http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/14795353.Hampshire_countryside_goes_up_on_sale_after_being_at_centre_of_25_year_battle/

IT’s called bowing to the inevitable.

The Zurich group has finally, after 26 years, seemingly given up on developing a new town at Micheldever Station. And Katrina Percy, who has become a sick joke, at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, has also gone, although thankfully it did not take 26 years for her to be prised out. It just felt like it.

Neither will be missed. Both had clung on long after their time had gone.

Ms Percy was an example of the mindset, some might say arrogance, of many managers in large organisations, with little real accountability or effective scrutiny, who think the rules of common decency do not apply.

Moving out now into the fresh air, the residents enjoying the Hampshire downland around Micheldever can surely breathe a sigh of relief.

Their campaign that started in 1990 against the new town was not a case of Nimbyism. The Micheldever New Town proposal for 12,500 homes between Winchester and Basingstoke was a monstrous idea.

The campaigners’ perseverance, backed up by Winchester City Council, has done Winchester and Hampshire a great service.

Yes, there must be new houses, many thousands of them in the Winchester district, but their siting must be much more sophisticated than plonking them around a railway station in the middle of unspoilt countryside.