Locals in a small Brit village are fuming after a millionaire purchased most of it and determined to show it into his personal “toy town”.
Michael Birch, who bought notorious social media web site Bebo to AOL for round £800million in 2008 earlier than shopping for it again for about 1% of that years later – has been shopping for up property within the small village of Woolsery, North Devon.
And somewhat than restoring it to its former glory as a royal farming group, he has set about constructing large mansion-type homes to make the place seem like a movie set. And this, locals declare, has began considerably of a conflict between them and the wealthy bloke.
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It has additionally been claimed that Birch’s buys have seen property costs shoot up and younger households pushed out of the realm consequently. So far he has purchased a number of cottages, an enormous farm, an area grocery store and a fish and chip store – and has introduced round 65 new jobs to the realm along with his portfolio dubbed The Collective.
However, chatting with The Sun, one native aged resident raged: “It’s one massive faux – the centre looks like a movie set below building. Woolsery was a conventional farming village which belonged to extraordinary, working, nation people. Nothing fancy about it.
“Since the Birchs took over it has become a different place – new money, different people, different attitudes. As for the shop, the prices are way beyond me. I won’t go in there anymore. The village is horrible now and I’m moving elsewhere. In fact, I can’t wait to get out.”
And another bloke, Desmond Willetts, 88, claimed the money man ignored residents when he made his plans public, and that it has now been nine years of construction chaos. He added: “I don’t doubt that he has done a lot of good for Woolsery. But he’s also taken advantage of us and that is not alright.
“Everyone knows there will be problems down the line – more visitors, more cars, and people need to face up and discuss these things.”
Birch has yet to comment on the chaos and anger. But he recently claimed that he had no initial plans to buy as much as he had, but that “other buildings in the village were offered to us in various states of disrepair”.
The Daily Star has reached out to Birch’s team for a comment.
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