Re: 5 New Houses to be built on the Bond Garage Site | Forum

I mean the question is, is Avebury somewhere to live, or is it a museum.

Think you've put your finger on an important point there Rhiannon, in so much as you could say the village started dying when Alexander Keiller moved half the villagers out to Avebury Trusloe and demolished their houses back in the 1930s in order to create a 'megalithic muse'. The village, for example, once had a little hotel (the thatched house next to the antique shop, which I think itself used to be a teahouse). There was also a butcher's and an abattoir for example at the bottom of the High Street. Now all that has either gone or changed, in fact there are now only four privately owned houses in the whole of Avebury.

I might be wrong but building new houses in Avebury will probably not regenerate the village. With the school now gone and the post office/general store about to close as well any real village infrastructure (other than the social club, playing field and church perhaps) no longer exists. Inevitably, people who can afford it will move into the new development on the Bonds Garage site and, although that is not necessarily a bad thing, I fear it might be the thin end of the wedge with not just five houses being built on the former garage site but many more at the back as well (and later [and even worse] wherever developers can get their hands on land in the area).

The only really safe option is a green zone around Avebury where no further building (with the possible exception of small improvements and extensions) is allowed.