Report expected to raise questions of eco-town’s viability

by Preston Witts

SOME tough questions about the financial viability of the 6,000-home ecotown planned for Long Marston are expected to be posed in a report due to be presented shortly to the joint working group of local authorities set up to examine the project.

The report—a viability assessment by specialist consultants C B Richard Ellis—is currently in draft form and for the time being is confidential. But a verbal update on it will be given to the working group when it meets tomorrow (Friday).

When it is eventually published it is likely to produce further unpleasant reading for the promoters of what is now known as the Middle Quinton eco-town, St Modwen and the Bird Group, to add to some expert criticisms of the proposals released this week.
 
Papers going before tomorrow’s meeting contain three separate independent assessments of the eco-town scheme and they all express serious concerns about the validity, effectiveness and impact of an eco-town at this particular location.

A review by Ove Arup, the global engineering and business consultancy, challenges the deliverability of the transport measures envisaged by the promoters, particularly the guided busway along the Greenway between Long Marston and Stratford.

Advantage West Midlands (AWM), the regional development agency, publishes an economic impact assessment by Entec, the environmental and business consultancy, which asserts that the benefits of the scheme could be more effectively achieved elsewhere.

And Colliers CRE, chartered surveyors and international property consultants, argues in its retail impact report, that:

• The promoters’ assessment has over-estimated demand (available expenditure) and under-estimated supply (net floorspace and projected turnover).

• The promoters have not presented a robust justification for the amount of convenience goods shopping proposed at Middle Quinton.

• The proposed floorspace will be likely to divert retail trade away from existing centres such as Stratford, Shipston, Bidford, Chipping Campden, Evesham and Moreton-in-Marsh.

• A more comprehensive need, capacity and impact study should be conducted into the retail elements of the eco-town project.

Bard—the protest group set up to campaign against the Middle Quinton project—recently lost a judicial review in which it challenged the government’s handling of the consultation process for the whole ecotown policy. The judge’s formal, written ruling is expected later this month.

Following publication of the written judgement there will be a further consultation period of six weeks, with a government decision on which sites should be on the final shortlist some time after that. But those working in close contact with the government are not expecting the announcement to come until after the county council elections have taken place on 4th June.

The eco-town joint working group is made up of representatives from Stratford, Cotswold and Wychavon district councils and Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire county councils.