Exploring Samlesbury's proposed Garden Village

Walk checked out by Frank Clare (Aged 8) and his dad. Described by Bob Clare

- 

In recent interviews Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has reiterated the government's pledge to build 1.5 million homes during the term of this Parliament.

That is a lot of houses and will take a lot of land much of it “green”.

Alternative to green is “brown” ie land previously used for industry and while close to centres of population such sites need to be “cleaned up” which doesn’t come cheap. Earlier this year a Netflix mini-series highlighted the issues of attempting to clean a brownfield site on the cheap where previously deep-down contaminants were released into the environment polluting air, soil and water which then caused health problems and birth deformities in the town of Kettering. Until I watched that series I would have been an advocate for redeveloping brownfield sites but after watching “Toxic Town” I am not so sure.

But greenfield sites? These entail the loss of natural habitat and just as significantly the loss of farming production resulting in a kind of inverse equation where agriculture is replaced by bricks and mortar but no longer has the capacity to feed the growing population.