Greenbelt conservation or progress?, Crosby

Greenbelt conservation or progress?, Crosby, a photo by Ianmoran1970 on Flickr.

Conservation or progress?

I’m lucky enough to live in a conservation area, there’s some nice large old houses and its all rather peaceful.

In between our conservation area and the historic Little Crosby, are public footpaths crossing green belt land, Crosby hall and fields of green.

One of Sefton councils ideas for its strategic housing plan, is to build more than 200 houses on this green belt land.

People that are within 50 metres of the ‘site’ have been given letters, but most of the walkers and people in the area are unlikely to be aware of what is being considered.

Currently under review is the Seftons core strategy for housing. Apparently the population since 1981 has fallen by 26,800 people, while 14,000 more homes being built. Current vacant dwelling rate is 4.6 and there are swathes of houses waiting to be demolished to make way for new property.

Despite lack of demand and current vacant stock, future requirements are due to the trend of smaller households.

Personally I don’t think it could possible to keep the walks and the character, and it is bound to upset the rich wildlife we have, I remember the first morning that we spent in our house, when a Red Squirrel was literally knocking on our bedroom window, other wildlife we have here include Bats and Pheasants.

Assuming these properties are required, I imagine they need to go somewhere, question is a green belt site in historic setting, between two conservation areas the place to put them...


Anyway, in shot is a snap from the field that is proposed to become a housing estate, the watercolour look to this is purely from dof on my nice lens, as the camera saw it, not photoshop.

And I got through that without mentioning my Entry in the Manfrotto comp :)



Thanks for looking.