Green Unpleasant Land

Housing Minister Grant Shapps today announced that developers could build affordable housing in villages without having to go through all that tiresome nonsense about planning permission in future, as long as they offered suitable bribes to any remaining locals who haven’t been squeezed out by rich tossers from London buying up everything in sight for a picturesque second home in the country.

The plan is for local ‘housing trusts’ to vote on whether they wish to blight their rural idyll forever with low-cost housing developments, before selling up to some unsuspecting townie bastard and getting the hell out of Britain on the first available ferry to Spain.

“Oi’m orl forr it, zurr,” said Jethro Slurry, 72, the last of a long family line which has lived in the sleepy Somerset hamlet of Chorlton Wheleigh since being granted a hidal burghage in 1172. “Let zay zemty-foive grann apiece furr me an’ ole Mrs Tolpuddle as use turr run th’ Powst Orifice afore ‘ee shut daown, plus wot us’ll git furr a faast zale a’boaf uzz cottages t’zumm stock-opp bleddy yuppies, an’ it’s ‘ellow lurrve shaack daown on ‘im thurr Coster Brarrvurr f’r uzz, innit me ‘anzumm?”

Countryside preservation groups have already fainted dead away at the proposals, while county councillors up and down the country have been rubbing their hands with glee and ringing round their architect friends for quotes.