In the centre of a neat grass lawn set off Main Street in Linby, a spectacular Christmas tree lights up the village in all its glory.
It's not the only thing providing the light though. A few steps away, on the road, a parade of blinding bright car headlights beam into the night sky.
Linby, less than mile north of Hucknall in Nottinghamshire, boasted a population of a mere 232 in the 2011 census. Its parish church dates back to the 1200s and it won the county's "best kept village" award in 2013.
But the road through it now forms part of a key route through Nottinghamshire towards the M1, connecting the A60 with other major routes out of the city. Traffic, during school drop-off and pick-up times and rush hour, is gridlocked.
It's no longer the village of yesteryear. And that's way before the completion of the new Top Wighay estate, on which work is currently in progress, just a few hundred metres from the village.
The ball is rolling now on the development, which was initially penned to include around 800 houses but now may include around double that, as well as a primary school, community hub and Nottinghamshire County Council's new headquarters.
Those who live in Linby say the village has constantly changed over the years. It's something they can do little about.
Former newsagent Philip Johnson has lived there since 1982. He said: "It does bother me. My father told me you should never moan about people building on green sites because everyone house was on a green site at one point. But yes, Top Wighay is going to spoil things. We'll lose our identity I think. And the wildlife.
"There wasn't the traffic back when I first moved. All you need is one person to park on the side of the road or a delivery driver to stop somewhere and traffic is tailed back to the Seven Mile Inn. I don't know how this road is going to cope with even more houses if they don't widen the road, for which they'd need to purchases the houses. If I ever wanted to go somewhere now at 5pm it would be impossible to get out.
"But when we first moved the neighbours told us that the field at the bottom of our garden was a brown site and would be built on one day so we knew it was coming. It's a pity but I suppose people have got to live somewhere."
Denise Ireland, who is chair of the Linby Parish Council, says she thinks that the new housing development has contributed to the worst flooding Linby has ever seen in recent months.
She said: "This last month we've had severe flooding in the parish. People's back gardens were all completely flooded. I think that's the concern of the residents. They talk about these floods being one in 100 year events but that doesn't seem to be the case here. And the water was really muddy brown last week. That seems to be because of the excavation they've done recently.
"There was raw sewage coming through the manholes. We've lived here 17 years and have never seen this before. The fields are meant to absorb the water."
A recent planning application for the Top Wighay development revealed a plan that outlined the potential layout, scale, landscaping and appearance of the project. A total of 763 initial homes would be built in four stages.
Outline planning permission was passed in April 2021, ahead of more detailed plans being put forward. The size of the development means that work has been and will continue to be gradual.
A lady from Hucknall who didn't want to be named said she doesn't hear a lot about it despite living close. She works at the aided primary school in Linby and has done for the past five years.
She said: "Nobody seems to know much. I heard rumours about a tram stop. God knows what a secondary school will mean for our little school. Will it be alright? It's only tiny.
"I'm not massively worried about the development personally but the main street is a bit of a through-road even now and is already a bit dangerous for kids trying to get across."
Gary Raynor, 62, offered an alternate opinion, saying: "I'm indifferent really. But I did see the raw sewage recently."
As demand for housing continues to increase, so do plans to build them - often unavoidably near villages like Linby, on the outskirts of large cities. At some point, one day, maybe villages like Linby might not exist at all.
A county council spokesperson said: “As part of the planning process, an appropriate flood risk assessment was carried out for this development. As a result of this, an on-site attenuation pond has been constructed which is helping retain excessive rainfall, as it is designed to do. This pond will continue to be monitored.
“We can confirm that no areas of this site have been concreted over. Nottinghamshire of course experienced an exceptional volume of water following Storm Babet and the continuing rainfall has meant ground across some areas of the county have unfortunately got even more saturated.”
