Property: A case of false economics
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Your support makes all the difference.Just about everyone has had a chance to air their thoughts on how Caterham Barracks should be developed. As an historic site in the centre of town, people feel they have a particular stake in its development.
So the community planning weekend run by the developers Linden gathered almost 1,000 people - from local schools to local MPs. Workshops were organised into stages - problems, dreams and solutions - which threw up ideas such as the rebuilding of a cricket pavilion and a network of cycleways. But according to one person who didn't attend the weekend, crucial lessons are in danger of being overlooked.
Huw Thomas, architect of the very successful Peninsular Barracks scheme in Winchester, says that fewer houses, good landscaping and an emphasis on it being an historical site are what drive the values up, not packing the homes in.
"In Winchester a third of the land is garden and woodland. From what I have seen of the Caterham plans, it looks like a typical case of developer- itus is eating away as much land as they can get away with."
Caterham has been warned.
As parents are gradually coming to terms with the February offers of places for the next school year, one of the education hotspots is gearing up for an intense few months. South Bucks has more than its fair share of good independent and state schools and if parents don't start the ball rolling now, by September they could be many miles from the school gates. Damian Gray, of Knight Frank's Beaconsfield office, says that everyone wants to be settled before the summer. "That means completion by the end of June and there's a marked increase in the discussion about schools here and around the dinner table." In Chesham, a grade II listed house is on the market for pounds 750,000 and in Wooburn Common, a six-bedroom house with "private and substantial grounds" is pounds 900,000.
Around the same price is being asked for a Surrey house that once belonged to Sir Oswald Mosley. Upper Ifold house in Dunsford was his home before his blackshirt days.
Anyone warmed by the portrayal of his first wife in the recent television series might like to know that she employed Gertrude Jekyll to set out the gardens.
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