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Fifteen provisional eco town locations announced

Posted: 03/04/2008

Fifteen provisional eco town locations have been announced by Housing Minister Caroline Flint today, although the intending schemes will have to pass a rigourous scrutiny of their environmental worthiness by a panel of experts before final acceptance.

Flint said: "We have a major shortfall of housing and with so many buyers struggling to find suitable homes, more affordable housing is a huge priority. To face up to the threat of climate change, we must also cut the carbon emissions from our housing. Eco-towns will help solve both of these challenges.

"Building in existing towns and cities alone simply cannot provide enough new homes. I understand this is an issue that can raise strong opinions, but everyone now has the opportunity to express their views before any decisions are made - because this is an issue that affects us all."

It appears that no new homes would be built on Green Belt land. A total of 30% of the overall new houses will be affordable housing, although this will not be evenly spread among the developments. The shortlisted locations also all make significant use of previously developed brownfield land including former MoD land, military depots, disused airfields and former mining pits and industrial sites.

The announcement raised a hail of criticism, largely from those who simply don't want a new town on their doorstep, but also from NGOs and trade bodies. The Federation of Master Builders said that new homes in every village, town, and city built to a high quality and sensitive to the local environment, would offer a more sustainable long term approach to our housing needs than the top down housing policy which has been dressed up as eco towns.

Brian Berry, FMB Director External Affairs, says: “Eco –towns sound lovely but are really a red herring to give the government’s housing plans a stamp of green credibility. The truth is we already know how to create sustainable homes as demonstrated by the BedZed affordable eco-homes in south London and the renewable energy theme park developed by Kiklees Borough Council in Yorkshire”.

“Building brand new eco–towns outside existing settlements is a really bad idea when there are 675,000 empty homes in England alone sitting empty, all ripe for refitting with green technologies. Given that demand for housing covers the whole of the UK it makes sense for every village and town to have new housing rather creating brand new settlements.”

“If the Government is really serious about sustainable settlements the better solution would be to develop a patchwork of hundreds of smaller eco-projects, with contracts awarded by local regions for both new homes and refurbishment of old buildings with green measures spread across a range of proven technologies".

Countryside campaigners CPRE also expressed concern at the shortlist of proposed eco town schemes.

CPRE senior planner Kate Gordon said: ‘Our main worry is the proposed location of many of these schemes. We fully support the government’s aspirations for achieving the highest standards in terms of sustainability and affordability. But achieving high environmental standards on site is not enough if the development is in the wrong place to begin with.

‘For settlements to be genuinely ‘eco’ they must be based around walking, cycling and public transport with a range of facilities available locally. They should enhance, not spoil, the surrounding area and landscape, and win the support of the local community. For this to happen, schemes must be agreed via the local planning process rather than attempt to circumvent this.

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