Solving the Shropshire Housing Crisis

There was a time, not too far outside living memory, when the Conservatives were the party of countryside and heritage. Along with Labour's affiliation with labour, the Liberal Democrats' flirtation with liberal democracy, and Daveybloke's election promises, these unprofitable tendencies have now been consigned to the memory hole, and very few people would accuse the modern-day Conservative Party of wanting to conserve anything much aside from its donors' tax loopholes. Unfortunately for Old Oswestry, it is merely an Iron Age hill fort; so the local council plans to build 188 luxury homes on its doorstep in case anything of historical value should be hiding under there. The housing will be for the deserving poor: "affluent commuters, rich retirees, country retreat investors and holiday cottage landlords"; and the project is a symptom of the Government's new planning policy, which consists largely in the absence of a planning policy. The locals have raised their concerns with their MP; unfortunately their MP is the badger-busting environment secretary, Owen Paterson, who probably thinks the Iron Age is a historical period that started with milk-snatching and ended with John Major.