The new Lakeside development
Demographics
From being
regarded as an affluent, attractive market town, Doncaster is now very
working-class in nature. Areas that are more prosperous within it certainly do
exist: Sprotbrough village, much of Bessacarr and Cantley for instance.
Much prosperity in Doncaster is very
new, first generation in fact. The sons (and daughters) of miners determined
not to follow their father, and who now of course couldn’t, have become businesspeople
or found relatively well-paid work that wasn’t available a generation before.
Bessacarr is said to be one of the largest private estates in Europe. A number
of new housing estates have sprung up with unit costs greater than £150k.
The average salary relative to the
South East of England is low. This is reflected in depressed house prices, the
average being almost half the national average. Thus, state workers on a
nationally agreed wage can afford to purchase their own homes whereas those in
the South simply can’t now. It’s still possible to buy a pit house that
requires a little work for under £30k. Most pit houses though have risen hugely
in price over the last year, some going for £80k plus. For other private houses
the prices start in the mid-£80k; new housing £120k+. Location, as always, is
the determining factor. A handful of dwellings in the area are of the order of
half-a-million plus.
This being said, over the last year
house prices even in the pit villages have rocketed, so that previously a pit
terrace that might have cost £30k can go for double that and more.
Many comfortably off people choose
to live in ‘dormitory’ villages out of town, such as Branton, Blaxton,
Westwoodside and so on.
With a population in Doncaster of
over 290,000, the state sector (Council, Health and Education) is the single
largest employer by a great margin. Salaries are negotiated nationally and,
certainly for manual workers, compare favourably with private workers’ rates.
Rates of pay for private companies in the area tend to be below the rates paid
in the South.
A wide variety of small and
medium-sized firms operate in the town and in small industrial parks in
outlying villages. From high-class low-volume engineering to mass producers
such as Polypipes, people have a varied selection of jobs to go for. However,
there are not enough of these to form a career base for enough of our young
people so they seek jobs in telesales, retail and the like. It’s difficult to
bring up a family serving at a fast-food outlet.
The latest major development is the
new Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport, built on the site of the old
Finningley RAF base. This airport is designed for short haul flights, though
doubtless some longer international flights will take place in the future.
Concomitant to this is a change in the transport infrastructure, with several
options under consideration, not least of which is a motorway link at
Rossington, which should prove, if constructed, a boon to people living south
of Doncaster.
Alas, that motorway link has been refused by the Mayor who
refused to fight for it regardless of the support by the local MP. See comments
elsewhere on this site.
An increasing concern is commuting
to work. Doncaster has a few particular problems. Being a town surrounded by
large villages many of those people want to get into town to work each day, or
through town from one side to the other. The ring road is inadequate. In
particular Bawtry Road is congested every school-day morning going into town,
and problems focused on the Dome roundabout leading to Lakeside cause chaos in
the outbound evening rush hour. The council tried, or is trying, a Park and
Ride scheme. In the first nine months fourteen people have used it. The problem
is that the buses used to ferry people from the car park at Lakeside have to
try and join the North Road at that Dome roundabout. They can’t, so there’s no
point to it. More wasted money.
One little thought: in the Eighties,
when the subsidies to buses by South Yorkshire Transport were stopped and the
fares rose dramatically, the number of bus passengers declined and the car
traffic rose by a third almost overnight. I wonder what one solution might be…
