According to the Regeneration and Renewal website the government is to assess the plans for eco-towns against criteria such as value-for-money, sustainability and localism before releasing the next stage of funding (which you may remember is half what was originally proposed by the previous government).
Apparently 'representatives' of the first four sites confirmed that their schemes would continue as planned. Although if your budget has been halved it is difficult to understand how this could be the case unless they had massively overestimated the costs in the first place or perhaps they are having to make massive cuts in some areas to fund the development.
One wonders how Broadland District Council will deal with the question of 'localism' and what measure of support they will opt for in their attempt to convince Mr Shapps that local opposition to the proposed eco-town is negligible.
The website lists the four main eco-town sites and details what is currently being planned:
North-west Bicester - a planning application for 350 exemplar homes is under preparation (total new homes - 5,000)
Rackheath - a 'development brief' for 200 exemplar homes is being drawn up (total new homes -6,000!!)
St Austell - strategic plan for 5,00 new homes is currently being produced
Whitehall-Borden -masterplan for 5,000 new homes was produced last month and proposals for homes on three pilot sites is being developed
Plans for a further eleven sites are at initial stages of development with varying levels of anticipated success.
I notice that Andrew Proctor is no so keen to post on this issue! Or even answer the charge about disregarding the rules for the accounting of public funds.
ReplyDeleteSo when did it become 6,000 houses.
Or tell us why they are proceeding with this in the face of a flawed Joint Core Strategy, which they have yet to justify.