Leicestershire to be hit with a new 20000 home Eco town

[HeyWayne]

We have "proposed" plans for Luton Toan Football Club to build it's new stadium a few hundred yards from my house.

Press releases

It does put me in a bit of a quandry as I work in the construction industry, but object to this development. However I would rather have housing being built there than a stadium/warehousing just to line someones pockets.

By the way piglet you may surprised, 2,000 000 tonnes of concrete is more than likely greener than the equivalent of steel, and to some extent timber construction.

[bubblewrap]

HAVE YOUR SAY - Pennbury
Petition to: urge the Communities and Local Government Department to ensure: (a) a full democratic planning process and consultation with local authorities and neighbouring communities concerning the Eco Town proposal by the Co-operative Group south-
http://leicesterairport.com/files/Si...oTown_size.jpg
Eco Town proposal | Leicestershire Aeroclub

As a leicestershire resident, I too feel very sorry about this.

Me and OH just signed the petition.

Consultation? Oh! yes they'll consult all right and then do as they bloody well want.

[bubblewrap]

We have "proposed" plans for Luton Toan Football Club to build it's new stadium a few hundred yards from my house.

Press releases

It does put me in a bit of a quandry as I work in the construction industry, but object to this development. However I would rather have housing being built there than a stadium/warehousing just to line someones pockets.

By the way piglet you may surprised, 2,000 000 tonnes of concrete is more than likely greener than the equivalent of steel, and to some extent timber construction.

2,000,000 tons on concrete? How many square yards is that? (More ground covered)
The rain will run straight of it adding to flooding problems elsewhere.

[Peter]

Alison, on an individual basis every person seeking to come to the UK is doing so to make their life better in some way and that is fully understandable, I have no doubt that if I was swapped with any given individual concerned I would probably make the same choice.

We are very fortunate in the UK, we live in a wealthy safe country where people are permitted to hold opinions without fear of the state police visiting, where people of a particular ethnic background are not rounded up, then tortured and killed. Where the change of Prime Minister does not bring armed rioters onto the streets.

However if large numbers of persons immigrate over a short time there are problem for both natives and immigrants, as infrastructure provision, not the most timely thing in the UK anyway, struggles to take account of changes and both groups adjust to each other.

From the news this weekend.
".... it was reported that the Chief Constable of Kent, Mike Fuller, has written to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to complain that funding had failed to take into account "surges" in arrivals from overseas.
In a leaked private letter dated October 22 last year, quoted in the Sunday Times, Mr Fuller reportedly writes: "I feel it is essential that I set out the impact that population growth is having in Kent and the pressure it is placing on finite resources."
He estimates 78% of the population growth is accounted for by migration, ........................
He estimates the total additional cost to the force to be £34m over the past three years, but claims increases in funding from the Home Office have failed to keep pace.
He says translation services account for an increasing proportion of his budget, with costs up by a third over the past three years."

[Peter]

Back on thread.

This is not a large country, the majority of our population lives in England and the majority of that within an hour or so's travel from central London. The majority of employment opportunities follow the population distribution.
In terms of habitable area, Wales and Scotland have less in relation to their overall size, due to their terrain.

We require a high income to service our material aspirations, so high that a peasant economy would not work. "Hand-grown" food for personal consumption is fine, but unless a large percentage of the population is prepared to live like a sub-society at third world (I cannot think of a better term here) affluence & consumption levels, growing and selling food at a price the current-british affluence / consumption level sub-society could afford to pay for, it would not work. Even if it did work could you begin to imagine the social divisions between Ned living on a GP's salary with electricity, car, house, internet, disposable income and Ted living with the sun, walking, room in a communal block, public library, subsistence diet and no disposable. The strains of going back to "lords and commoners" would ensure it would not work, who would decide who should go in which group, our homegrown version of Pol Pot perhaps?

We need as a society to think in terms of how many people can this country sustain for a given level of affluence acceptable by that population and take peaceful practical consensual steps towards that population level.

Our present trend, unaltered will eventually see England turning into mega-city with a choice of going to a zoo to see a square of turf, an ant colony, or a few plants. We would probably have some wild "reserves" set aside for recreation, the Scottish highlands, the pointier bits of Wales etc.
Yes the previous sentence is looking a long way ahead, but exactly how many acres are built on each year and how many acres do we have left to build on.

Put it another way, what is the furthest you can walk in a straight line in your area without seeing a house?
What level of affluence/material wealth/consumption of resources should we aim for?
Should we follow the Chinese and forcibly restrict family sizes?
Should we wait for a global flu pandemic (BBC "Survivors") to reduce our population?
Should we just keep on building till we have insufficent cultivatable land to grow food for the population and hope that when oil runs out some bright spark will have a cheap and reliable way to ship in food from countries that can still export it?
But will those countries have learnt from our mistakes, or will their populations have pushed them down our route of materialism?
When we know oil based fuels are in high demand worldwide and current supplies will be exhausted in our lifetimes, why do we build airports to hurl oruselves across the globe to lie of a stretch of sand for five days to try to get a melanoma?

There are no quick solutions unless we go down the extremist route, as only extremists are prepared to kill off swathes of their countries population.

There are difficult decisions ahead for humanity and no one is yet thinking about them, except, a few science fiction writers who eschew the utopian future worlds and paint a darker ravaged world.

Sunnier thoughts will be resumed tomorrow.

[SarzWix]

Not to worry Peter, soon the flooding will come, & the only places left to live will be the high ground - Snowdonia, Pennines, Lake District, Highlands... Anyone selling a patch of Ben Nevis??!!

[pigletwillie]

Well, Penburry is on the short list of 15 proposed eco towns, the first towns to be built in England for 40 years. The local concensus is that the eco bit is a diversion to make the new town more acceptable to green minded people, just like they dress up green taxes in the same way.

BBC NEWS | Politics | 'Eco-towns' shortlist is revealed

Its not just near to me either.

DO YOU LIVE NEAR HERE :-

Bordon, Hampshire
Coltishall, Norfolk
Curborough, Staffordshire
Elsenham, Essex
Ford, West Sussex
Hanley Grange, Cambridgeshire
Imerys, Cornwall
Leeds city region, West Yorkshire
Manby, Lincolnshire
Marston Vale and New Marston, Bedfordshire
Middle Quinton, Warwickshire
Pennbury, Leicestershire
Rossington, South Yorkshire
Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire
Weston Otmoor, Oxfordshire

Cos there on the shortlist too.

[HeyWayne]

We actually looked at a few houses in Marston Moretaine before we moved into our current house. That was three years ago, and we were nervous about the planned extension of the area at the time. It's precariously close to the Milton Keynes expansion, which seems to be relentless.

Public meeting regarding our proposed football stadium tomorrow night, LadyWayne and I will be stewards. The devlopers have started to call the stadium part a "community stadium" - same kind of principal as your "green/eco" point piglet.

See how many times the word "eco" is used here: Strategy for the Marston Vale All looks a bit woolly at the moment - I'd guess deliberately.

[mapcr77]

Oh No!!! That's absolutely awful news!!!

eco-town « The Rob Blog @ robparker.org.uk

[shirley]

Heard on the news just now about Bordon in Hampshire.....more beautiful countryside gone.....forever. Times like these I think about moving out. I often fantasize of living in southern Ireland. Prob never do it though

[Cutecumber]

Back to reality.

15 locations for "eco-towns" have been shortlisted.

10 will be chosen from this list.

The final decisions have not been made despite the allegations of a "stitch up".

Do some reading and make your own mind up. Involve yourself in local decision making - it's not actually difficult and you may be surprised how much it is welcomed. Don't sit around moaning about it because I can promise you that won't help.

[Derek]

I live just the other side of the proposed 'new town' in South Leicestershire from Pigletwillie and having lived in Leicester(shire) all my life I concur with what PW is saying

The area is prime agricultural land and has been farmed by the Co-operative Farms for years past.

Government legislation over the last few years has taken away much of the local Council's powers and any objections by them are automatically overturned by said legislation.

[jacob marley]

It seems to me reading between the line's that a lot of the aforesaid site's are goverment owned like the one in warwick's and Bordon in hant's and posibly others i had a quick glimpse at list but if that is the case it is already sowed up jacob

[pigletwillie]

Back to reality.

15 locations for "eco-towns" have been shortlisted.

10 will be chosen from this list.

The final decisions have not been made despite the allegations of a "stitch up".

Do some reading and make your own mind up. Involve yourself in local decision making - it's not actually difficult and you may be surprised how much it is welcomed. Don't sit around moaning about it because I can promise you that won't help.

Oh please Cutecumber how sanctamonious is that, our local council was NOT EVEN CONSULTED till it was a fait acompli. It was a done deal with absolutely NO REAL CONSULTATION. We found out about it all the day the council did and to say they were shocked is an understatement.

So if our council did not know about these plans BEFORE they were submitted directly to THE GOVERNMENT, please tell me who I should complain to / action against / moan to cos as far as I am concerned jolly old Gordon isnt listening.

No moaning wont help, and we havent just sat there doing that, we have campaigned since we found out about the plans. However 10 out of the 15 will go ahead and to me that says 10 unlucky areas will get a town no matter what.

It took 5 years of planning to get a terminal approved at Heathrow, no more flights, no more runway, just a terminal, and here we have 10 whole towns averaging 12-15000 houses that will be rubber stamped bar the shouting in less than a year.

Please tell me thats not a stitch up.

[Madasafish]

Well all of you who voted for the current Government are getting what you deserve and should be ashamed of.

Write to your MP - petitions are a waste of space.. and organise people to write.. If your local MP thinks he/she might lose his/her seat (assuming they are Labour) you might get somewhere.

Of course they may be typical hypocrites like ours who stated she opposed local closure of POs and then votes for it. I expect her to lose her seat at the next election:-)

And they wonder why they are held in contempt!
:-(((