Gardiner says the Chancellor’s move on Eco Towns must happen in Northern Ireland too
Ulster Unionist Environment and Planning Spokesman, Sam Gardiner MLA, today welcomed Chancellor Gordon Brown’s commitment to build five new eco towns on old industrial sites with over 100,000 new carbon neutral homes targeted at first time buyers.
“I am delighted that the next Prime Minister is giving a lead on this matter. This is a really important development and is a serious move in the right direction by government.”
“Now that this move is being made in Great Britain, I would like to see similar moves made here in Northern Ireland. I have been arguing for some time now that rural planning restrictions are far too tight and need to be reviewed. I believe that eco villages are a way forward for planning in the countryside. The countryside needs to be alive and full of people as it was in the past and not become some kind of sterile national park with no human activity anywhere.”
“We in Northern Ireland should develop eco villages on countryside sites to help ease the enormous pressure on the planning system. More land must be released to take some of the heat out of the housing market and to give first time buyers a chance to get on the housing ladder. Eco villages would be one good way to do this and end this preposterous ban on nearly all countryside building. One hundred years ago before the Irish Land Acts there were far more people living in the countryside than is the case today.”
“I am all for preserving the environment but I also want to balance this sensibly by keeping the countryside alive and reinvigorating rural communities. Eco villages are a real solution to the twin problems of rural depopulation and the current rural planning straight jacket.”