Housing protest march to hit town
The countryside will invade the town when hundreds of protesters led by tractors march through the centre of Northampton tomorrow.
The campaigners, from an expected 23 villages across rural Northamptonshire, will parade from Becket's Park in the centre of Northampton to the headquarters of the West Northamptonshire Joint Planning Unit (JPU) in Bedford Road.
Dressed in black to represent "the potential death of the countryside", they hope to raise the plight of villages which they say would be swamped by plans to build thousands of new houses around the edges of Northampton.
The march has been organised by members of the Quinton Action Group, which opposes documents drawn up by the JPU which suggest up to 18,000 new houses could be built between Grange Park and Little Eaton on the south-west of Northampton.
Group member Katie McGaw said: "We're expecting a lot of people, it's really hard to say exactly how many, but we've had a massive response so far."
And despite the protest being held at 4.30pm, she insisted it was not designed to bring rush-hour traffic to a standstill, adding: "The point of the whole thing is not to cause disruption but to get across our concerns to the JPU in the loudest way possible because our fear is they're not listening to us at the moment.
"That's also why we'll all be wearing black, because we really do fear this could be the death of the countryside.
"We're always being told 'saying no to development is not an option', but we see that as a massive threat.
"So we're doing this for the future, for the children who live in these villages."
During the march, campaigners from across the area will carry banners indicating which villages they come from.
When the parade reaches the JPU office in Bedford Road, the campaigners will unload wheelbarrows full of questionnaires which the organisation published to get residents' views.
The deputy chairman of the JPU, Councillor Chris Millar (Con, West Haddon & Guilsborough), said he could fully understand the campaigners' views and pledged their opinions would be listened to.
He said: "I'm not surprised about people's reactions to the plans at all, people will naturally be concerned if their villages are threatened, that's entirely to be expected.
"But the truth is we have to have a plan, if we don't have a plan, the potential developers would just have a free-for-all. That's the danger we face, so we need to have a plan in place.
"I fully understand where the protesters are coming from, but all their opinions will be taken into account."
The plans, are expected to be submitted to the Government either at the end of this year or in the early new year.
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Weather for Northampton
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
