11 JULY 2008 – 12.00

Government agrees to stop eco-town promoters moving goalposts

At a meeting last night with officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Stop Hanley Grange campaigners complained about promoters of eco-towns being able to continue to release and change details of their proposals after the public consultation period ended. Also at the meeting were representatives of the Government Office for the East of England and Jarrow Investments Ltd, the promoters of the Tesco funded eco-town, Hanley Grange, at Hinxton in Cambridgeshire.

Stop Hanley Grange pointed out that Jarrow submitted a 44 page submission to DCLG setting out their “Vision” for Hanley Grange on 30 June, the day the 12 week consultation period ended and posted it to their website on 1 July, depriving the public of any opportunity to comment on it. The document also reveals that Jarrow won’t be supplying technical papers until later in the summer and a final consolidated bid until the end of August giving campaigners little opportunity to comment in accordance with the consultation guidelines, in what is effectively a developer-led rather than government led process. “Who is in charge has been lost,” commented Brian McCarthy of the Stop Hanley Grange Campaign. “The developers have ridden roughshod over the whole consultation process by publishing their submissions after the end of the consultation period.”

“What is worse is that the submission appears to have been changed substantially with the number of houses rising from 8,000 to 12,800, a sixty per cent increase. This will drastically change the impact of Hanley Grange on the area and its infrastructure and shows that the developers’ consultation process was a sham, because of their misrepresentation to the many people in the local community who have written to the Government in response to the initial proposals on the size of the scheme.”

Responding to these and other criticisms, DCLG officials agreed that the public can continue to submit comments on any aspect of the proposals until the end of a further 13 week consultation period that will follow the publication of the site specific Sustainability Appraisal, likely to be in late July. They also agreed that the bid material from promoters on which the Government will make their decisions as to which eco-towns will go forward will be fixed and cannot be changed after the end of this month.

Campaigners also made very clear their opposition to the eco-town process and that there should instead be proper examination of proposals and alternatives through the Government’s own Regional Spatial Strategy planning process. This would see them fully tested and the public able to comment on all of them.

Julie Redfern, Campaign Chairman, said “We’re pleased that DCLG appears to have listened to us and is bringing the shutters down on the promoters’ bids to allow a proper assessment, and new consultation, to take place in the autumn. This should stop the ground from shifting under our feet although we’ll continue to argue that the eco-towns process is still not properly accountable.”

ENDS