Letter to Ian Wright MP about Eco Towns
Ian Wright Esq MP
Department for Communities & Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU
4 February 2008
Eco-Towns
I have read the transcript of your speech in response to my adjournment debate last week. Thank you again for taking part and for providing a little more, but not complete, clarity about the Government’s intentions. You were, as I was, somewhat short of time that evening so I wonder whether you will let me have a copy of your entire speech so that those passages you did not have time to speak can be made public.
In particular, I would welcome an explanation of your statement (shortly before you were cut off in mid-sentence) that the “initial assessment” is designed “purely to exclude sites where there are too many showstoppers to allow development to take place” but that this assessment will be followed “immediately” by a short list of “about 10” – thus excluding 80% of the proposed schemes at the outset.
How can there be a short list of only ten when the Government want to create ten new towns? You will understand that my constituents are somewhat cynical about consultations at the moment given the results of the Post Office’s so-called consultation that has seen the closure of a huge number of sub-post offices in the area.
If the "initial assessment" rejects the Co-Op plan in my constituency as obviously bad, as of course I believe it should, then all well and good. However, if the Stoughton farming estate scheme is included, it is difficult to imagine just how bad the 47 or so rejected schemes must have been for them to fail but for the green light to be given to this scheme which:
- Has minimum brown field land
- Is too close to Leicester
- Has no railway and where, as is undeniable, there is no real prospect of a new station on a high speed line which is already operating near to capacity
- Has no link to the motorway and no prospect of any such link.
In view of the transport problems and since this is in an area of (happily) very low unemployment, there can be little prospect of attracting large employers to the development unless huge financial incentives are to be offered or there are unannounced plans to transfer a government agency to the new site.
Even then, the idea that most of the new residents might work for these new mystery employers is, as I indicated last week, fanciful. No major employer (unless under the control of the government) will set up shop in the new town unless and until there is an available work force. So the residents will need to be there first. But anyone wanting to buy a house on the new development will already have to be in work to be able to fund a mortgage. Are we to imagine that large numbers of people will give up their existing jobs, which will necessarily encompass a wide range to work, skills and rates of pay, all to work for any company which happens to come along, whatever the nature of business or rates or pay? The notion is, as I am sure you would accept, absurd. The reality must be that people will travel from elsewhere to work in the new town, while many of the residents would commute to their existing jobs. In other words, the extra traffic and congestion would be in both directions.
Will you publish the entire list of applicant sites, who is the proposer in each case (ie the equivalent to the Co-Op and English Partnerships) and the reasons why the rejected sites were not successful? Can you tell me whether the Co-Op has applied to develop any land owned or controlled by it on a similar scale to this or any substantial scale in addition to the Stoughton farming estate, either within the eco-town policy, as a sustainable urban extension (SUE) or under ordinary planning regulations?
I look forward to hearing from you as a matter of urgency.
