This is not “Not In My Back Yard-ism”. Government figures recommend 6,500 new homes for the Harborough district of Leicestershire and Harborough Borough Council have already planned for most of these to be incorporated on brownfield sites in Market Harborough. Fair enough. But the Co-operative Group want to build Pennbury, an “Eco Town”.
Building an “Eco Town” on green wedge well in excess of local housing requirements cannot be ecologically acceptable.
The Co-operative Group’s previous plans to build 5,000 houses on the site as a sustainable urban extension have been rejected before. Pennbury, a “self-contained Eco Town of 20,000 homes” is nothing but a profit-making opportunity.
How practical is it to expect Pennbury to remain self-contained? Will house-buyers be expected to sign a clause stating they won’t work, send their children to schools or take part in leisure events outside of Pennbury? How enforceable would that be? Of course not, Pennbury residents are going to clog the already congested A6 and A47 and bring about gridlock. In any case, new house-buyers at some point are going to want to sell their home on Pennbury and either down-size to a retirement home or upgrade to a larger family home. The idea of Pennbury being “self-contained” is completely impractical.
Who’s going to live there? Not locals who are aware of local opposition to the site. So Pennbury will be a dormitory town of incomers that doesn’t have the infrastructure to support it.
If anyone could answer these questions, I’d welcome suggestions. Here’s a child’s view of what Pennbury will mean.
January 10, 2008 at 12:29 am
[...] Pennbury: a “self-contained” “Eco Town” that’s neither [...]
February 2, 2008 at 9:41 pm
[...] the “Eco Town” that isn’t Brief update and I’ll try not to rant. The Leicester Mercury managed to get hold of a leaked copy of the [...]
February 10, 2008 at 1:24 pm
well done you for putting this article on he internet
February 10, 2008 at 2:50 pm
As a Member of CASCET,I live in Oadby on the A6,this so called Eco Town by name only,is a Disaster on many fronts,not just the General desecration of Our Green and pleasant land and wholesale destruction of Wildlife,a 10yr.old boy has put it very succunctly in a power point presentation (which can be seen at the public meetings(watch for one being arranged for Oadby Area all welcome who wish to see full presentations by various people explaining where possible What this Pennbury Town is all about ,unfortunatelt many things are difficult to comprehend and we cannot give detailed descriptions as the CoOp have done this by the’ Back Door ‘direct to Government.I can however say that it will affect the Infrastructure of Oadby,withplans for Link Road across to M1 and also schools,Health Centres etc in Oadby which are already straining to tke people -Children in!!Please attend a Public Demo against this project I have organised for 16th Feb 11am Oadby Co Op!! Look forward toseeing you all!! Anne
February 10, 2008 at 8:26 pm
There’s a six year old’s view here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/teamlee/No_to_Pennbury_Eco_Town_Leicestershire. We both enjoyed the walk on Saturday and will keep these articles up to date.
February 15, 2008 at 9:44 pm
[...] new builds in Kibworth, Scraptoft and expansions to Thorpe Astley and Hamilton have been agreed. Pennbury’s 15,000 houses are extra and no attempt has been made to demonstrate need. So that’s a [...]
February 16, 2008 at 9:11 pm
These eco-towns have nothing to do with housing “need” as such. They are to create more dormitory accommodation in areas that service conurbations, and in many cases near main routes to London. Housing need in this country is being driven by economists and not the realities of sustainability. People running buy-to-lets are also fuelling this because the tenants ideally want there own housing which results in more builds which in many cases are bought by by-to-letters and so the cycle continues. As Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bucks et al get blighted why isn’t Surrey and Sussex ever landed with these schemes, I wonder?
February 20, 2008 at 8:54 pm
[...] let’s see how well Pennbury, the proposed “Eco Town”, [...]