RADICAL plans to establish a 20,000-home eco town on land owned by the Co-operative Group in rural Leicestershire are being opposed by a local Tory MP and county councillors.
Co-operative Estates, working in conjunction with regeneration agency English Partnerships, has put forward proposals to create a new kind of sustainable community to help meet the country's future housing needs. The Government has called for proposals to build a series of ten eco towns in which environmental sustainability and community empowerment will be key priorities.?
The Group believes that part of its Stoughton estate in Leicester ? along with a much smaller adjoining area of land owned by English Partnerships ? could offer an ideal location for such a community and the Co-op bid is one of 50 being considered as part of the initiative aimed at creating three million new homes by 2016.
However the proposals are being bitterly contested by Edward Garnier, Conservative MP for nearby Harborough, who is urging his constituents to "complain loudly and immediately" about the plans. He has raised the issue in Parliament, but says that once the proposals gather momentum, the Government will "put everything in our way to prevent us from succeeding."
Full story published in the News, Tuesday 27th November.
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