Last chance plea to save Owenstown

The message from promoters of the scheme to First Minister Alex Salmond is a stark one: overturn South Lanarkshire Council’s refusal of planning permission for the scheme to build a whole new town in the Douglas Valley or face losing the project and the millions of pounds of investment involved to London or even Ireland.

As reported, Owentown promoters The Hometown Foundation spent the past two years ‘selling’ the vision of an eco-friendly community based on New Lanark’s co-operative principles with about the same population as Lanark - 8000 - near Rigside, only to see South Lanarkshire Council refuse it planning permission, claiming it didn’t fit in with its Local Plan economic ‘blueprint’.

For more on this story pick up a copy of this week’s Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now.