Eco-town plan is the pits, say former miners

Isabel Oakeshott

Caroline Flint, the housing minister, faces a backlash in her own constituency after it emerged that a former mining community she represents is likely to be selected for one of the first eco-towns.
Whitehall insiders predict that plans for 5,000 new environmentally friendly homes on the site of an old coal mine in the deprived area of Rossington, Doncaster, will get the go-ahead next year. It is one of three eco-towns regarded as likely to be built.
Flint maintains that the developers are not being given preferential treatment and has appointed a junior minister to deal with the proposal to avoid accusations of a conflict of interest.
Local residents, however, insist that the scheme is fundamentally flawed and have accused Flint of hypocrisy. They question her commitment to the environment, highlighting her support for a new airport offering cheap flights just three miles from the site of the proposed eco-town.
Terry Wilde, chairman of Rossington parish council, said: “This is a completely harebrained idea. Who on earth is going to buy these houses? This is a very low income area. What is needed is more council housing.”
Flint is examining a shortlist of eco-town proposals, whittled down from more than 60 applications. Just 10 remain on the shortlist, after a string of developers pulled out.
Gordon Brown’s flagship project for a series of new eco-towns by 2020 has been dogged by setbacks, forcing Flint to revise the government’s timetable. Ministers privately admit they failed to anticipate the scale of public hostility to the plans, which lawyers have warned could be open to high court challenges. The Local Government Association believes that bypassing normal planning procedures to create the new towns is unlawful.
Whitehall insiders now say most of the 10 proposals on the shortlist have little hope of being built, with just two or three considered “really serious”.
The three leading contenders are Rossington, in Flint’s Don Valley constituency; Whitehill and Bordon in Hampshire, the only scheme that is being led by the local authority; and Marston Vale, in Bedfordshire, which has significantly less local opposition than other proposals.
Other sites still considered as options are Middle Quinton, near Stratford-upon-Avon, and Weston Otmoor, in Oxfordshire.
The Middle Quinton scheme is opposed by thousands of locals and actors including Dame Judi Dench. At Weston Otmoor, the family of the tennis star Tim Henman have led protests.
The developers behind the Rossington proposal insist an eco-town would dramatically regenerate the area, which has suffered high unemployment and social deprivation since 2000 following the closure of the coal mine and local textile factories.
However, many of the town’s 13,000 residents fiercely oppose the scheme, warning that they will not be able to afford the new housing and there will be no jobs to sustain the new town.
They question Flint’s environmental credentials, pointing out she promoted cheap flights by backing a new airport in Doncaster in 2005. At the official opening ceremony, she described the £80m Robin Hood Airport as a “dream” for local people.
A spokesman for Flint said it would be “premature” to suggest any one proposal will get the go-ahead.