Strong support for affordable housing, with some very minor and entirely reasonable conditions

The Nimby Liberation Front is unambiguous in its support for affordable housing. The country is in a housing crisis. Young people cannot afford to buy. Young families are being pushed out of villages like ours. This is a tragedy and we stand fully with them.

We have therefore convened an emergency meeting of the parish to consider how best to support the proposed development on the old cricket field. The parish is broadly supportive, subject to a small number of refinements which we feel, on mature reflection, would improve the scheme considerably.

Firstly, while we embrace the principle of affordable housing, we would gently suggest that the developments themselves should perhaps be elsewhere. The cricket field is a much-loved community space, used for approximately eleven days a year and several memorial teas. It would be a tragedy to lose it.

Secondly, if the housing must be built here, we would strongly recommend that it take the form of a single, modest, mews-style development of no more than four homes, ideally in a traditional local stone with slate roofs matching those of the Old Vicarage. The proposed 80-home estate is, in our view, slightly out of character.

Thirdly, the residents of any new development would ideally be "the right sort of people" — young professionals, retired teachers, perhaps a vet. We would have reservations about any scheme that did not provide for a careful selection process.

Fourthly, the access road must not, under any circumstances, run past the lower meadow, where Tarquin walks every morning. We have been advised by our solicitor that this would be highly disruptive.

Fifthly, the parking arrangements at the village hall must not be affected. The book club is already struggling.

With these small modifications we feel that this proposal could be an exemplary model of how to deliver housing without unduly impacting the character of the village or the valuations of existing properties, a consideration which, we stress, is in no way our primary motivation.

We look forward to a constructive and collaborative conversation in due course.