All residents of proposed new eco-towns should have access to land where they can grow their own food, according to new guidance drawn up by the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA).

The guidance, just published in the TCPA’s latest worksheet ‘The essential role of green infrastructure’, makes a number of recommendations for developers.

• Developers should provide at least one major, well-equipped park in the eco-town, offering a variety of facilities for all age groups
• Every eco-town resident should have access to land, private or communal, to grow their own food.
• Developers should also look to forge supply links between eco-town residents, local food producers, processors and distributors to showcase the “relocalisation” of sustainable food production
• A network of “greenways” should be included to connect between larger or more expansive open spaces
• Safe-routes should be developed across a network of streets between open spaces and parks and homes and schools to encourage children to play without danger from traffic
• Open spaces should have a major role to play in contributing to sustainable transport, energy efficiency, water and drainage management, whilst ensuring a unique sense of place, heritage and local landscape character

At the launch of the eco-town worksheet on green infrastructure TCPA chief executive Gideon Amos said: “New settlements today could reinvent garden city living for a new, low-carbon century.”

Helen Phillips, chief executive of Natural England, said: “Eco-towns must have green spaces at their hearts, providing health and exercise benefits for the communities who live there, new habitats for wildlife and places for people to enjoy the natural environment.”

The green infrastructure worksheet is the fourth eco-town worksheet, following on from transport, community development and water cycle management worksheets launched in March 2008. Other topics in the pipeline include biodiversity, housing & inclusive design, towards zero-waste, energy, and the economy & ‘green collar’ jobs. Once they are all published, the worksheets will together represent a comprehensive set of policy and planning guidance on the range of subject areas to be addressed and the standards to be met when planning an eco-town.

It’s going to be interesting to see whether anyone takes any notice.

Read the TCPA press release

Download Eco-town Water Cycle Management Worksheet

Download Eco-town Community Worksheet

Download Eco-town Transport Worksheet

An online simulation game has been launched to help families understand the risk of flooding, and the policy decisions needed to make sure the UK is protected against floods.

Floodsim.com, developed by London-based computer game company PlayGen, puts the player in charge of all flood policy decisions.

In the game, floods hit the UK each year, and success is determined by how people and the economy are affected by flooding.

The game has been funded by Norwich Union, the UK’s biggest insurer, and has the backing of environment minister Phil Woolas.

Play the game online at www.floodsim.com

The East of England Regional Assembly has voiced concern over proposals for four eco-towns in the region, involving nearly 50,000 new houses. The body is worried that the planning system will be bypassed and that the schemes themselves are unsustainable.

Responding to the eco-towns public consultation, the Assembly raised concerns that the new homes are not well linked to jobs and public transport and could become dormitory towns with high levels of commuting by car.

Cllr Derrick Ashley, Chairman of the Assembly’s Planning Panel said: “Government should halt this dash for eco-towns before more money and effort is wasted. The public want high environmental standards for all new housing not speculative development in unsuitable locations.

“Proposals for new settlements in the region should be decided through the Assembly by local councils and other stakeholders to ensure sustainable growth in appropriate locations.”

Under this system, EERA has already planned for two new settlements at Northstowe in Cambridgeshire and Wixams in Bedfordshire as part of the East of England Plan, the regional development blueprint up to 2021.

The Assembly believes that the eco-town decision-making process should be transferred to its review of the East of England Plan which will identify the region’s housing needs up to 2031.

EERA Press Release

East of England Plan portal page

Flicking through the proposal document for the Middle Hinton eco-town near Long Marston in Warwickshire, I was struck by how familiar some of the images and wording seemed. Pictures of photogenic people relaxing in traffic-free squares, smiling families frolicking hand in hand through dappled sunlight, and serried ranks of pushbikes just waiting for someone to leap on and pedal furiously into the sunset. Maps (not to scale) of accomodation cunningly distributed through a setting of woodland, meadow and waterway. Earnest statements of the importance of the environment, and how much effort and imagination is being put into both conserving it and making it an amenity resource for all to enjoy. Is it? Can it be? It is …. it’s Center Parcs.

Perhaps not as silly as it might sound. Surely I’m not the only one who’s stayed at a Center Parcs ‘village’ and wondered idly what it would be like to live there permanently. A cottage deep in the woods, with wildlife right on your doorstep. Car-free roads, safe for cyclists and pedestrians, with a regular shuttle service to get you from A to B if you can’t manage it under your own steam. A central hub at the heart of the settlement, with everything you need; sport, entertainment, shops, bars and restaurants. All you need to do is beef it up with a few things like a hospital, a school, a library and integrated public transport links and what’ve you got? An eco-town.

Here are the official details of the shortlisted sites, from the Department for Communities and Local Government web site:
- Pennbury, Leicestershire: 12-15,000 homes on a development incorporating brownfield, greenfield and surplus public sector land. Four miles south east of Leicester. This proposal could include 4,000 new affordable houses in an area of high affordability pressure.

– Manby and Strubby, Lincolnshire: 5,000 homes put forward by East Lindsey District Council on two sites, with large elements of brownfield land including a former RAF base. The proposal complements the strategic plan for the phased relocation of communities on Lincolnshire coast because of high flood risk, and could include 1,500 affordable homes in an area of very high affordability pressure.

– Curborough, Staffordshire: 5,000 homes on the brownfield site of the former Fradley airfield, ten miles from Burton. The proposal could include 2,000 affordable houses in an area of very high affordability pressure.

– Middle Quinton, Warwickshire: 6,000 homes on a former Royal Engineers depot which has a rail link to the Worcester-London rail line. Six miles South West of Stratford upon Avon. The proposal could include 2,000 affordable houses in an area of very high affordability pressure.

– Bordon-Whitehill, Hampshire: 5-8,000 homes on a site owned by the Ministry of Defence. A significant number of ex-MoD homes are already on the site, west of Whitehill-Bordon. The proposal could include 2,000 affordable houses in an area of very high affordability pressure.

– Weston Otmoor, Oxfordshire: 10-15,000 homes on a site adjoining the M40 and the Oxford-Bicester railway. Three miles south west of Bicester, the site includes a current airstrip. The scheme could include between 3,000 and 5,000 affordable homes, in an area of extreme affordability pressure.

– Ford, West Sussex: 5,000 homes on a site which includes brownfield land and the former Ford airfield. Close to rail line linking London and the Sussex coast. The scheme could include 1,500 affordable homes, in an area of very high affordability pressure.

– Imerys China Clay Community, Cornwall: Development of around 5,000 homes on former china clay workings, industrial land and disused mining pits no longer needed by owner Imerys. Close to St Austell. The scheme could include 1,500 affordable homes, in an area of extreme affordability pressure.

– Rossington, South Yorkshire: Up to 15,000 homes regenerating the former colliery village of Rossington, three miles south of Doncaster. The scheme could include 1,500 affordable homes, in an area of moderate affordability pressure.

– Coltishall, Norfolk: 5,000 homes on a former RAF airfield, eight miles north of Norwich. The scheme could include 2,000 affordable homes in an area of very high affordability pressure.

– Hanley Grange, Cambridgeshire: 8,000 homes on land adjacent to the A11 designed to improve the severe lack of housing in and around Cambridge. The scheme could include 3,000 affordable homes in an area of extreme affordability pressure.

– Marston Vale and New Marston, Bedfordshire: Up to 15,400 homes on a series of sites, including former industrial sites, along the east-west rail line to Stewartby and Millbrook. The scheme could include 2,000 affordable homes in an area of high affordability pressure.

– Elsenham, Essex: A minimum of 5,000 homes north east of the existing Elsenham village. Close to M11 and the London to Cambridge rail line. The scheme could include 1,800 affordable homes in an area of extreme affordability pressure.

– Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire: An eco-town proposal was submitted for Kingston-on-Soar, to the south of Nottingham. In response to representations from Rushcliffe Borough Council, this site is not to be pursued. However, the Government is proposing to carry out a further review in partnership with RBC to consider whether there is a suitable alternative location with the potential to be viable within the Rushcliffe local authority area.

– Leeds City Region, Yorkshire: A number of eco-town proposals were submitted for locations within the area of Leeds City Region partnership of 11 authorities and principally between Leeds and Selby. The Leeds City Region Partnership has indicated support in principle for an eco-town within the sub-region. The Partnership has proposed a further study to compare the best alternative locations across the Leeds City Region partnership area. The Government has agreed to support this approach, on the basis that it will allow a further announcement to be made shortly of one or more sites for consultation

The government has finally released its list of 15 eco-town sites into the wild. It’s good to see that some of the more cynical proposals have been weeded out. Micheldever in Hampshire, for example, was a many-times recycled application for development on greenfield land, and it is to be hoped this is the last time it sees the light of day. According to BBC News this morning, another, un-named, rejected application involved building on a graveyard. Others failed for sensible reasons, such as building on Green Belt or damaging biodiversity.

Here’s the full list, with details taken from the CPRE website. There isn’t a perfect match between the site names in CPRE’s research and those on the official list. Where it’s not entirely clear, no details have been given.

Bordon, Hampshire
Developer: Unknown, Number of Homes: 4,000 – 5,500
Type of Site: Brownfield and possibly greenfield
East Hampshire District Council has put forward a bid for an eco-town on MOD land in Whitehill and Bordon, Hampshire. The area, which was previously considered for development, is still being actively used as a military base.

Coltishall, Norfolk
Developer: Unknown, Number of Homes: 5,000 – 10,000
Type of Site: Brownfield
An eco-town bid was made for the former airbase site at RAF Coltishall in October 2007. 5,000 new homes would initially be built at the site, with a further 5,000 to follow at a later stage. Recently, it has been announced that part of the site will be used to build a new prison. It is unclear how this would affect the proposed eco-town.

Curborough, Staffs
Developer: Joint venture between Gleeson, Redrow, Banks Developments and Henry Boot.
Number of Homes: 5,000
Type of Site: Brownfield and greenfield
This proposed site for an eco-town, which has a working title of ‘Curborough’, or ‘Fradley’, lies north of Lichfield in open countryside on agricultural land. The proposal is for 5,000 homes to be built adjacent to a former airfield. An attempt to get the site identified by the Local Development Framework as appropriate for housing development was previously rejected by Lichfield Council.

Elsenham, Essex
Developer: Unknown, Number of Homes: Unknown
Type of Site: Greenfield
Very little detail is available about this proposal, which lies just north of Stansted. It is unclear whether a formal eco-town bid has been submitted. The local council has claimed that only 3,000 homes will be built at Elsenham, but we believe that an eco-town bid may have been submitted by private developers.

Ford, W Sussex
Developer: Redrow and Wates, Number of Homes: 5,000
Type of Site: Brownfield
Ford Airfield is 2 miles south of Arundel on the A27 in West Sussex. Two bids have been made for the site. The first has been put forward by three private landowners along with Redrow Homes and Wates, who have formed a consortium called the Ford Airfield Vision Group. Plans include 5,000 homes, one secondary and two new primary schools, as well as a transport interchange around the Ford railway station. The eco-town’s energy would be produced entirely on-site from renewable sources. The second bid, put forward by Ford Enterprise Hub, is believed to propose slightly more than 5,000 new homes.

Hanley Grange, Cambs
Developer: Jarrow Investments, Number of Homes: 8,000
Type of Site: Greenfield
There have been proposals for a mixed use new settlement near Hinxton. The site, set south of Cambridge, is bounded by A11, A1301 & A505 triangle and controlled by a limited number of landowners, the largest being Jarrow Investments.

Imerys, Cornwall
Developer: Imerys, Number of Homes: 5,000
Type of Site: Brownfield
Imerys, the owner of several china clay pits near St Austell, submitted a bid to build an eco-town in October 2007. It has been reported that the bid could be spread over a number of sites including Bugle, Nanpean, west of St. Austell and the north east side of St. Austell.

Leeds City Region, W Yorks

Manby, Lincs
Developer: East Lindsey District Council, Number of Homes: Unknown
Type of Site: Brownfield and possibly greenfield
There is currently very little information available on this proposed eco-town in Lincolnshire. It is based on two options focussed on former World War II airfields adjoining Manby/Grimoldy and Strubby.

Marston Vale and New Marston, Beds

Middle Quinton, Warwickshire
Developer: St Modwen and The Bird Group
Number of Homes: 6,000
Type of Site: Brownfield; possibly some greenfield
This proposal has been put forward jointly by St. Modwen and the Bird Group. The developers plan to build an eco-town on a former Royal Engineers Depot near Long Marston Airfield in south Warwickshire, five miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon. The proposed eco-town is known as Middle Quinton and plans to regenerate 240 hectares of brownfield land for the provision of 6,000 homes.

Pennbury, Leics
Developer: Co-operative Group, Number of Homes: 15,000-20,000
Type of Site: Brownfield and greenfield
This proposed eco-town has the working title of ‘Pennbury’. The town would occupy 40% of the Co-Operative Group’s Stoughton farming estate and adjacent land under the ownership of English Partnerships. Proposals include two new park and ride sites and a train station. The site is mainly within Harborough District with a small area within Oadby and Wigston Borough. The site is a large (approximately 5,000 acres) mostly greenfield site.

Rossington, Yorks
Developer: Partnership of UK Coal, Persimmon Homes, Helios Properties and Rossington Hall Ltd
Number of Homes: 10-15,000
Type of Site: Some brownfield, mostly greenfield and Green Belt
Rossington, near Doncaster, is an old scheme which was rejected in the past partly due to being on Green Belt. Overall, the project would include 10-15,000 houses covering 898 hectares. This eco-town would triple the size of Rossington and be more than nine times the size of the former Rossington Colliery site which is included in the plan.

Rushcliffe, Notts
Developer: Banks Developments, Number of Homes: 6,000
Type of Site: Green Belt and Greenfield
Proposals have been submitted for an eco-town known as ‘New Kingston’. The proposal, which aims to build at least 6,000 homes, is in the Green Belt on 600 ha of agricultural land at the Kingston Fields estate, in Rushcliffe District, south west of Nottingham.

Weston Otmoor, Oxfordshire
Developer: Parkridge, Number of Homes: 10,000 – 20,000
Type of Site: Brownfield and greenfield
A bid has been submitted for an eco-town centred on an airfield north of Weston-on-the-green. The Weston Front, a local campaigning group, claims that the eco-town would extend across the A34 to the nearby rail line, where a new station is proposed.

Every application on this initial list will be subject to further consultation before whittling down to a final list of ten in about six months’ time. These ten will all go through the normal planning process.

STOP PRESS: the official UK government details of the shortlisted sites can be found here

It’s good that such emphasis is being placed on the importance of designing building in a sustainable manner. These new towns, however, are still new, taking up more space and requiring that infrastructure is created from scratch. Ideally, all new houses should be eco-builds, wherever they’re put. Most of the hoo-hah surrounding the eco-town proposals would have happened even if the ‘eco-town’ figleaf hadn’t been slapped on. A large development on your doorstep gets the NIMBY blood up, eco or not, with all the usual issues such as transport and flood-plains.

We wait with bated breath for the UK government to publish its shortlist of proposed eco-town sites in April. Around fifty projects have been put forward, but the government has refused to release information on the bids or locations on grounds of bidder confidentiality. Information is leaking out from somewhere, however, and there are growing concerns that the eco-town concept is just a smokescreen to make housebuilding more palatable (‘Un-eco Towns‘). There are three petitions on the Downing Street web site relating to specific proposed sites, and highly vocal protest groups for many others.

The Campaign To Protect Rural England (CPRE) has researched a list of 38 eco-town proposals, and an interactive map showing locations and details can be found here, and a PDF location map here. While sympathetic to the idea of eco-towns in principle, CPRE thinks it is essential to assess each proposal on its own merits, taking its local impacts and benefits into consideration, and has produced a list of ten tests which they believe eco-towns must pass to be successful:

• the public and affected communities should be fully consulted on schemes, including the principle of whether or not to have an eco-town in their area;

• schemes should be tested through regional spatial strategies and local development framework reviews. These should ensure that decisions on eco-towns take full account of evidence on environmental effects, housing need and alternatives for meeting this;

• decisions on eco-towns should be accompanied by evidence that demonstrates a new settlement to be the most sustainable option for accommodating housing growth compared with other options, such as redeveloping an existing urban brownfield site or an urban extension;

• schemes should demonstrate efficient use of land, with densities capable of supporting public transport and a high priority given to recycling brownfield land and buildings;

• they should be genuinely carbon neutral, taking into account potential emissions from transport (domestic, public and commercial) and buildings (in construction and use);

• they should foster a strong sense of place and community, achieve CABE gold Building for Life Standards, with high quality public spaces, architecture and street layouts that give priority to pedestrians and non-motorised transport, including substantial car free areas;

• they should be subject to an independent landscape character appraisal, be sympathetic to their setting and clearly enhance the local landscape, built and natural heritage, including through the designation of new Green Belt where appropriate;

• they should include measures designed to conserve water and other natural resources, minimise soil, air, noise and light pollution and achieve zero-waste;

• they should be complete communities with homes (with at least 50% affordable), schools, workplaces, shops, recreation, community and health facilities and open space within walking distance and foster active, sustainable lifestyles and civic participation;

• they should be well connected to surroundings with high quality public transport providing good access to nearby settlements and local supply networks, with sourcing of local produce, such as food, fuel and replenishible building materials.

Some of this echoes the contents of the original eco-town prospectus, but it’s good to hear that the Government is taking some notice. In a recent speech (‘Quality of life, not just quantity of homes‘) Caroline Flint, Minister for Housing, said:

“Contrary to some reports, eco-towns will be subject to rigorous planning processes. Each proposal will have to submit a planning application and will be properly scrutinised before it can proceed.

“I will soon be publishing a short-list of locations which we think have the potential to be successful. This will be followed by full public consultation with communities and stakeholders.”

This makes all the right noises about local consultation, but only for the ten projects (or fifteen or twenty, depending on which article or press release you read) that eventually get selected for the short list. That selection process is going on without any public involvement; how many perfectly good proposals meeting local priorities and demands will be secretly rejected because they don’t fit the wider Government agenda? No wonder that there is growing suspicion that this initiative is designed to give us what ‘they’ want, rather than what ‘we’ need.

The UK Government will shortly publish its short list of eco-town schemes for consultation, following a cross-Government review. The original plan was for a programme of five eco-towns to be implemented across the English regions. However, interest has been so high (over sixty proposals have been registered with the government) that the Prime Minister announced at last year’s Labour Party Conference that the number of schemes would be doubled to ten.

The Planning Portal lays out the basic requirements for eco-towns in its report ‘Eco-town concept gathers ground‘:

Eco-towns will be small new towns of between 5,000 and 20,000 homes. They are intended to exploit the potential to create a complete new settlement to achieve zero carbon development and more sustainable living using the best new design and architecture.

This must translate into places with a separate and distinct identity but good links to surrounding towns and cities in terms of jobs, transport and services.

The development as a whole must achieve zero carbon and to be an exemplar in at least one area of environment technology.

The settlement must provide a good range of facilities within the town including a secondary school, shopping, business space and leisure.

Critically, the eco-town must have between 30 and 50 per cent affordable housing with a good mix of tenures and size of homes in mixed communities.

And, crucially, the settlement must have a delivery organisation to manage the town and its development and provide support for people, businesses and community services.

The principal justification is, of course, climate change, with sustainability and zero carbon emissions as the main targets. Housing minister Iain Wright told Parliament recently that the review would exclude sites “where there are too many showstoppers to allow development to take place”. However, fears are growing that conventional planning criteria such as biodiversity, conservation and landscape may be over-ridden in the dash for carbon neutrality.

In an article in last Saturday’s Guardian, Tristram Hunt describes how housebuilders’ response to the eco-challenge has been “a series of cunning attempts to revive planning permission for previously rejected projects”, often favouring brownfield sites over greenfield.

• Eagle Star Insurance wants to build on farmland and wildlife-rich woodland at Micheldever on the North Hampshire Downs. The company has been trying to build a commuter town there since the 1970s, without success. Plans for a 12,500 home development have been tarted up with eco-town catch-phrases and resubmitted.
• In South Derbyshire, Bank Development has rejected the Drakelow power station brownfield site, and is applying to build its ‘Grovewood’ eco-town around Cauldwell and Roslinton, felling National Forest trees and constructing a feeder road.
• In Oxfordshire, Kilbride Properties wants eco-town exemption for 5,000 houses on an SSSI in designated Green Belt.

Of course, there have been many excellent schemes put forward, but there is a growing distrust of the review process and a fear that the government will take the easy option for greenfield development. A major part of the problem is the distillation of environmental problems to one issue, climate change, and a complete lack of government concern for wider conservation issues. As Tristram Hunt puts it:

” … no minister seems willing to express a belief in the value of the natural heritage. Instead, it is all about percentages and targets – the language of emissions trading systems and carbon neutrality – which disconnects the struggle against climate change from a broader notion of ecology.”

That is right on the money. The environment has become a single issue, climate change, and we have become blinkered to anything else. We are in danger of waking up in a carbon-neutral wasteland, occupied by just ourselves and the few species we find either too useful or too tenacious to get rid of.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/23/greenpolitics.communities

www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/professionals/en/1115315508453.html

A North Wales house builder has spent £140,000 on creating a special habitat for great crested newts on the site of a 26-home development. When environmental specialists arrived to move the newts to their new home, they could find only two. The same builder has already spent £300,000 at another development where a much larger colony of newts was discovered close to the site of 320 homes and a school.

‘ Two newts given £140,000 new home’

The great crested, the largest of the three British newt species, is a European Protected Species , listed under the EU Habitats and Species Directive 1992. It is protected under UK law by the Conservation (Natural Habitats etc) Regulations and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is an offence to deliberately kill, capture or disturb a great crested newt or damage its environment, carrying a penalty of six months in prison.

Conservationists estimate the UK has about 18,000 colonies comprising almost half a million individuals. Newts like to establish themselves in precisely the kind of spot that builders are being encouraged to build on: brownfield sites. If newts are discovered, planning applications must be withdrawn to allow a full environmental survey to be carried out. A special licence must be obtained from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. If it is granted, an alternative home has to be found and the newts trapped and relocated by wildlife experts, work which is permitted only during the newts’ spring and summer migration between land and water. The process can last up to two years from start to finish.

With Britain in need of millions of new homes, and builders’ costs for newt relocation and other environmental work certain to be passed on to the customer, it’s no wonder there’s a dire shortage of affordable housing.

The Landmatters Co-op, an eco-settlement in South Devon, has won its appeal against an enforcement notice served by the local district council after retrospective planning permission had been refused.

Members of the co-op moved to the 42 acre site near Allaleigh, ten miles from Totnes, two years ago. The community of ten adults and three children lives in yurts, benders and other timber-framed buildings. They grow their own food, compost and recycle all their own waste, use water from a borehole and generate power from solar panels and a wind turbine.

The alleged breach of planning control was “a material change of use of the land without planning permission from agriculture to a permaculture holding comprising a mixed use integrating agriculture, forestry, education and ancillary rural enterprises and residential use”. The requirements of the notice were:

• Cease the use of the land for residential purposes
• Cease the use of the land for the parking overnight of motor vehicles
• Remove from the land all unauthorised residential structures and structures erected for a use ancillary to a residential use.

At the appeal, the planning inspector endorsed the permaculture aspect of the settlement, noting that the group’s ecological footprint is far smaller than the regional average*. The permission granted is subject to a low-impact assessment. The inspector concluded that “the advantage of permaculture and sustainable ways of living facilitated by this project has sufficient potential value to outweigh the limited harm to other interests”.

If you read the full findings, it’s obvious that this was a very pragmatic decision. If the appeal was denied and the residential component of the settlement was removed, other (legal) activities already associated with the site would continue, resulting in many of the ‘harmful’ effects cited by the council in justifying its enforcement notice.

This is a victory for Landmatters, but don’t expect to be able to bypass planning laws at will just by sticking a ‘permaculture’ sign on the gate. This was a special case, which succeeded only with the help of an unusual dose of common sense from the appeal inspector.

* The Landmatters ecological footprint is approximately 46% of that of a typical UK citizen. Their average carbon footprint is 3.6 tonnes compared to the UK average of 10.92 tonnes. This far exceeds the Stern Report’s recommended target of a 30% CO2 emissions cut by 2020. Landmatters have already achieved the 60% target cut in emissions recommended by the Report for 2050.