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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics

Developers will only bring us more car-dependent sprawl

A gate to a field in countryside around Gilston, near Harlow, Hertfordshire. This greenbelt land is under threat due to the inexorable demand for housing in the south-east. Photograph: Graham Turner.
Green-belt land at Gilston, near Harlow, Hertfordshire, where 10,000 new homes will be built. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian

It is disappointing to see the huge urban sprawl at Gilston, north of Harlow, described as rejecting “car‑centric models” (A new town for the 21st century?, 9 February).

Big, ultra-low-density developments like this, far from rail-transit networks, are inevitably car-dependent, despite claims by their promoters. It takes more than building the primary schools necessitated by such schemes to get people out of their cars, especially as walks to school are extended by the very low densities secured by huge consumption of productive farmland.

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