Grow Your Own Magazine

I live in Leicestershire, just near Thurnby. It is right on the edge of the city sprawl and is mainly farmland interspersed with small villages including medieval Great Glen, and a small airfield (Leicester Airport).

The main landowners are the CO-OP who own over 10,000 acres. In cahoots with English partnerships, a government quango, they have earmarked this whole area for a 20,000 home Eco Town to be called Pennbury.

Now I am all for progress and had no objection when the old Scraptoft campus was pulled down and over 500 homes built, its less than a mile from me, but 20,000 homes (and thats just the start) will totally change the structure and nature of where I live. It proposes 2 park and ride schemes and a public transport hub whatever that is but I fear gridlock as people try to get into the city as the A47 is only single carriageway into Leicester.

I fear the worst and expect this fait acompli to swamp the whole area.

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Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated - Sunday 19th at 2100hrs

Oh dear. Don't understand the half of it all I am afraid but sorry to hear there is such a drastic sounding change to happen to your locale.

Move to Pembrokeshire - thousands of people can't be wrong!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

20,000? Shurely musht be shome mishtake?

Unbelievable, you have my sympathy offered PW, maybe someone else will offer you a subscription to 'Living France'?

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Piglet, you have my sympathy.
This What's proposed? is what is going on down the road from me and is in addition to the proposed expansion of Stanstead airport.

Sadly you will need to emulate the man behind the website and mobilise a LOT of opposition, good luck. A catchy matra helps.

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Always thank people who have helped you immediately, as they may not be around to thank later.
Visit my blog at http://podsplot.blogspot.com/
I support http://www.hearingdogs.org.uk/

No mistake Manda, the first tranche is for between 12-15000 homes but the area to be developed will fit 20,000 homes in.

__________________
Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated - Sunday 19th at 2100hrs

Will they be like new homes being built here - no gardens?

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

C'mon Piggie you and the OH better emigrate to France-land!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Sorry Pigletwillie,

I searched on google and found this petition: www.petitions.pm.gov.uk/PennburyEcoTown

Kind regards
Tracey

Given half a chance, and if OH and I could afford it we would be out of this dreadful country. The imcompetent Home Secretary, part time Defence Secretary, et al ad nauseum!!

Personally I would be down the antipodes, ie either Australia or New Zealand.

valmarg

Hi

I am an eco person, and I also rent where I live.

So I am generaly against building, but we do need more houses!

T

2,000 000 tonnes of concrete sure isnt green Tigerella.

Yes we do need more houses but not so many in one place that will destroy the very nature of the whole area.

The CO-OP are just trying to make a killing and by wrapping it up as a carbon neutral eco scheme, feel that they can just ram it through with the aid of English partnerships.

__________________
Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated - Sunday 19th at 2100hrs

This is the official gloomiest day of the year. Just been watching news of a stockmarket crash, floods all over the country so news of 20,000 homes eating into the countryside is par for the course today methinks!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Piglet willie, they have done exactly that where my mam lives. There were 20 houses 1 shop and a cemetary. Her little village is now surrounded by houses apartments and flats.A new town is springing up and a shopping centre, railway station, park and ride and schools are in the pipeline. The road is filthy from clay being trucked from the site, her windows are filthy from dust, her water and electricity are constantly being cut off while new pipes and cables are being laid. All in all the place is distroyed. You have my sympathy.

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And when you're back stops aching,
And you're hands begin to harden.
You will find yourself a partner,
In the glory of the garden.

Rudyard Kipling.

Hi

It is very easy for me to say I disagree with all these houses.
But everyone else has voted for T Blair.
With that comes the growth, the dog eat dog England, and England becoming more "succesfull".

Unless most of us vote Green, this will just cary on.
But instead everyone will fall for the next Blair clone!

T

I agree!! there are plenty of Blairbots waiting to come off the production line.

but i doubt it would matter who was in power the effect would be the same. my "village" got swamped years ago with new estates without any improvement to the infrastructure and PW is right to be gloomy about the effect 20000 houses will have on teh area. the "transport hub" is not scheduled to go in first which means that the first occupants of the new houses would have to buy a car whcih they are unlikely to then give up once the bus service eventually starts.

as bramble pointed out in their post above, the same happened to her mam's village - quickly profitable houses first - infrastructure "in the pipeline". this even contradicts the true meaing of the word - infra meaning "beneath" - not "on top of".

the other impact apart from increased traffic flow and strain on local resources that my "village" has suffered from is flooding. there is so much tarmac now that there is simply nowhere for surface water to go. this has been especially prevelant in the last few years with the ever increasing fashion for ripping out gardens and covering them in paving stones or concrete

the city of Leicester has hectares of abandoned industrial land that has lain in ruin since the mills went in the Thatcher years. there is already and infrastructure in place... there can be no justification to build 20000 new houses unti other avenues have been exhausted.

my other personal conspiracy theory is that there isn't actually a housing shortage at all and that the problem is one of distribution though the population. there would be enough houses to go around if so many were not "second homes" or there were not "buy to let" investors fuelling demand and thus pushing up prices.

the second home phenomenon was very apparant when i lived in the west country - you only saw lights on at the weekends. and as for when i lived in brighton, almost every other person was a Londoner. People even commute to the capital now from as far away as humble Leicester!

it's insane!

I tend to agree that I don't think there's necessarily a housing shortage but there is an 'affordable' housing shortage. There are thousands of empty houses throughout the country for various reasons, many with absentee landlords or bought for investment with no intention of being rented out/occupied. Councils, landlords & housing associations leave houses to rot so that they can knock then down & rebuild more lucrative flats etc. instead of renovating. Our council encourages new builds in our town & lots of 3 storey blocks of flats are popping up, many left empty, this is not to alleviate a housing shortage in our area, it's to encourage new people to move here as we don't have a high enough population to pay council tax & support the infrastructure. So either way you lose, you get more unwanted housing or you have to pay higher council tax! 20,000 houses sounds like quite a big town Piglet, I'd probably be shocked if that was happening round here never mind in the countryside! Shame they didn't decide to build on a 'brownfield' site but then that probably wouldn't attract the type of people who will be able to afford the houses.

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Into every life a little rain must fall.

I suppose the only bright spot in this is they haven't tried to build on the lottie site Piglet ... YET

The main thing with these new developments is they are so bloody boring. God know why they need architects as they are all the same soulless little boxes. Of course the next thing is they will be moaning that the rain has no where to go when there is widespread flooding unless someone can invent concrete & tarmac that will soak up water.

I suppose the EEC has to take a bit of blame for this as well. Now we have now state boundary and folks can come and go as they please we are going to get more and more pressure on a finite resource.

I shall now step away from the soapbox

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Where will all the water go when it rains if they build these 20,000 new homes?
Into the Soar! even more flooding round Barrow/Loughborough!

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

HAVE YOUR SAY - Pennbury
Petition to: urge the Communities and Local Government Department to ensure: (a) a full democratic planning process and consultation with local authorities and neighbouring communities concerning the Eco Town proposal by the Co-operative Group south-
http://leicesterairport.com/files/Si...oTown_size.jpg
Eco Town proposal | Leicestershire Aeroclub

As a leicestershire resident, I too feel very sorry about this.

Me and OH just signed the petition.

Why do we need more houses??

To accommodate the influx of immigrants???

valmarg

I live in a smallish village with just over 1000 houses. we are not on any through road so it tends to be reasonably peaceful. We have recently been told they are planning to build 3000 new houses in around our village trebling the size.