Eco-town would be anything but green

Stratford Observer 

A FRESH row over Middle Quinton’s eco credentials has broken out.

The BARD campaign battling the plan for a 6,000 home zero-carbon community on land in Long Marston, claims traffic forecasts show it will be anything but green.

They say that according to the developers’ own analysis if Middle Quinton were to be built, some 14,305 car journeys in and out of the new town would be generated every weekday, calling into questions its eco credentials.

Furthermore, 810 additional vehicles are forecast within Stratford in the peak rush hour.

Only five people are predicted to walk in or out of the town during the same rush hour.

The figures come from a transport assessment put together by those behind the eco town bid, St Modwen and The Bird Group.

David Cranage, BARD Campaigner, said: “It is ludicrous to keep on using the ‘eco’ prefix when we’ll see over 14,000 more cars every weekday on our narrow country roads. Stratford is already overly-congested - just imagine an extra 13 cars entering every minute during rush hour.

“BARD has consistently warned that putting a massive new town in an isolated rural area would lead to road traffic chaos and now the developers themselves quietly admit it. Yet we believe their figures are only the tip of the iceberg. The reality will be even worse - but by then it will be too late to do anything about it. What’s more this doesn’t even account for the 15 years of construction traffic HGVs. Just think of the long-term damage and pollution all this will cause.”

He said the government needed to be honest with itself about what it wanted to achieve with its eco-town experiment.

“Is it to bring about greater eco-consciousness or to force huge housing developments on rural areas in order to spread the population more widely?

“All experts acknowledge an eco-development would have a greater likelihood of success if it were located adjacent to a major urban area with good employment opportunities and an existing public transport network. That rules Long Marston out.”

The developers were not available for comment as we went to press.