Could a small rural village in Bedfordshire turn into a new town bigger than Cambridge?

  • ITV News Anglia's Matthew Hudson reports on reactions to proposals to turn the village of Tempsford into a super-town.

Proposals to turn a countryside village into a huge new town have been met with anger by local residents.

A report by the think-tank, UK DayOne, has recommended that homes for up to 350,000 people should be built in Tempsford in Bedfordshire, five miles south of St Neots.

If the town is built, it would be bigger than Northampton or Milton Keynes and twice the current population of Cambridge, despite the village of Tempsford currently having a population size of just a few hundred.

The think tank UK DayOne suggests the small village is the perfect location for building new homes Credit: ITV News Anglia

The proposal published on UKDayOne, a "non-partisan initiative dedicated to supercharging UK growth", described Tempsford as "probably the best-connected greenfield site in Britain" for Labour to build on.

Tempsford New Town, as the New Towns for a New Britain report calls it, would sit at the intersection of the East Coast Main Line and the planned East-West Rail line connecting Oxford and Cambridge.

The rail line would pass through Milton Keynes, Bedford and other towns between the two cities.

The report's co-author Kane Emerson said the area is the ideal place to build, as Labour announced a variety of plans to build more houses across the UK.

He said: "It's located on East-West rail, so there's going to be an East West station placed in Tempsford, but also there's potential for an East Coast Mainline station, so Tempsford would be one of the best connected sites in Britain to put one of these new towns."

The owner of Knotts Farm shop says the community would no longer feel rural Credit: ITV News Anglia

Tempsford Parish council chairman David Sutton said locals cannot believe it.

"They've moved here for village life, that's what they like" he said.

"We're talking here about filling every single piece of green space between Bedford, Biggleswade, St Neots and all the way down."

Jodie Titmus, runs Knotts Farm Shop, Tempsford's only retail business, and said: "We're always happy to introduce new residents and building on a small scale, we're not against that.

"It's just something that size. Why do it here? Why do it? We are a rural community and we would no longer be rural."

Labour aim to make use of what they call the 'grey belt'. Credit: PA

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Labour will free up planning restrictions and force local councils to build more homes as it aims to "take the brakes off Britain".

Ms Reeves will reinstate compulsory house building targets for local councils, as part of plans to build 1.5 million new homes within five years.

But the Campaign to Protect Rural England said it has concerns over the infrastructure to support large developments.

"We can't have very large developments just plonked into the countryside without the associated infrastructure of schools, healthcare centres, shopping centres." said the CPRE's Jackie Copley.

Before getting into government, deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said the party would build "future new towns" and would decide the location for the first new town within its first year in power.

After the Second World War, new towns were built across the East of England, including Milton Keynes, Stevenage, Harlow and Basildon.

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