'Eco-towns' shortlist is revealed
April 3, 2008
Ministers are to reveal 15 sites in England shortlisted to become environmentally-friendly towns.
Over the next six months, the list will be whittled down to 10 new towns - all of which have to pass the highest environmental standards.
Countryside campaigners say the idea is a way to evade planning controls.
Ministers have rejected plans to build "eco-towns" on three controversial sites in Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Derbyshire, the BBC has learned.
Micheldever Station, Grovewood in Derbyshire national forest and Shipton Quarry are among 40 rejected applications, sources say.
Most were on greenbelt land, threatened wildlife or were similar to projects previously denied planning permission.
The new environmentally-friendly towns - low-energy, carbon-neutral developments built from recycled materials - will be the first new towns since the 1960s.
The Housing Minister, Caroline Flint, said the new towns would help to tackle climate change, as well as providing affordable new housing.
She said: "Eco-towns can be 'green' settlements which recognise that climate change is destroying our planet - this is an opportunity we simply cannot afford to miss."
The government plans to form a panel of experts who will subject potential developers to tough tests before they win the right to build the towns.
Ms Flint said: "Bidders will have to meet the highest standards for sustainability, affordability and creativity. This expert panel will challenge developers to the limits."
The government is stressing that any new towns proposed will have to go through the normal planning process, and that local people and other interested bodies will have the right to challenge the plans.
Pollution fears
According to BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin, eco-towns are a way of increasing housing in areas of England where demand outstrips supply.
They will also go some way to satisfying the demands of the powerful house-builders lobby, and will provide a laboratory for the sort of environmentally-conscious homes that ministers want to become the norm, our correspondent added.
But there are concerns among environmental campaigners that most of the proposed eco-towns will increase car pollution because they will not be big or diverse enough to sustain viable public transport.
The developments are to be built over the next decade as part of the government's plans to build three million new homes by 2020.
In September last year Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the number of towns to be built would be doubled from five to ten, because of the positive response to the original announcement.
He said it would help boost house building to 240,000 homes a year.
The towns have proved controversial and most of the planned sites are expected to face local opposition, something thought to be worrying Labour strategists.
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