Hanley Grange

For those of you who don't know, Hanley Grange has been proposed as one of the government's eco-towns, just south of Cambridge, near Sawston. Many years ago (on 2001) when we were drawing up the County's Structure Plan, this area was proposed as a possible site for a new town, but we ruled it out, because of transport problems and because we thought it would simply become a housing estaste for London overspill, rather than provide homes for Cambridgeshire residents. We have a Structure Plan and a regional spatial strategy (it says how many homes the region needs ), which happens to have been signed up to by the government, but makes no mention of eco-towns. Great example of joined up government, that one department says "this is how many houses you, the eastern region, needs to build" while another, with no reference to the first says "oh, and by the way, we want you to have an eco-town". Now I don't think anyone objects to the concept of an eco-town - but it has to be in the right place - and Hanley Grange, having been ruled out of the process, is definitely not the right place. Yesterday, at full council, I seconded a motion objecting to the inclusion of Hanley Grange in the government's list of eco-towns. Some very simple reasons - the county council and district council are already stretched to full capacity trying to cope with the current plans - Northstowe, southern fringe, east of Cambridge, north-west fringe etc - and Hanley Grange would be a development too far. It would enable the developers of all the sites to run roughshod over the local authorities. It is bizarre that we want Northstowe to be an eco-town, but the government says it can't be, but then wants to put one where we, locally elected politicians say isn't suitable - crazy!