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Eco-town schemes may give planners a real headache
Apr 14 2008 Post Comment
Developers behind plans to build a 5,000-home settlement on the outskirts of Lichfield could be forgiven for thinking they had won the lottery when the 700-acre site was nominated by the Government as one of 10 possible locations for an eco-town. By a strange coincidence, the proposals worked up over several years by the Curborough Consortium bear a remarkable similarity to the density and scale of the type of environmentally-friendly scheme Ministers are currently considering.
It is as yet unclear whether the site, a former airfield at Fradley, will make it on to the eco-town approved list, along with proposals for 6,000 homes on a former MoD depot at Long Marston, near Stratford-upon-Avon. But the very fact that the Government believes both locations may be suitable for large-scale housing development puts the local planning authorities in a difficult position.
Lichfield Council, for example, has already rejected the Fradley site. Ten years ago, when considering future housing provision, the council decided that the former airfield was not the right place to construct a new village, let alone suitable for a town which when completed is likely to be home to about 20,000 people.
Curborough, if it is ever built, would increase the population of the area administered by Lichfield Council by about 20 per cent. The impact of the Long Marston development would be even greater, with a 25 per cent increase in the Stratford-on-Avon district population. Both schemes, incidentally, would push the level of new housing development way above anything that is ever likely to be approved in the Regional Spatial Strategy.
It is no wonder therefore that the eco-town proposals have caused great concern, and not just from among the usual Nimby suspects. A very clear suspicion is beginning to grow that the Government is simply using environmental concerns as a driver to force local authorities to build huge numbers of housing in vast new towns in largely unsuitable rural locations and that it is prepared to do whatever it takes to force these plans through.
Ministers have said that eco-towns will have to be approved through the usual planning process, but the fact remains that developers will be able to appeal against refusal of planning permission. In the case of the Fradley proposal, Lichfield Council is likely to say no. Whether the Planning Inspectorate sides with the local authority or backs the Government on such a delicate issue remains to be seen.
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