I was listening to the Today programme about 15 years ago and heard that a new scheme for rural housing was being launched. The Government was putting up money for building modest houses in the countryside on sites that planning wouldn’t normally be considered. I willingly made my land available, which didn’t cost me much in the first place, and I was very worked up about it and made lots of phone calls. Unfortunately several years were wasted until I was taken seriously, but then a building contractor was employed to start the work on 8 houses and we provided the stone from our farm quarry. Fortunately I had the right to engage an architect of my choice, namely Peter Coe, and we all sat round the kitchen at the farm and agreed a design that would please the village and the tenants. There were no land costs so the £70,000 allocated for each unit by the available grants gave us the opportunity to do something really nice, and being no shortage of land either, we could give generous gardens and space around the cottages. I insisted that these houses would never be sold so that they would always be available to rent for village people as indeed was the original principle of council housing. Because of the huge demand for these beautiful cottages I constantly kept on the case to build more of them. So now this year the second phase of 10 houses has just been completed. We’ve called them John Burns Cottages after the original founder of the council house idea, as offering a safe home for very vulnerable working class people of the late 1800’s. Unscrupulous landlords regularly turned families out in the streets as portrayed by many a Hardy novel. Burns followed Keir Hardie into the House of Commons so the two of them actually started the Labour Party. We now have 18 houses to let in this settlement and lets hope we can soon build some more!! These properties are let and managed by the Hastoe Housing Association in Dorchester. 
11.07.06  
John Burns Keir Hardie 1858-1943 1856-1915 Back To 'PREVIOUS FEATURES' Back to 'FEATURES' 
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