A PLACE TO BLOSSOM trumpets the brochure handed out at the Orchard ‘launch’ by Forth Homes. What a picture it paints of Paxton with its local pub, green and ‘community Centre’ (aka Village Hall). Apparently there a range of shops and amenities in the nearby villages of Hutton (I seem to have missed those) and Chirnside (7miles from the Orchard) And for’ lovers of more active pursuits, Paxton could not be better situated with excellent golf, scuba driving, sailing and bird watching all just a short drive away’ Actually there is excellent bird-watching in our garden at the moment but I don’t really want a stream of visitors from Paxton even after the dream houses have actually been built. The brochure features the afore mentioned (Rant a few days back) young mum and her daughter peering through long grass at distant vistas-that could well be a bit of
actualité; the undeveloped chunk of the Orchard site is mostly long grass. Another shot shows the same mum embracing someone-face obscured- with a lovely river in the background. This could not have been taken on site unless the recent flooding was more dramatic than I thought. It will also, apparently, be a place to grow old in as well as blossom-the houses planned to last ‘from one generation to the next’: quality accommodation for everyone from the youngest to the oldest. At least it is no longer just a case of quality not quite built accommodation passed from one developer to the other. We hope.
The brochure outlines the various models to be built: the 5 bedroom
‘Kyloe’ (no idea what this means) and ‘Belford’ (A town in Northumberland) 4 bedroom
Cheviot (Hills also in Northumberland possibly visible from parts of the site ‘if the weather it were finer and there were no houses in between’). Bottom of the range and under £200,000-a snip-is the 3 bedroom ‘
Hutton’ A sort of glorified 11/2 storey cabin joined to another cabin by a double garage. I am not sure that Huttonians will be too delighted by the meanest buildings on the block bearing the proud name of their village-and in Paxton as well. One
Hutton, as yet unbuilt, has already been sold. To the young mum, her faceless partner and the wee girl? We should be told
