Bella and Martin
Shaw were so excited to move into the new estate. It was paradise, on the edge of a village,
surrounded by green hills with a river nearby.
They were one of the first families and Freddie and Grace loved playing
in the quiet streets. They were almost
reluctant to go on the three week holiday.
Bella spent the time relaxing on the beach dreaming of colour schemes
and Martin talked about getting a garden shed.
The taxi
picked them up at the airport and dropped them two miles from home at the start
of a traffic queue.
“I can’t
take you no further,” said the driver.
“What do you
mean?” Martin demanded, “We’ve got money.”
“Not enough
to get me to drive into there,” he laughed, “one road in, one road out,
ridiculous planning!”
The Shaws got
out of the cab, paid the driver and began walking, carrying their luggage,
Grace complaining bitterly. The line of
traffic continued, angry faces staring ahead, music blaring, a mambo of stop start,
Martin noticed they kept pace with the same black BMW all the way home.
“This is worrying,”
Bella said.
“I’m sure
they’ll build another road,” Martin responded.
Bella wasn’t
sure, she hadn’t seen a place where a road could go, unless they cut through
the hills.
At home, the
once quiet streets were full of parked cars, their driveway was blocked. They tried to order takeaway, only to be told
the restaurant didn’t deliver to that estate, nobody did. They would have to collect it. A miserable evening followed, Martin knocking
on doors, finding the owner of the car, getting him to move it, driving into
town and collecting the food. The queue was
still there 8pm and by the time he got the takeaway back it had to be warmed in
the microwave.
On Monday
Martin left for work on his bicycle, weaving through a huge queue of traffic
that Bella joined. She sat with Grace
and Fred watching the time pass. She
cheered herself up with memories of the brochure from the Building Company that
had promised a new school, a park and space for a new supermarket. No more sitting in traffic to take the
children to school, they could walk to the new one; no more worries about
supermarkets and takeaways refusing to deliver, the supermarket would sell
everything and maybe a chip shop would be built. Over the weeks she endured complaints from
her boss and the inevitable letter from the current school telling her they
wouldn’t put up with her lateness.
Martin was cross though; “Can’t you get up earlier?”
Bella turned
on him; “You try getting Grace and Freddie up for 6am!”
He held up
his hands; “I’ll go to my shed.”
Bella followed
him into the garden and stopped in horror, the garden shed had been knocked
down, the children’s trampoline slashed and the walls of the house daubed with
graffiti; GET OUT.
“I’m sorry,
we can’t come round,” the Police operator told them, “we’ll only come into the
Estate for 999 calls. We will
investigate. It’s likely to be the
people who live in the Old Village, since the new houses have been built there’s
been a lot of anger. They blame you for
the increase in traffic, it’s affecting them too. Ridiculous planning. One road in and one out.”
After she
had cleaned the graffiti off the wall, Bella walked into the centre of the
housing estate where the new school was going to be. Something was being built there.
“Is this the
new school?” she asked a builder.
“More
houses,” he replied, “nearly finished now.”
“But I
thought there was going to be a new school, a park and space for a supermarket.”
“More
houses,” he said.
“But the
brochure …”
“We’ve
changed our minds. We had to tell the
Council we’d build a school to get planning permission, but they’re not going
to knock down all these houses, are they?
Not now they’re sold.”
“I hope they
fine you!” cried Bella.
“It won’t
dent our profit,” he replied, “they’re giving away flood plain land and the
materials we used to build the houses were ever so cheap.”
“Flood plain
…”
“Should’ve
done your research,” the builder walked away.
Bella turned
for home as the first fat drops of rain fell from a leaden sky.
