LATEST NEWS

4 July: "ECO TOWN DEMO HITS WESTMINSTER"

By Catherine Morrow

Anti eco town demonstrators swamped Westminster on Monday to deliver a hard hitting message to Housing Minister Caroline Flint.

Despite Monday's publication of a YouGov Poll of 1,693 people, detailing how 46% per cent strongly support, or tend to support the development of eco-towns, pockets of opposition remain very vocal and in the media spotlight.

Selected representatives from proposed sites such as Ford, Middle Quinton, Weston Otmoor and Hanley Grange were invited to privately meet with Caroline Flint later on Monday to vocalise their points of opposition.

The large crowd of demonstrators, like the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), are urging the Labour Government to go back to the drawing board and drastically re-think the eco town plans.

West Sussex resident Mary Rivett said: "Hopefully the Government will drop it. I imagine they [Government] will try to find a way out without losing too much face.”

Further official statements prove damning for the Government. Environmental thinktank, the Optimum Population Trust has issued a statement saying "the new towns would make a derisory contribution to housing needs and were an irrelevance to environmental problems."

Meanwhile, Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps branded eco towns as "dead and buried" as they are "fundamentally flawed."

 

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