Eco Town news

Dear campaigners

After last Saturday's very successful Heritage walks and rally at Great Stretton, the next two Saturdays will be very different (see below). A series of consultations and exhibitions will start from 9th June for a couple of weeks so plenty of opportunities for you and your friends to ask questions and seek answers.

A series of local authority public consultation events and Co-op exhibitions are due to start from 9th June starting with a County Council consultation event, with both Co-op and CASCET (Simon Galton) speaking, at 8pm at Gartree High School, in Oadby. Another similar County Council consultation meeting (Kevin Feltham speaking) is at 8pm on 12th June in the Billesdon Coplow Centre.

Then there are Co-op exhibition events between 11am and 8pm on 10th (Three Swans, Market Harborough), 11th (Parklands, Oadby), 13th (Marquee, Gartree Road), 14th (Marquee, Gartree Road) and 16th (Leicester Tigers ground) .

Finally Harborough DC are running round-table discussion events on 16th (Marquee, Gartree Road), 17th (Bath Hotel, Shearsby) and 18th (Three Swans, Market Harborough) at varying times during day and evening (HDC TalkBack leaflet being delivered to households this week), and Oadby & Wigston BC are holding their follow-up consultation at 7.30pm on 18th June at Parklands.

BBC Radio Leicester are holding a Big Debate on the Eco-town at Thurnby Village Hall at 6.30pm on 17th June. Panel of 4 expected to include me (CASCET), MP, Co-op rep. and Government rep. plus 30 campaign supporters and 30 eco-town supporters. It will be on the radio but will be all ticket attendance I am afraid. After tickets for Committee members, there may be some left over, so I will send around another plea if we still have some left over in a week or so.

Support for the campaign takes many forms, so we hope you find something from these events where you can actively support us.

Saturday 7th June from 11 am until 2 pm
Iliffe Park Funday A fun event for all the family on Iliffe Park in Oadby
Free admission
Refreshments available
Bouncy castle, crafts, exhibitions, information, climbing wall, fire service, salsa, hand massage, raffle ..........
A partnership event by; The Friends of Iliffe Park, Voluntary Action for Oadby & Wigston. The Police, Oadby Library, Sunflower Radio, Oadby & Wigston Borough Council, Langmoor Primary School

Anne Bond has arranged for CASCET to have a stand (setup time 10.30am). The CASCET stand at the Stoughton Village Fete a couple of weeks ago was very well attended, so I'm sure there will be interest. If you can help in any way to be on a rota to help handout leaflets, collect petition signatures, then please contact Anne directly - a.a.r.bond@btinternet.com

Saturday 14th June - Co-op Exhibition in Marquee on "Christmas Company" site at Leicester Airport on Gartree Road

The exhibition event is due to run from 11am to 8pm. Two aspects to our campaign:

a) Visit to talk to the Co-op representatives, ask questions and make your views known directly to Co-op. The Co-op are seeking views from people without actually providing any real details for any of us to comment on about their own plans and ideas. At this stage, the line to take is to ask them for details of their plans for the housing, schools, roads, health facilities, shops, flood prevention, habitat preservation etc. before you can comment.

Campaign song

The words for Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi were given to me last Friday - see for yourself their relevance to our campaign:

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see em
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that d.d.t. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Should it become one of our campaign theme tunes?