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Ten bob millionaire housing developments

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primax
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« on: August 07, 2012, 10:32:38 pm »

I thought I would write a piece on my experience of what we call at work 'ten bob millionaire' housing.
The trend over the past 15 years around the 5 towns, is companies building huge housing developments of detached houses. The largest of which is in Normanton where the old golf course used to be at the side of Normanton bypass. Other areas developed are Streethouse, Sharlston, Crofton, Pontefract, Altofts, Knottingley (huge one in the pipeline), Ackworth, Upton, Elmsall etc and the new one proposed in Featherstone.
None of these projects were aimed at the local population because it isn't cheap affordable housing, they usually consist of detached houses in the £200,000 - £400,000 bracket aimed at what you would call the middle classes which would be typically - Doctors, school teachers, business owners, lawyers, bankers and so forth. People earning wages £40,000 plus per annum.
The politics behind such projects is baffling. At a time when we were screaming out for cheap affordable housing for the 'have nots', time after time we kept seeing these types of projects appearing left, right and centre across the 5 towns.
Why it was allowed to happen on such a scale is a mystery when developent of cheap housing for low earners has almost come to a standstill in what are by and large working class communities.
So, who has moved into these large detached houses and where do they come from?
Well, you'd be supprised where the people come from who live in them. A large majority of them work vast distances from where they reside, some of them as far as London infact. Because these houses are cheap compared with housing in perhaps Leeds, York, Manchester, Birmingham or London, people have sold their old houses in those areas and with the profit bought a nice new house in this area and live mortgage free. So they will commute silly distances to work and back because they don't have a mortgage to pay.
That isn't all of the people that live in these houses, some are indeed local people who may have retired into the areas or had enough money to buy one but that isn't a common thing.
Life in these new developments is a strange affair to someone who is used to living in a tight knit community. When I've worked in these places I have noticed people living next door to each other coming out and getting into cars and not saying hello or 'hi' to each other, they pass each other walking dogs and don't say hello, there are 6 feet high fences between many of them in the rear gardens so they can't talk to each other while frequenting their gardens. Why did the developer build 6 feet fences?
I noticed over time that in these developments, in perhaps one street, there is a 3 bedroomed large house, a 4 bedroomed job even bigger and even a 5 bedroom job with a bigger garden. All sorts of different sizes and designs all with 6 feet fences deviding them in the back gardens. Why?
Why don't people talk to each other much in these places?
The Normanton development is absolutely enormous and no shops were built to provide for the locals - why?
Well, obviously you've got all sorts of people from all sorts of places and backgrounds and it will take time for it to develop into a decent community but the Normanton one has been up a long time and still the place seems hostile in as far as togetherness is concerned, it just doesn't seem right and why are they popping up in working class communities in such massive numbers?
It has dawned on us at work and not just us, on many people that they are infact community destroyers, the reason that they build 6 foot fences is because they don't want people talking to each other, the reason why they build smaller and bigger houses in the same street is because that is an instant devider of people because people hate it when someone has something bigger or better than them and it creates hatred, devide and jealousy.
So what you have is estates full of people that are for all intents and purposes devided and conquered then subjected to the rubbish they see on television, in other words they are Sheeple streets and thats what they want for the rest of us, to become devided and not talk to each other in an apathetic world where no one gives a S H I T.
We have been bombarded with Sheeple estates where no one cares about each other, no cummunity spirit, no pub, no shop, no fish shop to gather and talk - nothing except 6 feet high fences and jealousy because the Jones's have a bigger house than the Smiths. Watch out, its coming to Featherstone.

 
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seneca bond
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« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2012, 07:25:55 pm »

when people move to an area they become part of the local population.

what is wrong with professional people living in a town? What is wrong with 'ten bob millionaires'? They are hard working people who want to improve their lives, and the lives of their families.
As a child I lived in a terraced street in Featherstone. the houses were divided at the backs by six feet high walls. people are entitled to some privacy.
I've lived also on the coal board estate, been homeless living on the streets, lived in the slums of Glasgow and Bradford, a village in rural Norfolk and the leafy suburbs north of Leeds. I've found:

people aren't good or bad because of their social class. You become good or bad through your actions. being middle class doesn't make you bad, being working class(or indeed underclass) doesn't make you good, and vice versa, and I'm sure this applies to 'ten bob millionaires'(what a snobbish label).

People are caring, supportive of each other, or uncaring and isolated in any kind of living environment.

For example: in my childhood I saw domestic violence, drunkenness, thuggery, extreme empathy(my parents brought up next door's baby as their own , when her mother ws in Stanley Royd with post natal depression) in the streets in Featherstone  where I lived.

I've seen a similar pattern wherever I have lived, and where I live.

To stop people moving into a dying town like Featherstone because  there is a traffic jam in the lane on a morning is silly.
I walked up the lane today to the hardware store. I really like this shop. Friendly service, good prices, plenty to choose from. There are other good places as well. It's nice to see model shops. I have no interest in building models, but it seems that plenty of people out there are interested. A quality fruit and veg shop, a famous newsagents that I've shopped at since I bought comics there as a child, a home brew shop, a cracking sandwich shop-carolyns is butty paradise, and an industrialsafety shop. A Top quality chippy.
Otherwise places are shut down, thre market place increasingly depressing, there are too manay nail bars and hairdressers and dodgy fast food joints. Oh and Betfred.

There's nowehere to go at night apart from the appalling last Orders. Nowehere apart from to be fair the excellent Lidl to buy interesting food. There is only one butchers and a mediocre one at that.
The town  needs new blood, people with jobs, income aspirations, and interests. It also needs, the daily 'gridlock' notwithstanfing, people living in the middle of the place.
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primax
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« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2012, 06:12:10 pm »

Quote
when people move to an area they become part of the local population.
Yes they do, but not the community in this case, they are isolated in their own little world where the press can get to them with television and tell them 19 hijackers armed with stanley knives can defeat the CIA, FBI, NORAD, NSA, Homeland security, Pentagon missile defence system then bring down the twin towers and blow up the Pentagon. Just goes to show - you can do it when you B&Q it.
Quote
what is wrong with professional people living in a town? What is wrong with 'ten bob millionaires'? They are hard working people who want to improve their lives, and the lives of their families.
Got nothing against them, just the way they are being hearded into these estates away from reality and made to do their shopping at Asda. It's not their fault, they just don't know whats happening to them, just a little dim thats all.
Quote
People are caring, supportive of each other, or uncaring and isolated in any kind of living environment.
The latter part of your statement applies to these estates.
Quote
To stop people moving into a dying town like Featherstone because  there is a traffic jam in the lane on a morning is silly.
Now your just winding me up.
Quote
I walked up the lane today to the hardware store. I really like this shop. Friendly service, good prices, plenty to choose from. There are other good places as well. It's nice to see model shops. I have no interest in building models, but it seems that plenty of people out there are interested. A quality fruit and veg shop, a famous newsagents that I've shopped at since I bought comics there as a child, a home brew shop, a **** sandwich shop-carolyns is butty paradise, and an industrialsafety shop. A Top quality chippy.
Otherwise places are shut down, thre market place increasingly depressing, there are too manay nail bars and hairdressers and dodgy fast food joints. Oh and Betfred.
All thats in Fev is take aways and hair dressers because some idiot kept signing approvals for more and more of them.
Quote
There's nowehere to go at night apart from the appalling last Orders. Nowehere apart from to be fair the excellent Lidl to buy interesting food. There is only one butchers and a mediocre one at that.
The town  needs new blood, people with jobs, income aspirations, and interests. It also needs, the daily 'gridlock' notwithstanfing, people living in the middle of the place.
What about the White house, the Green Lane club or the Coronation club?
This town used to be full of clubs and pubs, had an array of shops and was an healthy community. That was because of the mining industry which was the backbone of the town. To make it good again and to bring wealth here once more you need mass employment opportunity, lots of trade and industry that employs locals and not 5 quid an hour Foreign labour that we have been flooded with.
You on the other hand Bond, wish to turn the place into a housing development for out of towners who shop at Asda, work in Leeds and turn their nose up at the fruit and vedge shop in the lane.
You probably want to knock all the council houses down like in Girnhill and Verner, send all the residents to rented terrace houses in Cas so the ten bobbers can take over the town with their 200 grand house, Chelsea tractor and slightly dim looking appearance.
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seneca bond
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« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2012, 09:58:38 am »

Quote
when people move to an area they become part of the local population.
Yes they do, but not the community in this case, they are isolated in their own little world where the press can get to them with television and tell them 19 hijackers armed with stanley knives can defeat the CIA, FBI, NORAD, NSA, Homeland security, Pentagon missile defence system then bring down the twin towers and blow up the Pentagon. Just goes to show - you can do it when you B&Q it.
Quote
what is wrong with professional people living in a town? What is wrong with 'ten bob millionaires'? They are hard working people who want to improve their lives, and the lives of their families.
Got nothing against them, just the way they are being hearded into these estates away from reality and made to do their shopping at Asda. It's not their fault, they just don't know whats happening to them, just a little dim thats all.
Quote
People are caring, supportive of each other, or uncaring and isolated in any kind of living environment.
The latter part of your statement applies to these estates.
Quote
To stop people moving into a dying town like Featherstone because  there is a traffic jam in the lane on a morning is silly.
Now your just winding me up.
Quote
I walked up the lane today to the hardware store. I really like this shop. Friendly service, good prices, plenty to choose from. There are other good places as well. It's nice to see model shops. I have no interest in building models, but it seems that plenty of people out there are interested. A quality fruit and veg shop, a famous newsagents that I've shopped at since I bought comics there as a child, a home brew shop, a **** sandwich shop-carolyns is butty paradise, and an industrialsafety shop. A Top quality chippy.
Otherwise places are shut down, thre market place increasingly depressing, there are too manay nail bars and hairdressers and dodgy fast food joints. Oh and Betfred.
All thats in Fev is take aways and hair dressers because some idiot kept signing approvals for more and more of them.
Quote
There's nowehere to go at night apart from the appalling last Orders. Nowehere apart from to be fair the excellent Lidl to buy interesting food. There is only one butchers and a mediocre one at that.
The town  needs new blood, people with jobs, income aspirations, and interests. It also needs, the daily 'gridlock' notwithstanfing, people living in the middle of the place.
What about the White house, the Green Lane club or the Coronation club?
This town used to be full of clubs and pubs, had an array of shops and was an healthy community. That was because of the mining industry which was the backbone of the town. To make it good again and to bring wealth here once more you need mass employment opportunity, lots of trade and industry that employs locals and not 5 quid an hour Foreign labour that we have been flooded with.
You on the other hand Bond, wish to turn the place into a housing development for out of towners who shop at Asda, work in Leeds and turn their nose up at the fruit and vedge shop in the lane.
You probably want to knock all the council houses down like in Girnhill and Verner, send all the residents to rented terrace houses in Cas so the ten bobbers can take over the town with their 200 grand house, Chelsea tractor and slightly dim looking appearance.

nobody is 'hearded'(sic), people choose to live where they live. Your comments about #the presws' are weird.

by building up market housing you attract people with money to spend

youi say that 'all there is in fev is take aways and hairdressers'. I gave an analysis of the businesses in the lane. If yopu bother to check, you will see that this is untrue, although IMHO therre are too many hairdressers and take aways. I actually said that.

thw white house the green lane and the correr aren't in station lane. I was referring to station lane. Station lane is Featherstone's main street and the hub of its social  and busines activity: and as such it presents a depressing outlook.


featherstone wasn't 'full of pubs and clubs' although there are fewere than there were: not necessarily a bad thing. Social interraction, 'going out' iosn't necessarily about 'pubs and clubs'.

Featherstone has lost the jubilee, north featherstone wmc, the rat trap, the sun, the Ozzy over several decades.

the Travs and The junction survive just about as appalling carvery type establishments
the green lane and the B&S still carry on
the Railway is a repository for alkies
the top house still seems to function.
The Bradley Arms prospers

If you want a night out drinking fizzy chemical beer there's plenty of opportunity still.
If you want a night out drinking interesting beer there is only the brad
if you want to go out for a decent, interesting meal: it's the shuhag or nothing
if you want to have an evening's entertainment other than perma tanned tribute acts: forget it.

There's nothing wrong with ASDA, other than thsat they and other supermarkets are out of town.

I've lived all overt the country in all sorts of circumstances over the last forty odd years of my adulthood. There are caring/uncaring, good/bad, wherever you live.
The idea that ten bob millionaires live some alienated existence in their 200 grand houses is ridiculous.
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primax
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« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2012, 04:30:44 pm »

Quote
The idea that ten bob millionaires live some alienated existence in their 200 grand houses is ridiculous,
Is it?
You still havn't worked it out yet have you? Gradually they are replacing the electorate of strong Labour seats in order to thin out the die hard Labour supporters in working class communities and this is the way that they do it aswell as alienating these people from the rest of us.
Quote
and the idea that featherstone wass some kind of working class paradise populated by people who woiuld walk over broken glass for each other
This is where I get the message you have no idea what this town means to people and what it meant to people in the past, you just havn't got a clue.
Yes we would walk on broken glass for each other and that is what people like you and the rest of the 'know it all' numpties hate about working class communities, they work, play, fight and die together and sometimes they will die for each other. Thats how life should be dude not sat in isolated estates being brainwashed by television and playing with iphones.
Now step off the orange box, your making an idiot out of yourself.

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l100w
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« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2012, 08:34:35 pm »

No one has answered the questions about how the doctors and schools are going to cope with the influx of more people, these are the important questions that need addressing.
Yes the extra traffic at peak times will be a bind, yes nail bars and takeaway's dominate the high street and yes these new houses do have high fences causing instant dislike between neighbours, but lets answer the question about how more people can fit into already oversubscribed doctors surgeries and children can fit into very oversubscribed schools without building more to accomodate them. I am all for building up the town again by more people coming into it, but lets build facilities to accommodate them first.
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Kim685
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« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2012, 08:37:59 pm »

No one has answered the questions about how the doctors and schools are going to cope with the influx of more people, these are the important questions that need addressing.
Yes the extra traffic at peak times will be a bind, yes nail bars and takeaway's dominate the high street and yes these new houses do have high fences causing instant dislike between neighbours, but lets answer the question about how more people can fit into already oversubscribed doctors surgeries and children can fit into very oversubscribed schools without building more to accomodate them. I am all for building up the town again by more people coming into it, but lets build facilities to accommodate them first.

Good points  Grin
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primax
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« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2012, 08:47:18 pm »

No one has answered the questions about how the doctors and schools are going to cope with the influx of more people, these are the important questions that need addressing.
Yes the extra traffic at peak times will be a bind, yes nail bars and takeaway's dominate the high street and yes these new houses do have high fences causing instant dislike between neighbours, but lets answer the question about how more people can fit into already oversubscribed doctors surgeries and children can fit into very oversubscribed schools without building more to accomodate them. I am all for building up the town again by more people coming into it, but lets build facilities to accommodate them first.
Well said.
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Forkhandles
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« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2012, 09:18:38 pm »

No one has answered the questions about how the doctors and schools are going to cope with the influx of more people, these are the important questions that need addressing.
Yes the extra traffic at peak times will be a bind, yes nail bars and takeaway's dominate the high street and yes these new houses do have high fences causing instant dislike between neighbours, but lets answer the question about how more people can fit into already oversubscribed doctors surgeries and children can fit into very oversubscribed schools without building more to accomodate them. I am all for building up the town again by more people coming into it, but lets build facilities to accommodate them first.

Totally agree with this post Smiley
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seneca bond
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« Reply #9 on: August 21, 2012, 10:34:04 am »

Quote
The idea that ten bob millionaires live some alienated existence in their 200 grand houses is ridiculous,
Is it?
You still havn't worked it out yet have you? Gradually they are replacing the electorate of strong Labour seats in order to thin out the die hard Labour supporters in working class communities and this is the way that they do it aswell as alienating these people from the rest of us.
Quote
and the idea that featherstone wass some kind of working class paradise populated by people who woiuld walk over broken glass for each other
This is where I get the message you have no idea what this town means to people and what it meant to people in the past, you just havn't got a clue.
Yes we would walk on broken glass for each other and that is what people like you and the rest of the 'know it all' numpties hate about working class communities, they work, play, fight and die together and sometimes they will die for each other. Thats how life should be dude not sat in isolated estates being brainwashed by television and playing with iphones.


who is this 'they' you speak of? has it occurred to you that hard working aspirational people-the onrs you for some reason label ten bob millionaires, might also be labour voters.

I was born and brought up in Featherstone-firstly in Earle Street. You saw the brst and worst of people there: drunkenness, domestic violence and abuse(my father was frequently called upon to sort it out, and heartwarming care and support of ones' neighbours. By the way(and I repeat), the backs of the houses in this and most other terraced streets in Featherstone at the time, were separated by six foot walls-people were and are entitled to their privacy. From then we moved to the isolated coal board estate. The pattern of life was very similar-good and bad.: only now you had a bathroom and an inside lav.

like anywhere else people in featherstone walk on glass for each other...or they don't. It doesn't matter where you live.

there are good and bad 'working class' people, good andf bad 'middle class' people. To judge people and their values on the basis of their social background is at best a kind of crude inverted snobbery, or complete ignorance of the world around them.

so you don't watch tv? What do you do instead?
TV has been a major part in peoples lives for going on 60 years.

My employer-a major business concern in Featherstone provided me with the equivalent of an I phone. It's incredibly useful. I think you'll find that there is nothing new about barriers and difficulties in human interraction- people with their head buried in their i phones is just the latest expression of it. Y

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primax
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« Reply #10 on: August 21, 2012, 05:37:06 pm »

Dear Bond,
              I do wish you would stop mentioning your past as if it's the 'bond show'. I'm not really interested in your boring stories of soiled underpants and mouldy cream crackers.
Quote
there are good and bad 'working class' people, good andf bad 'middle class' people. To judge people and their values on the basis of their social background is at best a kind of crude inverted snobbery, or complete ignorance of the world around them.
I don't care whether they are working class, middle class or upper class, they are nailed up in an housing estate segregated from the rest of us with six feet fences. They don't mix with us, they don't mix with each other, most of them are from out of town and have no interest in the town they live - just the fact it was cheaper than living in Birmingham or London. Its a sort of concentration camp for people that don't understand whats happening to them. They couldn't resist you see Bond, someone offered them a cheaper alternative to their city dwelling.
Quote
so you don't watch tv? What do you do instead?
TV has been a major part in peoples lives for going on 60 years.
No I don't watch TV Bond, unless it's a good documentory, maybe a footy match or a film. The rest of the crap on there like the news, Coronation street etc is for sheeple.
What do I do with my time? Well, I have several hobbies which I enjoy and I generally spend the rest of my time trying to work out how s h i t ticks.
I don't care that you have a similar looking object to an iphone, i'm only interested if it can make toast.

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Kim685
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« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2012, 11:11:36 pm »

Simple question Bond...

How will 450 houses (priced on average at £300,000) benefit this town?

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seneca bond
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« Reply #12 on: August 22, 2012, 10:33:23 am »

Dear Bond,
              I do wish you would stop mentioning your past as if it's the 'bond show'. I'm not really interested in your boring stories of soiled underpants and mouldy cream crackers.
Quote
there are good and bad 'working class' people, good andf bad 'middle class' people. To judge people and their values on the basis of their social background is at best a kind of crude inverted snobbery, or complete ignorance of the world around them.
I don't care whether they are working class, middle class or upper class, they are nailed up in an housing estate segregated from the rest of us with six feet fences. They don't mix with us, they don't mix with each other, most of them are from out of town and have no interest in the town they live - just the fact it was cheaper than living in Birmingham or London. Its a sort of concentration camp for people that don't understand whats happening to them. They couldn't resist you see Bond, someone offered them a cheaper alternative to their city dwelling.
Quote
so you don't watch tv? What do you do instead?
TV has been a major part in peoples lives for going on 60 years.
No I don't watch TV Bond, unless it's a good documentory, maybe a footy match or a film. The rest of the crap on there like the news, Coronation street etc is for sheeple.
What do I do with my time? Well, I have several hobbies which I enjoy and I generally spend the rest of my time trying to work out how s h i t ticks.
I don't care that you have a similar looking object to an iphone, i'm only interested if it can make toast.
Quote
as for your last question, didn't you step onto a 'soap box' when you started this ill concieved thread?


If I wish to mention my past, and indeed my prsdent then I will if I consider it relevant.
What I said was relevant because;
it highlights the fact that;

In 19th century working class terrced houses, there was more often than not a six foot tall barrier between those houses at the rear-not a fence but a brick wall, so this is neither new, nor necessarily alienating. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with this since people are entitled to a bit of privacy.

People in working class communities are a mixture of good and bad, same as anybody else.

The Coal Board estate was an 'isolated estate'. I lived on it for many years. People again, were no better or worse than people anywhere else. And anyway aren't these new houses to be built near the centre of town?

Owning a mobile phone isn't a crime or a sin. There is nothing new about people not wishing to interract with one another if they don't want to, and there is nothing new about people watching tv. General TV use goes back about 60 years now. They started to proliferate in Earle Street in the 1950s.

You say you have nothing against people from different backgrounds, and with different aspirations, yet you call one such group 'ten bob millionaires' and dismiss them as 'empty heads in large houses': what all of them? How do you know these people have 'empty heads'.

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seneca bond
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« Reply #13 on: August 22, 2012, 10:49:30 am »

Simple question Bond...

How will 450 houses (priced on average at £300,000) benefit this town?



economically
socially
sociologically
demographically
culturally.

Economically:

 people who live inn these houses will be affluent. They will have money to spend in the local economy, especially if the centre of the town is upgraded to make it worth spending time and money in.

Socially: they are likely to be families with a broad range of occupations, interests and backgrounds.

Demographically:
Featherstone is a down at heel town, occupied by an imbalance of low income, benefit dependent people. It's main thoroughfare is depressing. It needs livening up, reinventing if you like. If you look at Featherstone Rovers: the club has reinvented itself. This is an opportunity for the town as a whole, particularly since these new houses will be near the centre of it, to do the same. The population(which admitedly does have a couple of middle class enclaves-particularly on the outskirts on say, pontefract road), needs a broader spectrum of people. The people living in these houses will be working people, but people working in professions or business. Their acumen couild be an asset to the town.

Sociologically:
Featherstone is a post industrial town that has lost its way. It needs to successfully make the transition from a desolate shell, that even in its best times was a bit of a dump, to becoming a dormitory town, populated by perople from a broader background. And yes this brings challenges regarding infrastructure.

Culturally:
the town has people living in it who are pro active in the culture of the town. I believe you are one of them. But there is a strong sense of apathy despite peoples' efforts. New blood is needed-people who don't sit back and expect things to be done for them.




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primax
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« Reply #14 on: August 26, 2012, 10:45:54 pm »

waste of time posting owt


EDIT BY GUARDIAN :-

This comment probably refers to the moderation of this topic. Content relevant to the thread has been re-instated. Other derogatory comments have been removed.

Comments not relevant to topics will be removed.....


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