English eco towns get go-ahead

After two years of stringent Government location assessments, four developments of more than 5,000 homes each have been chosen: Rackheath, in Norfolk; Bicester in Oxfordshire; Whitehill-Bordon in Hampshire; and China Clay in Cornwall.

The Government is developing the eco towns to address two challenges – climate change and a national housing shortage. It believes these first towns will pioneer more sustainable living and help meet housing need in areas where the shortage is particularly acute.

However, not all have been approved, amid protests that many would blight the countryside and create more problems for the environment than they would solve. The Local Government Association has called them the “eco slums of the future”.

Weston Otmoor in Oxfordshire is one eco town that has been turned down after vigorous campaigning and independent reviews that have thrown doubt on the feasibility of such a development.

The Government has said it wants a maximum of 10 new eco towns in England to be nearing completion or to be well under way by 2020.

Commenting on the four sites that have been approved for development, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "The revolutionary concept of eco towns is a unique opportunity for us to confront two of the most urgent priorities as we embark on 'Building Britain's Future'. Eco towns will help to relieve the shortage of affordable homes to rent and buy and to minimise the effects of climate change on a major scale. They will provide modern homes with lower energy bills, energy efficient offices and brand new schools, community centres and services.”

Features of the eco towns will include tough sustainability standards, including smart meters, community heat sources and electric car charging infrastructure; energy efficient and affordable homes creating energy from renewable sources and within easy access to public transport and facilities, plus parks, playgrounds and gardens that will make up 40 per cent - two fifths - of the towns.

Alongside the plans for eco towns, the Government announced tougher new energy standards for all new homes from 2016 in order that they are zero carbon and launched a review to combine the Government's climate change and renewable energy planning policy statements.

Housing Minister John Healey said: “If Britain is going to be successful and safe from climate change in the future, we have to change the way we live now. More than a quarter of CO2 emissions come from houses, so we are not only making improvements now, we are establishing pioneering places that in 10 years' time will set the standard for every new town and community.”