The house and room plans are standard Wimpey dimensions: everything is costed precisely. There has been a lot of horse-trading to achieve the different approach that the Hemingways want. So, as Wayne relates, they fought and succeeded to get the ceiling removed in the main top room of the biggest house type - so you get all that space going up to the rafters - but Wimpey would not countenance having a living room on the second floor, so it is a bedroom, complete with ensuite bathroom. The living room is on the first floor, as the Georgians would have it.

The development is a "Home Zone" which means cars do not dominate everything - though the roads seem needlessly wide. It will be well served by buses. And get this - there are no built-in garages or even forecourts to the houses. Eek! Cars have to park round the back, in open designated spaces. That alone is revolutionary, by conventional British housebuilding standards. The Hemingways have struck a mighty blow by returning the ground floor of their houses to people rather than cars or junk: as a consequence, you get a big kitchen with views out.

Out the back, many of the private gardens continue on into landscaped shared gardens or play areas. There are seats dotted around, many trees, barbecues. It is all meant to re-create the idea of neighbourliness. The Hemingways had happy childhoods, have four children of their own, are all for encouraging kids to lark around safely.

Their own house is the middle one of a row of three four-bed types (price in January 2003, £160,000) with the jaunty sawtooth roofs characteristic of the whole estate. Inside there are some strong colours (orange downstairs, aubergine in the living room, chocolate-brown stair carpets) plus various Hemingway-designed patterned wallpapers. In the living room there is a detail blow-up of one of those great 1960s images of wistful beauties you used to be able to buy for £5 from Boots: "Tina" by the mysterious J.H. Lynch.