SELBY will die if an eco-town is built on its doorstep.

That was the stark warning issued by Selby District Council leader Mark Crane at a public meeting about plans to build a so-called eco-town on Burn Airfield, south of the town.

"It will kill Selby, and it will kill Burn, as the two towns would compete against each other. Burn is a bad site so close to Selby. The two settlements would kill each other off," he claimed.

Coun Crane was speaking at a packed village meeting at Burn Gliding Club, which would be demolished to make way for a new town of at least 5,000 homes.

Villagers are angry that Burn, with a population of less than 400, would be utterly swallowed up if it were chosen as the site for one of the Government's proposed "ecological" towns.

Selby had neither the facilities nor the jobs to sustain such a development, said Coun Crane, and eco-town residents would have to travel to Leeds and York on already crowded roads and rail to find work.

A firm of consultants, GVE Grimley, was asked to find a suitable site for the Leeds City region - an area spreading from York to Huddersfield and Barnsley - and came up with four contenders, all in the Selby district. The four sites earmarked for the "environmentally friendly" new town are Gascoigne Wood, Burn Airfield, Church Fenton, and a site dubbed Willow Green, near Kellington, Eggborough and Beal.

According to Grimley's, the Selby area "ticked all the boxes" for such a development.

Nigel Adams, Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Selby and Ainsty, is taking the fight into the potentially-affected communities, and has been working with district councillors to arrange public meetings in all four affected areas in a bid to widen the eco-town debate.

Selby's MP, John Grogan, is on record as welcoming an eco-town for the Selby area.

Mr Adams told Burn residents the very idea of eco-towns was Government spin and a scam.

Homes should be built in areas that needed them and could sustain them. The meeting heard that though nearly 2,000 people were on Selby's housing waiting list, in the latest Government report on future housing needs, Selby was earmarked for 440 homes a year until 2026.

At the Burn meeting, more than 100 people voted unanimously to oppose an eco-town on the village airfield. It was agreed to hold further meetings, inviting the Campaign To Protect Rural England and Yorkshire Forward, owners of the airfield.