An eco-town in Rushcliffe?
On 8 May 2008, Rushcliffe Borough Council held an extraordinary council meeting to discuss the possible establishment of an eco-town in the borough.
Eco-towns are the latest Government scheme for providing housing and industry in a supposedly eco-friendly way. The idea is that everyone lives, works, shops and goes to school in the same community, thereby minimising the need to travel. Homes and other buildings would also be constructed with the aim of saving energy.
Originally the Government's idea was to put one of these eco-towns at Kingston-on-Soar, in the south-western part of the borough, near the M1. However, this idea was dropped, and the Government announced that it would conduct a dialogue with the Council to find a suitable site elsewhere. It was then announced by the Council soon afterwards that the only suitable site appeared to be RAF Newton, near Bingham. If the eco-town were placed here, there could be between 6000 and 10000 homes on this site, consisting of a mixture of brownfield and Green Belt.
In view of the speed of developments and the lack of clear information, the Liberal Democrat group in Rushcliffe called this special meeting to raise the profile of public discussion and to seek answers about what was going on.
After a very vigorous debate in a meeting lasting over two hours, the Council agreed:
- to protect the Green Belt from any eco-town proposal
- in the event of an eco-town being built on a brownfield site or elsewhere, to ensure that adequate infrastructure for transport and services should be provided
- to ask the Council's Local Development Framework Group to consider whether an eco-town is acceptable and, if so, to identify the preferred site
