The effect of Politics

Image: © Bob Harvey Taken: 19 Oct 2013

This estate was planned and built under the planning rules introduced by John Prescott when he ran a super-environment ministry as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Part of the regulation replaced the previous maximum housing density of around 25 dwellings per hectare with a new minimum density of 31 per hectare; hence the many three-storey houses on the estate. Another requirement was that 25% of houses be built without provision for parking a car. While this may have had a useful social engineering function in metropolitan areas like Hull, encouraging the use of public transport, in a small market town like Bourne it would have been a disaster. The solution was to build separately, and sell separately, lock-up garages not attached to houses. They could even count separately toward the density calculation, if described carefully. These houses were also sold with a grassed front lawn, but as you can see, that vanished very quickly.

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