Tesco sole backer for eco-town plans

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Cambridge Evening News 13th June 2008 

HANLEY Grange truly would be a Tesco town after Andrew Lansley MP discovered the supermarket giant was currently the only financier of the scheme.

Jarrow Investments has been the public face of the controversial scheme which could see an eco-town of up to 11,000 homes built near Hinxton.

But Mr Lansley said Tesco was, in fact, totally financing the town and no other organisations were involved in the bid to Government to create an eco-town.

He is now seeking an urgent meeting with Housing Minister Caroline Flint MP.

Mr Lansley said: "Tesco has always admitted that it has what it calls a contractual relationship with Jarrow Investments regarding the land. This hides far more than it reveals.

"Tesco has confirmed to my office they 'have 100 per cent control of Jarrow Investments, if we want them to mow the lawn, they mow the lawn'.

"Many local people understood that Tesco wanted to build a supermarket, none of them understood that as well as building the supermarket it is Tesco and Tesco alone who are paying and instructing the planning consultants, the master planners and everybody else involved in the bid."

Campaigners against the town as well as local councils are concerned by the revelation.

Cllr Matt Bradney, Cambridgeshire County Council's cabinet member for growth and infrastructure, said:

"There's a phrase 'start as you mean to carry on' and I wonder what else is going to come crawling out of the woodwork about this scheme.

"Is that really the way we want to go, having a big supermarket owning towns? I have got some very serious reservations about that."

Duxford councillor Tim Stone, who has been leading the campaign against Hanley Grange, said: "Tesco only have control over a relatively small acreage on the Hanley Grange site.

"The developing group seems to be putting together a plan in the hope that other landowners will join them."

Tesco sources said the company was involved in funding the project but in the long term all relevant land owners would pay their full share of the project.

A source told the News last night: "Any suggestion Tesco will fund an entire eco-town is untrue."

Nick West, project director for the Hanley Grange project, said: "It is well known that Tesco is backing the proposals and is working with the project team to develop the scheme in detail.

"We are currently speaking to other landowners on the site and believe that agreement can be reached to deliver a project that will bring significant benefits to the local area."

Earlier this week Essex county councillor Robert Chambers, who represents Saffron Walden, said he feared building the eco-town would mean the complete urbanisation of the countryside from Cambridge to Saffron Walden.