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Letter: It’s time for a rethink on house building in the New Forest’s greenbelt




I AM compelled to comment upon your article ‘Deadline row over new plan for greenbelt homes’ in Milford (A&T 24th Nov).

The objections to reduce the number of houses should not be the issue here, which is to achieve a good housing development.

Looking at the artist’s aerial view, I see yet again the planners and developers have come up with the same old layout for detached family houses with drives off estate roads.

Where are the small one and two-bedroomed terraced houses we need for young people and possible the elderly who would like to trade down, which incidentally would release their larger houses?

It’s time for a rethink on modern housebuilding
It’s time for a rethink on modern housebuilding

Back in the late 1970s we built terraced estates with car parking in garage courts and houses grouped around communal landscaped gardens. This resulted in a sympathetic development with far less hard surfacing, existing mature trees could be retained and it created a communal environment. An eco-friendly solution even then, which was usually accepted by local residents and Planners.

Is it not time for planners to rethink how we calculate housing density to encourage developers to achieve more of the homes we need?

Policies could include, say, 50% one and two-bedroomed houses and flats in all schemes to help fill the housing void, with density calculated on bedspaces (number of persons per development) instead of houses per hectare.

This mix of smaller house sizes would not increase the building structure site coverage or traffic. Coupled with a different approach to vehicle use within layouts, a greener environment is achieved, which perhaps the public today may once again appreciate and find acceptable.

More affordable housing is what we need to be included in all developments now!

Robert Young

Pilley



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