New pub opening - Hungry Horse in Stafford

My Name is URL

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The high house is a listed building though, so is protected. If I thought a building of significance was going I'd be campaigning to keep it, but not a field just because of the view.

Yep, just used the High House because of its prominence, could be anything really though. What i'm getting at is that Stafford is a lovely green town so IMHO people campaigning to keep it that way have done nothing wrong. Also see below comment...


i don't think tek meant that - he was just saying that even if one buys a house with a view, there is no legal entitlement to that view/one shouldn't expect that view to last forever..

Where is that 'head banging against a wall' smiley.... :)

See above posts - i'm not talking (or bothered) about people's views out of their windows. If we all want a nice town to live in then IMHO we need some nice open green spaces, whether these are Castlefields, Baswich/Milford or anywhere else.

The other thing no-one has addressed is where all of the occupants of these 2200 houses (plus the rest in all of the other developemnts will all work to afford these (doubtless) overpriced cardboard boxes with no gardens. Will they use Stafford as commuter town - good luck if they do when traffic grinds to a halt every week day, or will they be unemployed because I can't see too many businesses coming to Stafford at the moment, certainly not ones offering hundreds of jobs. Would be interested to know where that sits with "the more development the better" DB?
 

db

#chaplife
Where is that 'head banging against a wall' smiley.... :)

See above posts - i'm not talking (or bothered) about people's views out of their windows. If we all want a nice town to live in then IMHO we need some nice open green spaces, whether these are Castlefields, Baswich/Milford or anywhere else.
i specifically addressed this point in my last post :?:

all new developments have very strict controls over what percentage of the final build has to be parks/greenland, and it's surprisingly high.. take a stroll round the new redrow houses near doxey, or the bovis st. george's ones - the parks are massive! they've got bike tracks, park benches, and all sorts.. very nice indeed, and definitely not concrete jungles :)

The other thing no-one has addressed is where all of the occupants of these 2200 houses (plus the rest in all of the other developemnts will all work to afford these (doubtless) overpriced cardboard boxes with no gardens. Will they use Stafford as commuter town - good luck if they do when traffic grinds to a halt every week day, or will they be unemployed because I can't see too many businesses coming to Stafford at the moment, certainly not ones offering hundreds of jobs. Would be interested to know where that sits with "the more development the better" DB?

dunno, but the fact is the demand is there (hence the prices which, in your opinion, are too high), so whether they commute or work in stafford is moot really.. the 2200 house development you mention does include schools, shops, etc. as well as residential building, so there will be a small amount of employment opportunities there i guess..

i am fortunate enough to live in one of the new houses around town - they are anything but overpriced cardboard boxes with no gardens, i assure thee that ;) a couple of our close friends bought a lovely big house on castlefields about a year ago, and they are so enamoured with our new house that they are giving serious consideration to going through all the heartache & stress of moving again, because our "cardboard box with no garden" is such value for money.. not trying to brag (sorry if it sounds like that, just chuffed to bits with everything) - just pointing out that there is a misconception that all new houses are just thrown together and are over-priced, corner-cutting eye-sores, when that's not necessarily true.. our garden is about 6m x 9m, which is more than enough for our needs, and is south facing so squeezes every drop of sunlight out of the sky :)

no-one is saying the people aren't allowed an opinion, and that campaigning for retaining greenfields is wrong - simply that demand for houses (or, in this case, a nice family restaurant chain) is not going to go away, and like it or not capitalism ain't going away either, so if people want houses and are willing to pay for them, you can be assured that those houses will get built whether (other) people like it or not.. a more sensible campaign would be to accept this fact, and so try to get the developers to agree to retain a certain amount of greenfield, or maintain the local aesthetic, or some other compromise..
 

John Marwood

I ♥ cryptic crosswords
Back on track, I want a (wo)Man vs Burrito!

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EDIT: Oh yeah, there is a Hungry Horse on the bridge at Rhyl, as you're passing that way ;)
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
dunno, but the fact is the demand is there (hence the prices which, in your opinion, are too high), so whether they commute or work in stafford is moot really.. the 2200 house development you mention does include schools, shops, etc. as well as residential building, so there will be a small amount of employment opportunities there i guess..

i am fortunate enough to live in one of the new houses around town - they are anything but overpriced cardboard boxes with no gardens, i assure thee that ;) a couple of our close friends bought a lovely big house on castlefields about a year ago, and they are so enamoured with our new house that they are giving serious consideration to going through all the heartache & stress of moving again, because our "cardboard box with no garden" is such value for money.. not trying to brag (sorry if it sounds like that, just chuffed to bits with everything) - just pointing out that there is a misconception that all new houses are just thrown together and are over-priced, corner-cutting eye-sores, when that's not necessarily true.. our garden is about 6m x 9m, which is more than enough for our needs, and is south facing so squeezes every drop of sunlight out of the sky :)

no-one is saying the people aren't allowed an opinion, and that campaigning for retaining greenfields is wrong - simply that demand for houses (or, in this case, a nice family restaurant chain) is not going to go away, and like it or not capitalism ain't going away either, so if people want houses and are willing to pay for them, you can be assured that those houses will get built whether (other) people like it or not.. a more sensible campaign would be to accept this fact, and so try to get the developers to agree to retain a certain amount of greenfield, or maintain the local aesthetic, or some other compromise..

All your opinion (which you are of course entitled to) and which I tend to disagree with (amounts of leisure spaces on new build developments, the standard of new builds etc) but hey-ho, that's life.

The place you have moved to sounds nice and really glad you're happy with it. Care to share where it is? As above, I tend to think all new-builds are shizzle and can't wait to get out of mine into an older house with more than 1m between me and the next 'detatched' house.... but always happy to be proven wrong if you've found new builds somewhere that don't confirm to the (usually correct IMHO) stereotypes.

Although (to show the difference in opinions / ideals here) my current garden must be about the size you mention and for me its far too small... but I suppose for the price of the house that's what you get and fortunately we will be able to stretch ourselves a little more for our next house. Wasn't the garden on your Castlefields house about that size too?

Overall though, I could live with a garden that size if it wasn't for about 10 houses overlooking you when you're in the garden and the 5 gardens within the vicinity are all close enough to hear you fart. I walked through Castle View again over the weekend and still not impressed although didn't find the leisure spaces you mentioned.
 

db

#chaplife
All your opinion (which you are of course entitled to) and which I tend to disagree with (amounts of leisure spaces on new build developments, the standard of new builds etc) but hey-ho, that's life.

The place you have moved to sounds nice and really glad you're happy with it. Care to share where it is? As above, I tend to think all new-builds are shizzle and can't wait to get out of mine into an older house with more than 1m between me and the next 'detatched' house.... but always happy to be proven wrong if you've found new builds somewhere that don't confirm to the (usually correct IMHO) stereotypes.

Although (to show the difference in opinions / ideals here) my current garden must be about the size you mention and for me its far too small... but I suppose for the price of the house that's what you get and fortunately we will be able to stretch ourselves a little more for our next house. Wasn't the garden on your Castlefields house about that size too?

Overall though, I could live with a garden that size if it wasn't for about 10 houses overlooking you when you're in the garden and the 5 gardens within the vicinity are all close enough to hear you fart. I walked through Castle View again over the weekend and still not impressed although didn't find the leisure spaces you mentioned.

if you're setting the bar for "new houses" with the ones on castlefields, i totally understand why you are of the opinion that you are.. we hated our house on castlefields - it looked like it was thrown together by blind morons who didn't even have a tape measure - and we couldn't wait to get out of there! seriously, if you can get a look round a show home of an actual new house (i.e. one that isn't 20 years old), do so - you might be pleasantly surprised :) although i fear not, as your opinion of them seems to be so deep rooted i dare say your notions may be hard to shift! then again, it depends what you want from a house.. me & ms. db specifically wanted a new house - i.e. we wanted all mod-cons, energy efficiency, new kitchen, everything matching, etc.. if you'd rather have period features, and spend money on doing each room bit by bit, then of course you're going to prefer traditional builds :)

i think i may have guesstimated (:teef:) the size of my current garden incorrectly.. it's more than twice the size of the shitty "garden" i had at castlefields! possibly even 3 times the size, now i look at it.. more importantly, it's just a garden, so there's no landscaping or ruddy plants to tend to - just a nice, (nearly) square bit of grass that's easy to maintain, and even easier to BBQ on :pig:

two friends of ours are hoping to buy a house on the new 2200 house development mentioned elsewhere, so we went for a walk around the adjacent castle view estate over the weekend so they could get a feel for what those houses may be like.. not sure how you managed to miss the "leisure space" - it's only a small estate, and that takes up about 20% of it! bike track, climbing frames, park benches, etc.. it's at the back of the estate (i.e. furthest from the road, nice quiet area near the fields)..

regardless, as i mentioned above i think it's just that we want different things out of houses.. i was just making the point that they are perfectly decent houses, many (many, many) people want them, hence the demand, hence the price, hence them being built.. they're not to everyone's tastes, but thank god, otherwise they would be even more expensive!
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
although i fear not, as your opinion of them seems to be so deep rooted i dare say your notions may be hard to shift!

Au contraire monseuir :D :

I said:
but always happy to be proven wrong if you've found new builds somewhere that don't confirm to the (usually correct IMHO) stereotypes.


me & ms. db specifically wanted a new house - i.e. we wanted all mod-cons, energy efficiency, new kitchen, everything matching, etc..

Those things do appeal to be honest but i've just never seen new builds that didn't suffer from some of the following:
- tiny garden
- overlooked garden by multiple houses
- rubbish parking allowances (usually leading to people parking on pavements or blocking roads)
- small rooms
- walls that you can hear next door through

And that's before you get on to the build quality.

Not saying where you live is affected by any of those and not saying some older builds arent affected by some of these issues. Would still like to know which development you are on if you don't mind sharing.


two friends of ours are hoping to buy a house on the new 2200 house development mentioned elsewhere, so we went for a walk around the adjacent castle view estate over the weekend so they could get a feel for what those houses may be like.. not sure how you managed to miss the "leisure space" - it's only a small estate, and that takes up about 20% of it! bike track, climbing frames, park benches, etc.. it's at the back of the estate (i.e. furthest from the road, nice quiet area near the fields)..

Only cut through from the old train line path back from Derrington on to the Doxey Road so only went through a little bit of it. Might need a Marwood-esque explore of the area.

Not sure about the last bit of that quote though.... in a year or two it will no longer be away from the road, quiet or near fields :P


regardless, as i mentioned above i think it's just that we want different things out of houses.. i was just making the point that they are perfectly decent houses, many (many, many) people want them, hence the demand, hence the price, hence them being built.. they're not to everyone's tastes, but thank god, otherwise they would be even more expensive!

Agree with most of that - there is certainly demand for housing but is it specifically the type of housing being supplied or do they just not have any other choice so make do with what is supplied?

All that said though, you are obviously happy in your house which is great :up:
 

Timeflies

The Weatherman
Looks like they are break groud on the new Hungry Horse Pub today. The road outside is all barried up and a JCB and earth mover where in the plot early this morning.
 
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db

#chaplife
Looks like they are break groud on the new Hungry Horse Pub today. The road outside is all barried up and a JCB and earth mover where in the plot early this morning.

yeah, we went for a stroll round there over the weekend and they were clearly prepping the land.. good to see they're making progress :up:
 

Timeflies

The Weatherman
I'm looking forward to this place opening. I've been To a few of them around the area and they are pretty decent places. The food is ok (it doesn't pretend to be fine dining!) and the atmosphere always seems to be pretty good. And it's only a 15 min walk from home!

I reckon it will be open in a few months looking at the progress they made from this morning to this afternoon.

T
 

flossietoo

Well-Known Forumite
Does anyone else remember Stafford's own protest Poet, Rupert the Bear? When local folk were desperately trying to prevent the Castlefields Estate being built, Rupert penned a poem a week on the subject, published in The Post.

Perhaps the residents of Castlefields could recruit Rupert now, as part of the campaign to protect their green spaces?
 
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