Pennbury Rejected

Leicestershire's proposed eco-town has been rejected.

The Government announced that Pennbury project, a 15,000-home development for land between Oadby, Great Glen and Stoughton, failed to make the shortlist of preferred sites for the flagship homes developments.

For the past two-and-a-half years, Co-operative Estates has been planning for the Pennbury project. However, it failed to get on to a short-list of four sites named yesterday as the U.K.s first set of eco-towns.

Its final appraisal found there were too many doubts about whether the road network could cope, the proposed transport infrastructure and problems attracting employers to the area - the main criticisms made by Leicestershire County Council.

Its main conclusions:

1. It would cause congestion as the road network was not able to cope with the extra traffic.

2. It was unclear how it would deliver jobs in the eco-town for people who lived there.

3. The eco-town posed a serious threat to regeneration in Leicester by drawing money away from the city and its residents.

4. Risks of potential increased floods.

Cllr. Gary Hunt, the Lib Dem Knighton Councillor and active campaigner against the project said, "I'm delighted that the Pennbury project has been cancelled, the right place for housing growth in Leicestershire has always been in the north west of the county around the airport growth area. This was agreed several years ago and was already built into the north west Leicestershire district plan and can be delivered to meet current housing needs, it's clear that Pennbury was an unprofessional piece of opportunism that has merely delayed the delivery of much needed homes."