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From: Architexturez-IN <admin-in@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:31:41 +0530
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Friday, 25 January 2008
A giant Swiss-based insurance company is seeking permission to build a
new town of 12,500 houses in Hampshire by labelling it an "eco-town". If
it succeeds, Zurich Financial Services – the sixth biggest insurance
group in the world, with annual profits of $4.65bn (£2.4bn) – will be
looking at a billion-pound bonanza.
Its proposed development at Micheldever Station, between Basingstoke and
Winchester, would be one of the great property coups of recent years.
But local councils and green campaigners say the location, in the middle
of Hampshire's rolling chalk downland, is the wrong place for a major
new settlement. The scheme has been rejected out of hand four times
since 1994 by planning authorities. But with the possibility of quite
staggering profits, Zurich has never given up on the scheme and is now
seeking a new way to get it through – by taking advantage of the
Government competition for eco-towns, launched last summer as part of
its new housebuilding drive.
cont'd....
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/how-to-get-permission-to-destroy-the-countryside-say-youre-building-an-ecotown-773877.html