Campers

Just seen a load of them coming out of the field in Stoke Poges...so a group of them are on the move...."man the battlements!"
More NIMBYISM in Stoke Poges...

Bucks Fizz wrote: For all our rants and moans, it is good to know that some folks locally still care about their village. We have to cope with regular invasions, from housing developers who chop down trees and destroy historic sites, railways that nobody wants but which scar our beautiful landscape, travellers who foul the commons and even from the growing numbers of London workers who treat the village as a dormitory but are otherwise indifferent to it and do not support local events or businesses. See you out and about on our lovely commons and paths (but watch where you tread!).

Not to go too off-topic, but this isn't the first post on here I've seen that has an anti "London workers" sentiment, and as one such worker who moved to the village in the last 12 months, I resent the generalisation. Many people move to the South East for work in London, but many of us who choose to live in towns and villages outside the city are doing so precisely because we DO value the community and local events of village life.

Looks like we got off lightly compared to this poor lot...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/832095/Travellers-250-tonnes-rubbish-Blackbrook-Lane-eviction-Bromley

Bucks Fizz wrote: I think you have misunderstood my post. I, too, moved here quite some years ago as my work was in the London area. However I have never treated this village as a dormitory. I love and respect its rurality and I volunteer in the village and turn out to support the parish council and all the fetes and fundraisers. I join the army of post Feast Day rubbish clearers and I am a member of a number of village organisations. I'm surprised if the distinction between folks like me and those London workers who treat the place like a dormitory and take no interest in the village is unclear to you. If you are one of the latter people, however, then my comment applies and I make no apology for it.

My point is that, right now, I probably am one of the latter as you describe it, because it's not actually that easy to quickly get to know people in a new area when broadly my life revolves around getting home in time to do bath and bedtime for my little boy. I have every intention to turn up to some volunteering things, such as helping put flags up/down when I can, but comments like yours make me less likely to do so as it comes across (and it's quite possibly just the medium of writing in plain text where I appreciate that emphasis and tone can get very lost) as though there's a perception that people newer to the village who work elsewhere are viewed as "outsiders"

It sounds like that wasn't your intent in this case, so I apologise if you think I've cast your comment in a bad light- not my intention at all- but equally, it wasn't the first post that's read that way to me with references to London-workers, from people other than yourself.

As a village we (and I really hope and want to be part of a "we" community here!) need to be careful not to be too quick to blame people that we perceive are in different groups to be to blame for problems. I grew up in a small market town in Cumbria where frankly pretty much everyone was born and bred and local, and there too, all of the community events were being propped up by a very small minority of dedicated residents, to whom the rest of the community were probably never adequately grateful. So I don't think being a popular village in commutable distance to London is the problem here!

I think most people probably pick up litter now and again.