I'm going loopy when I get old!, Teesdale Mercury

I'm going loopy when I get old!

Dec 19, 2007

I READ that Teesdale is in danger of becoming the Eastbourne of the North, overwhelmed by rich elderly people, all of whom will live in large expensive houses, miles away from their children, whose interest in the value of their parents' houses is always, I'm sure, entirely honourable. 

Oldies with fine houses seem to divide into distinct groups: those who feel it to be a great and welcome responsibility to keep the family line as rich as possible, and those who sell the great rotting pile, buy a flat and then do their best to blow the lot. On holidays. But not in Eastbourne.

Things in the dale are just like anywhere else where the well-off settle. Do children have a ‘right' to live permanently where they grew up?  If you are not as successful as your parents, how can a housing market based largely on personal profit possibly supply your needs? 

Property developers who build more than a certain number of houses in any one place are required to include an element of ‘social' or ‘affordable' housing in their plans. 

This means smaller, or poorer quality, or subsidised houses, for ‘essential' workers.  When no such housing is available, the British now fall back on Polish and other immigrant workers to do unpopular work, while many indigenous people prefer benefits. This week, I was talking to an estate agent who told me that new houses next to ‘affordable' ones were the last to sell on any development, because purchasers felt that the proximity of the cheaper houses would devalue the nearest expensive ones. 

"If you had a choice," he asked, "which kind of house would you want to live next to - cheap or expensive?  The British are manic about house values, I'm glad to say, because that's how I make a good living!"

Nimbies are alive and well and living in Teesdale, but they run the risk of hearing some of the most-feared words in English by doing so: "Hello mum, is it okay if we move back in with you?" (Sounds of screaming, rending of garments, frothing at mouth). 

Well, I'm all for oldies selling up and going a bit loopy in their golden years. Let the young ones have Liar Towers; let them bore each other senseless talking about how much money they think they've made, even though the only way they can get their hands on it seems to be by faking their own deaths and going to live in Panama.

Let them run committees designed to ensure that nothing ever happens in villages at all.  Let incomers go slowly barmy talking about the weather and pretending to know about farming. 

Not for me. I'm all for selfishness of a different kind, based on doing things rather than owning them. I don't want to spend my old age worrying about the roof and trying to find a decorator, especially since there seems to be an endless stream of young people desperate to do so. So, when I reach senility in 60 or so years, (when I'm 94) come and find me and my wife in the pub. In between spoonfuls of nourishing broth, I'll tell you about all the interesting things we've done instead of caring for a house.

You may remember that a few years ago, a guide to the North issued by some ghastly public tourist body bade everyone visit Darlington because of its ‘miles of sandy beaches' and ‘plenty of fun for children'.  This guide also described Marske-by-the-sea as ‘the birthplace of the railways'. 

Perhaps the same person is now dubbing Teesdale the new Eastbourne. Well, what's so wrong with Eastbourne? I presume the chap concerned was talking about the coastal town rather than an eastern area of Darlington which has many positive attributes, but an over-abundance of property millionaires is not one. No, it must have been the seaside one, I'm sure. So if you like things the way they are and don't want upper Teesdale covered with social housing for firemen and ambulance drivers to live in, join me next Saturday on the promenade in Barnard Castle in a deckchair. 

This pointless gesture has two objectives, thus rendering it pointful: firstly to get ready for rising sea levels from global warming, even though it's great not being cold, and secondly to help me start my way up the housing queue when my wife and I have no money left.

First published in the Mercury, December 12, 2007