but for how long?

It could be one of many walks from home to the shop across the Country. Living on the edge of a Town gives you the benefits of both world’s; easy access to Shopping Centres and easy access to the Country.

Being an unusually nice morning, I thought I’d take a stroll to the Shops. It’s a pleasant walk. I go up the Lane, over the busy A28, over the Cricket Ground, along a quiet Footpath with an avenue of trees and a picturesque Cemetary.
After that it’s up another Footpath between a few houses, over the Football Pitches and down another resident bit.
It’s only a mile and a half and takes just over 20 minutes, but it’s an enjoyable 20 minutes and fairly uninterrupted by noise and hustle bustle.

The problem is that the Cricket Ground (which was moved from the Town Centre ten years ago to build houses) is in fact now sold….to build more Houses which will creep a virus of concrete deeper and deeper into the Countryside.
The Tree avenue would come down, the quiet Cemetary will probably become the local hang out and dumping ground and the Lane itself along with Paddock will become a thoroughfare for the 4 x 4’s doing the School Runs.

It won’t affect me personally. I’m in the Lane on the other side of the A28. Eventually it will affect the next incumbents of Bramley Cottage as they plan to build behind us in 2012, but I’ll be in another Lane by then.

But it’s on a walk like this that you realize the ‘progression’ of a Town. The nearer I walk to the centre, the older the houses become. First it’s ‘country’, then it’s the 1960’s build it quick homes, then the 50’s Corporation Houses, then to the 20’s and 30’s styles.
Just a few houses older than that remain, mostly hidden away behind a shield of 30 feet high Leylandi’s.

You try and blank certain times and imagine the walk 30 / 40 / 50 years ago.

Building Houses I guess is important, but surely more important is the renovation of the old one’s. The environmental nightmare of the future is written on the houses built recently. A house of 400 years or more will surely outlive some of these modern ‘quick buck for the Councils’ types?

After imagining the walk back in time, you try and look forward and see your Children’s children walking the same walk. What will they see and will they thank us for our rubber stamping of future heritage and architecture.

Some may say ‘It’s not my problem, I’ll be well gone in 30 years time’, but aren’t they the ones who moan about the mistakes of the past and also relish in good things that out forebears did?
Also, I think there would be a definate change of attitude on the morning they receive official notification of the 600 homes they’re going to build half way up their Road on the Park where they walk the Dog!

The environment is simply lent to us during our life on this planet. We are but Caretakers of this blue dot in the middle of the unknown. Before we think about better roads, better facilities, we should think about those who are going to live in them and those whose peace and solitude have been stolen from them, especially the wildlife?