Eco-towns
> View larger map - Last updated on 28 August
The not so green eco-towns
Latest: Tesco drop eco-town plans for Hanley Grange
Tesco has withdrawn its bid to build an eco town at Hanley Grange, near Cambridge. This was one of 15 sites shortlisted by the Government as potential locations for an eco-town. CPRE is delighted that the company has decided that the future of the site is best decided with local stakeholders through the regional planning process.
Eco-towns plans
The Government’s plans for creating eco-towns are intended to address three challenges: climate change, the need for more sustainable living and to increase the supply of new homes, especially affordable homes. Developments would be zero carbon, contain a range of facilities, including schools, shops and leisure facilities and be an exemplar in at least one environmental technology.
Last year, Gordon Brown announced plans to build up to 100,000 homes in five eco-towns. Each town would contain between 5,000 – 20,000 homes. At the Labour party conference last September Gordon Brown announced a further five eco-towns would be built making a total of ten. More recently, ministers have said that up to ten will be chosen. The shortlist now stands at eleven after the withdrawal of four schemes.
Promoters of three of the shortlisted eco-towns have withdrawn their proposals: at Curborough, Staffordshire; Manby in Lincolnshire; Marston Vale, Bedfordshire and Hanley Grange, Cambridgeshire. The council-led bid at Manby was withdrawn in the face of strong public opposition; Gallaghers withdrew their bid at Marston Vale in recognition that a development here would divert resources away from existing plans already agreed for the area. Developers behind the Curborough scheme still propose to develop the site, but not as an eco-town. Their planning application is being considered by Lichfield District Council.
We expect the Government to announce the final eco-towns to be built in the new year.
Next steps
The Government is expected to publish a sustainability appraisal of all schemes and a draft planning policy statement on eco-towns in September. Both will be subject to public consultation. We will be assessing these carefully in the light of our ten tests and available evidence and calling for damaging proposals to be dropped.
Our ten tests for eco-towns
We believe that eco-town proposals should:
- be subject to full public consultation
- have been rigorously tested through regional and local planning processes
- offer the most sustainable option for accommodating housing growth
- demonstrate efficient land use
- be complete communities with jobs, public transport, affordable housing, schools, health and recreation facilities
- be genuinely carbon neutral in construction and use
- enhance the local landscape and natural heritage
- minimise pollution and make efficient use of natural resources
- provide high-quality public transport links to nearby settlements
- encourage a strong sense of place and community
Our concerns on shortlisted eco-towns
A risk of car dependency
Due to their location most of the shortlisted eco-towns are unlikely to achieve sustainable transport arrangements: instead they are likely to be car dependent commuter towns.
Loss of countryside
Sites are mainly greenfield and include some farmland including, in some cases, the highest grade agricultural land; two sites lie in the Green Belt.
Water supply stretched
Four schemes are proposed in the East of England, a region where water supply and sewerage are already at maximum capacity.
Goes against local planning
The approach to site selection has not been plan-led, goes against established plans agreed with local communities and is based on random bids rather than sound planning.
Lack of public consultation
An unwarranted level of secrecy and uncertainty has surrounded the initiative since it was announced. Communities are being asked their views on schemes about which little information has been made available.
Unsustainable communities
There is a worrying lack of evidence demonstrating that schemes will offer truly sustainable models of living and working.
Not genuinely carbon neutral
It is misleading for ‘zero carbon’ to be defined as being ‘across the whole development’ and then to qualify this by saying the measure only applies to buildings since transport accounts for a significant proportion of carbon emissions.
Lessons learnt will be of limited value elsewhere
The insistence that eco-towns should be ‘freestanding’ makes no sense since most new development should be in and around towns where infrastructure is already in place or is more easy to provide.
Our recommendations
What we are recommending as a basis for moving forward on this initiative:
- the process should be plan-led – the Government should reject all eco-towns proposals which conflict with local and regional development plans
- the Government should focus on doing one or two eco-towns properly, and reject sub-standard proposals
- the Government should initiate a programme of eco-quarters, inviting existing neighbourhood, towns and cities to submit proposals to become ‘eco-towns’ or to develop eco-quarters or neighbourhoods
- a ‘zero-carbon’ approach should apply to the settlement as a whole, and cover transport as well as buildings
- all new developments, regardless of size, should be required to meet stringent environmental standards
- an integrated approach to transport, across a district as a whole, should be taken to maximise potential for journeys to and from eco-towns to be made in a sustainable fashion, rather than relying on unproven technologies such as Personal Rapid Transit
- consideration should be given to pioneering “Sustainable Transport Demonstration Districts”, the logical next step beyond Sustainable Transport Demonstration Towns
- each eco-town should have a car-free centre at its core as well as car free residential areas; and
- the forthcoming planning policy statement on eco-towns should reinforce the plan-led approach and focus on principles that apply in a wide range of circumstances, such as within existing settlements. The statement should avoid being site or location specific.
Our response to the consultation
Read our response to the Government's consultation on eco-towns: Eco-towns: living a greener future.
> Eco-towns: living a greener future – CPRE's response (361K PDF)
Grounds for a legal challenge
A legal opinion by counsel for the Local Government Association casts doubt on the legality of the eco-towns process and suggests grounds on which a legal challenge may be made. Key concerns raised in the opinion are the conflict between identifying and promoting specific eco-towns in a Planning Policy Statement and the plan led-process and questions over whether the Government's approach will fulfil requirements for Strategic Environmental Assessment under the EU Directive. CPRE shares the LGA's concerns.
The Local Government Association's legal opinion on eco-towns suggests the Government's approach may be unlawful in a number of respects, see their joint opinion and news release: Legal challenge to eco-towns.
Local Government Association website:
> Joint opinion (103K PDF)
> News release: Legal challenge to eco-towns
