"Britain needs millions of homes. We have a plan and a team to build them, east of Cambridge." So reads the first sentence that pops up when opening the Forest City 1 website - the massive £100 billion proposed urban development project aiming at building 400,000 new homes. The idea was developed by entrepreneur Shiv Malik, 28, and Joe Reeve, 44, co-founder of Looking For Growth, a campaign group that's already pushed the Labour government to change planning laws. Those in favour of the proposed "eco-city" say it offers a creative answer to Britain's housing crisis while stimulating economic growth. However, critics have recently branded the project, which would cover 45,000 acres of agricultural land on the Suffolk and Cambridgeshire border, a "dystopian concrete sprawl".

The development would sit east of Cambridge and is being presented as an alternative to the Government's Greater Cambridge proposals. Labour's plans - under the Chancellor's push to create a European Silicon Valley - have already been rejected by local councillors, GB News reports. The scheme would deliver approximately 12,000 acres of forests, wetlands and woodland. A further 8,000 acres would be set aside for offices, shops and other commercial premises.

Sir Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project, has insisted it is in the "national interest" for the plan to go ahead.

He said this week: "It is in the national interest that we put our faith in people and organisations that believe that the future remains ours to make.

"All across the country people are listless in the face of inertia. Forest City provides a creative spark, an imaginative leap and a roadmap for a beautiful future with a new way to live.

"How much better to aim for something that a century from now will have people thankful we were here at this moment, than held transfixed in aspic by an imagined glorious past."

Last year, Architect Steve McAdam, who is on the board of directors and behind projects like the London King's Cross redevelopment and the London Olympics masterplans, said the city is important for young people to tackle the housing crisis.

He told BBC: "It's not in any local plan, there's no government agency sponsoring it, it's not as though a bunch of developers are behind it or volume house builders." He referenced about 1,200 young people who had signed an online petition on the project's website pledging their support.

"They say they are the generation that is worse off than their parents and they don't think it should be like that."

Instead of "just moaning", the team had developed a plan that was "quite rational and considered", he explained.

However, top Tory Nick Timothy, the MP for West Suffolk, has previously described the project as "ridiculous" and said the city would be a rather "dystopian, state-subsidised concrete sprawl".

West Suffolk district councillor Joe Mason also issued a warning.

He said: "West Suffolk is not empty space on a map waiting to be redesigned.

"It is a network of villages and landscapes that have developed over centuries.

"Communities such as Withersfield, Cowlinge, Great Bradley and the Thurlows would all find themselves directly affected by something on this scale."

Regardless, Housing Secretary Steve Reed is already considering the ambitious plan.