Local Development Framework Consultation
Response from Ms Karen Mason (Individual)
1. Ms Karen Mason (Individual) : 23 Jun 2008 15:14:00
Please write your comment or explain your reasons for supporting or opposing this part of the Report. You may also wish to refer to the tests of soundess in the glossary of the Preferred Options document before making your comments.
On reading the suggested plans for Holme village I am amazed at some of the reasons given for expansion - "new housing would help to join housing along Station Road to the centre of the village" - we feel part of the village already thanks without filling in the fields between! South and west of Milnthorpe Road - "could be used to mirror the development on the other side, thus creating a more balanced street scene and definite entrance to the village" What do you think it is? Toytown? It is a rural village not a neat and tidy town. It doesn't have to be in neat rows.
I agree more affordable housing is needed but it seems to me that whenever a development of houses go up there are a couple of "affordable" ones and maybe a hundred of very expensive ones! Also the criteria of local people needs to be looked at - my son, who lives with us with his 2 children, in a 3 bedroomed house in Holme, recently applied for a house by Acorn developments on Pear Tree and was told he didn't meet the criteria, even though he was brought up in Holme and his father before him just because he had gone to live in Kendal for a couple of years (because he couldn't afford to live in Holme!) One of the young girls who got one of them had only been in Holme for a few years and didn't have children like him.
Also even affordable houses are expensive and mortgages now harder to come by than ever. Why couldn't you build some houses for rent like we used to have council houses? It would seem that may be the future as mortgages become more and more difficult to acquire.