Keeping pace with population - Rushden Private Housing Record

Three hundred and fifty houses completed, fifty-eight due for completion in the next few months, and another 150 to be completed within a year. This is the pattern of private housing development at Rushden.

By far the largest home builders in the town are Arthur Sanders Ltd., a Rushden firm.

It started work on its Home Farm Estate about three years ago and between fifty and sixty houses have been completed every year.

Eventually the firm hopes to build between seven and eight hundred houses on this 86 acre site. Eighteen of the houses in the last phase of building are still under construction and will be completed in the next few months.

Start Work

In March the firm will start work on a further seventy houses which will take about a year to complete and after this there are further plans for 250 more homes.

The houses, and bungalows, costing between £2,695 and £4,110, are of five basic types. Two and three bedroomed bungalows, two types of three bedroomed houses and large detached houses. All the properties have lawn frontages.

In addition to this the firm has plans for three estates with shopping facilities between Irchester and Wymington and it is negotiating with the County Council the sale of some of its land for a school.

Cul-De-Sacs

To keep through traffic to a minimum the estates are planned with cul-de-sacs, courts and closes.

A Sutton Coldfield firm, E. J. Eastland and Sons Ltd., is the only other one in Rushden with fairly extensive home building in progress.

This is on the top of St. Margaret’s Avenue. Its houses range from £1,875 to £2,295 for a corner house.

Forty-eight of its first phase houses have been completed after starting work about six months ago. Of forty under construction six are almost a hundred per cent completed.

A further 130 houses are planned for the second phase of building. The majority of the homes are semi-detached with some blocks of four or six.

The firm hopes to complete its houses at the rate of two or three a week taken over the next eighteen months. All have oil fired central heating and have a garage space. The majority have three bedrooms.

Over two hundred houses on Manor Road Estate in Rushden have just been completed by Alfred Underwood Ltd., Wollaston. Work started on these between 1955/56.

Ninety five per cent of these were semi-detached houses and bungalows, costing from £1,750 to £3,000. The area of the estate is about 20 acres.

Actual Size

If a comparison of the prices of the houses is to be made it must be done bearing in mind their actual size and plot sizes.

The only way to ascertain value for money in each case is to employ an independent surveyor to give a value if you are thinking of buying a house.

It seems that Rushden’s housing development is quite up to coping with the present increase of population in the area due to industrial development in neighbouring towns.

Rats invading homes on Rushden estate

Rats, one of the biggest disease carriers and a serious danger to the public health, have been invading home and gardens in the Home Farm Estate area of Rushden.

This week Mr. H. W. Ellis, Rushden Urban Council’s Chief Public Health Officer, stressed the importance of keeping rats under control. “We have a man employed specifically for the job. The service is free to domestic households and people should contact us immediately. We will be out within 24 hours,” he said.

Mr. Ellis said the problem was not confined to the Home Farm Estate, however, adding that over the last few weeks they had received several complaints from that area.

The problem on the estate is not a serious one at the moment, but the danger with rats is that they breed rapidly and once a colony is established it is more difficult to destroy it.

Mr. Tony Painter, of 12 Ashby Drive, saw a rat in his garden and he decided to solve his own problem. Rather than chance poison, he bought a gun and eventually he shot a rat under his garden shed.

At nearby 12 Barnwell Drive, Mrs. Gwendoline Hasdell said her husband found a dead rat in the loft.

Gnawed

“We think it came from next door. When it was poisoned it gnawed its way through to our loft to die. We have not been troubled since,” Mrs. Hasdell said.

But when the rat was alive it terrified the next door neighbour, an elderly woman, who could hear it running across her ceiling at night. Other people in Barnwell Drive have also reported seeing rats in the garden.

Mrs. Doreen Dilley at number 11, and neighbour Mrs. Eileen Ralph at number 13 have been pestered.

“We reported it to the council and poison was put down and we have not had any trouble for about a week,” Mrs, Dilley said.

Sewers

Most people the “Echo” spoke to seemed to have their own theory about where the rats came from, but Mr. Ellis thinks it is unlikely that they originate from the sewers.

“Generally speaking, Rushden is fairly clear of rats, but we do seem to get more complaints during the autumn.

“We treat all the town sewers ward by ward with poison and our sewers are “clean” of rats. This has been supported by a ministry inspection,” Mr. Ellis said.

At this time of the year, rats come in from the fields in search of food and Mr. Ellis advised against indiscriminate bird feeding.

Scraps of food left on the lawn will attract rats and so will food left in garden compost heaps. People who leave food out for birds should get a bird table or leave the food on a shed or garage roof.

Outside drains or pipes large enough for a rat to crawl through should be blocked with wire meshing.

Mr. Ellis also pointed out that a rat usually feeds some distance from where it lives. So if you see a rat feeding in your garden warn your neighbours. It could have made its home in their garden.