Member Article

New proposal for Northumberland eco-town

Proposals for a new North East ‘eco-town’ which could lead to a community of up to 5,000 homes have been submitted this week. Regional firm Banks Developments is hoping to build the new community at Cambois on the Northumberland coast. The project is also expected to lead to the creation of around 2,500 new jobs in the area.

The Cambois proposal has been put forward in response to the Government’s Eco-town Programme, which aims to help meet the country’s housing needs by creating sustainable settlements across all parts of the country.

The proposed site lies to the east of the A189 East Northumberland Spine Road and is comprised of brownfield land on which heavy industry was previously located, low grade agricultural land and coastal dunes.

Justin Hancock at Banks Developments says: “The Eco-towns Programme aims to balance two distinct and pressing requirements - the urgent need to build more homes to house a growing population, and the need to build them in an environmentally acceptable manner. “The Cambois site represents an outstanding and unique opportunity to create a high quality sustainable community … in a location which has suffered from decades of post-industrial decline.”

The proposed Cambois community would also include education facilities, a potential passenger rail link, improved road, footpath and cycleway links to nearby settlements and landscape improvements. The plan is that a large proportion of the settlement’s energy requirements would be met by local generation.

Justin Hancock said: “We firmly believe that the proposals we are putting forward have the potential to offer many economic, social and environmental benefits to both the local area and the wider region, and very much hope that we will have the opportunity to create an exciting new eco-town for the region.”

A Government decision on which eco-town proposals are to be taken forward is expected in the spring.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .