have a proud record of tied housing.
the only problem is you cannot buy it and if you lose your job, your out on your ear.


Edited by oldchris - 28 July 2010 at 11:09am