IT is the local newspaper version of Groundhog Day, the Hollywood comedy where a man is forced to endure the same day again and again.

For the Chronicle our Groundhog Day is Micheldever New Town, on the cards since the late 1980s, going away and then coming back, going away then coming back.

The city council is looking at updating its local plan and for the first time is actively looking at an option of a “free-standing new settlement”. Nowhere is officially mentioned but obviously the place closest to the spotlight is Micheldever. City councillors on the Local Plan Group discussed the attractions such as the sparing of more houses in lots of other places (the cynic might think, places nearer them), as well as the greater chance of having a significant number of affordable homes.

But the reasons why Micheldever is a bad place for a new town as still as valid in the 2020s as they were in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

By all means debate a new town but be alive to the drawbacks: wrecking swathes of countryside and the huge cost of putting in the infrastructure.

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