Cranbrook, Devon

Cranbrook is a town that was promised to Devon in 1995 and is still arriving in instalments, phase by phase, like flat-pack furniture with pieces missing. The railway station turned up two years late because of a sewer, and the supermarket took fifteen months longer than the ribbon-cutters said it would, which tells you everything about the gap between a masterplan and a Tuesday. What exists now is thousands of people living in very warm, very new houses six miles from Exeter, waiting politely for the rest of their town to be delivered. Nobody moves here for the character. They move here because the boiler works and the mortgage clears, and honestly, that has kept more marriages together than any conservation area ever has.