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Eco town design competition announced

Posted: 05/11/2007

A design competition for five eco-towns to be built by 2016 has been announced by Housing minister Yvette Cooper. Architects, urban designers and planners have been invited to contribute to an “ideas competition” ahead of a more specific design competition to develop the towns themselves. The first phase is seeking general ideas that could be adapted to the towns, including low-carbon technologies.

Cooper said 'citizen's juries' made up of local members of the public would help judge the entries from a shortlist of 10 drawn up by Cabe, the RIBA and the Prince’s Foundation.

Cooper said: “We don’t want each town to be the same, but instead to reflect the history and character of each particular area. This is why it is crucial we involve local people.”

But any plans for the eco-towns are doomed to fail unless they are well integrated with existing settlements and agreed with, not imposed on, local communities, say countryside campaigners, the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Neil Sinden, CPRE policy director, said: ‘As exemplars it will be vital that eco-towns adopt cutting-edge environmental standards, on reducing carbon emissions, water and energy use, and waste, for example. We welcome any initiative which encourages this. But using citizens’ juries is no substitute for consulting local communities on the need for, location and design of eco-towns through the established planning process.

And it would be a huge mistake to attempt to design a town from scratch on a drawing board with no knowledge of the site or location in question. To be truly sustainable, the new eco-towns need to be sited on previously developed land adjacent to or within existing settlements rather than free-standing new towns in rural areas which would encourage car dependency.

Neil Sinden concluded: ‘The environmental impact of development extends far beyond the footprint of a particular development site. [5] Decisions on eco-towns, as with any major development, need to take account of this wider development “shadow” and the need to focus development on brownfield sites. They also need to be considered through the established planning process, which ensures that evidence is tested, the views of local communities are considered, and full account taken of environmental consequences.’

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