Friday 4 April 2008

Protesters promise a fight to halt eco-towns

Four proposed new towns of 15,000 homes or more are on a shortlist of 15 sites for the eco-town programme published by the government yesterday.

The list will be cut to 10 successful bids in the next six months, each of which will have to be zero-carbon as a whole and an "exemplar" in at least one area of environmental sustainability.

The programme, which aims to have towns of between 5,000 and 20,000 homes under development by 2020, is expected to provoke strong local opposition.

Many of the most controversial bids among the 57 submitted have survived the first round of competition for the first new towns in England since the 1960s.

They include Pennbury, south-east of Leicester, in which the Co-op is a leading partner, and Rossington, South Yorkshire.

A proposed 5,000-home development near Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, where Tim Henman's father has been a leading objector, is also on the shortlist.

Anthony Henman said: "This will destroy our village community as we know and enjoy it ... If we wanted to live in a town, we would, but we love village life."

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