If only John Harris would think for a moment

In the corner of Somerset where I have lived for nearly 15 years, life in late-Tory England grinds on.

This is Frome, a place the surrounding locals think is more than a little different. Almost like Wiltshire if such a horror can be imagined.

Meanwhile, a lot of local angst is now focused on an ever-increasing number of new housing developments: a huge local story….

Indeed so, much the same is happening in Peasedown St John too.

The Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto promised that the government would trigger the building of 300,000 new homes a year, which inevitably entailed a sizeable loosening of the planning system. But proposals for drastically changing the rules and introducing new liberalised “development zones” were dropped after revolts led by Tory MPs, largely from the south of England.

Yep.

If you live and work in a city, imagining the opponents of new development to be a bigoted shower and endlessly shouting “nimby” at them is easy. But take a closer look at what is actually happening across the country, and you might come to a more nuanced opinion.

Ah, nuance. No, there’s no nuance here at all. It’s simply the result of rank idiocy.

Last Thursday I went to a packed-out meeting organised by our town council to discuss plans for a huge “garden community” of 1,700 homes – housing about 7,000 people – to be built on fields beyond the edge of town that many people see as the area’s green lung.

The mere idea that there are 7,000 - more - people who wish to live in Frome is a shocker to those who know the locality. So, something must be called into evidence to explain that. As well as the absurdity that people seem to be, voluntarily, buying new builds in Peasedown St John of all places.

The answer being that no one is allowed to build housing where people would actually like to live. Midford, Freshford, Monkton Farleigh, Monkton Combe, Combe Hay, South Stoke and so on (for a moving pictures view of these places, the area the Titfield Thunderbolt was filmed in). Or even Lyncombe Vale - all would still avoid Combe Down of course - and other such delightful areas as Dunkerton etc.

So, why is the housing not where people would like it to be and why is it therefore dumped in Frome, where the locals don’t want it and those who will have to live in it don’t want to be?

Because the Green Belt is not just around London. There’s one around Bristol and Bath as well. Peasedown and Frome are just outside it. So, all the housing that could be, would be, where people wish to live is now where they don’t.

There’s no nuance to this at all, it’s simply the imposition of the metropolitans and their prejudices upon the people who actually live - or perhaps better, would like to live - in England’s green and pleasant pastures.

Given that there’s no nuance to the problem there’s no nuance to the solution either. Simply blow up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Proper blow up, Kablooie.

Nobody does actually want to live in Frome so why have a system that forces them to do so?