Lily's move doesn't help locals get homes

11.57.48am GMT Fri 29th Jan 2010

Pop star Lily Allen will be entering a battlefield when she moves to the Cotswolds to escape the frantic world of showbiz.

The 24-year-old singer has bid for a £1.3 million five-bedroom farm house in Gloucestershire that should give her all the seclusion she needs from the pressures of stardom.

But the area is in revolt because of a lack of affordable homes for locals and a boom in the luxury second homes and the domestic holiday market that has sent the cost of Cotswolds real estate soaring.

Picturesque lakes and traditional walks are being sectioned off by barbed wire and formidable fencing as stunning lakeside developments, where homes can sell for £1.3 million, spring up.

Allen fell in love with a house in a Gloucestershire village after seeing it with her father, actor and comic Keith Allen, who recently moved into a £650,000 farmhouse in the Stroud area.

"There is a great deal of concern in the Cotswolds about the lack of opportunity for local people to stay close to their families," says Cllr Paul Hodgkinson, Lib Dem leader on Cotswold District Council. "If she does move here, she will be more than welcome but something does need to be done to help the people of the Cotswolds."

"They see luxury developments going up for second or holiday homes and then find areas where they have walked for generations fenced off. There has to be a balance," he added.

Retired RAF pilot Stephen Wrigley, adds: "People have been free to roam around the lakes and countryside for ages but now they are greeted by fences where there were once open fields and tracks,"

Esmond Jenkins pictured with Water park residents at ‘Guantanamo Passage’

"There is one area we call Guantanamo Passage. If you saw someone there with an orange jump suit on you'd be convinced it was a prison. The countryside is vital for the nation's well being. The Cotswolds are beautiful but once you change it, it is gone. You won't be able to get it back."

"We are not totally against development but it should be done with harmony and not barbed wire," added Mr Wrigley, 65, from Cerney Wick. "There is a strong sense that something precious is being destroyed."

Many people welcome new businesses and developments as a local economy boost but the sense of outrage about the exclusion of Cotswolds residents from the countryside is gathering steam. The developers and the Water Park maintain that the land was never public and that fencing has been put up for safety reasons and that they have provided rights of way for walkers.

"Local residents who have walked around these areas for generations are being swept away," said Councillor Esmond Jenkins (Water Park). "It is despoiling a beautiful part of the Cotswolds and denying local people an amenity. People are having to spend holidays at home because of the recession but the English countryside, which should be their natural playground, is being disfigured by barbed wire and fencing."

"It is called a country park implying it is there for everyone but it is nothing of the sort." Mr Jenkins added: "We see developers building huge homes on beautiful green land while locals are squeezed out."