I gasp with amazement every time I see a familiar plot of unused land suddenly sprouting signs of activity. This is generally signalled by a high fence going up, advertising boards sporting a fancy and sometimes ludicrously romantic development name. We were told years ago that thousands more houses were going to be needed for new families moving into our area. . . . bringing jobs, new schools, roads etc. A draw back to this frantic rush to build new with first time buyers taking up goverment purchase help schemes is the slow down in the second hand housing market for which there are no incentives for buyers. However, this gives folk a reason to look carefully at their property and instead of trying to move on up, just make bigger or with ingenuity, completely change the interior design to incorporate the new spacious way of life we all crave. Local builders and trades people are busy extending homes or just refurbishing and redesigning old ones to make better use of the usually excellent plot. These local companies know the area, the planning departments and their markets well. It keeps the flow of smaller businesses going too which big development schemes singularly fail to do.