Economic Doldrums: Tract Houses

Sleepy Town Dept: Loved by locals for horseback riding and rambling walks, one British builder thinks this picturesque setting is also ideal for a U.S.-style subdivision of 170 tract houses, according to The Star. On one side is a national government eager to build Britain out of its economic doldrums, seeing a new wave of residential and commercial construction even in small towns and villages as a major weapon in its fight to halt the country s slide into another recession and in this graceful patch of British countryside, a lush glade gives way to a horizon of rolling hills immortalized by the painter Thomas Gainsborough in his 18th-century masterpiece Cornard Wood. The uproar in this sleepy town of 8,000, where one-quarter of residents have signed a petition to stop the project, is but one skirmish in a nationwide battle suddenly raging over the future of rural Britain. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.