It's been no secret that Micheldever has long been the target for a new town. There's plenty of open countryside, good road links, fast rail service, it's a comfortable commute to London and accessible from much of the South. I fully accept there's a need for more housing, and that it has to go somewhere.
However, when the County, District and Parish councils oppose the proposed building of "Micheldever Station Market Town" (it already sounds awful) you would expect central government to show a little sympathy towards the residents when they protest about it. Not in this case. A petition opposing the new development was raised on the Number 10 website, and received 2,500 signatures. Not many by the standards of some of these petitions, but enough to merit a serious response? Apparently not.
What the residents of Micheldever have been fobbed off with is a bit of boilerplate that has been cut and pasted from the "Eco-Towns prospectus" published by DCLG. Whoever assembled the response probably took less time to do so than it took each individual to sign the petition in the first place. Come on New Labour - we know you stopped caring many years ago, but would you please at least pretend to listen to your citizens?
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