In March 2008, the government is expected to announce its preferred list of eco-towns in England. More than 50 bids have been submitted to the government for consideration, claims the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), although Ministers have so far declined to disclose information about bids received or the location of proposed schemes. Based on research by the CPRE, a map of possible locations with site details has been drawn up.
In May 2007, Gordon Brown pledged to build up to 100,000 houses in five eco-towns. Each eco-town would contain between 5,000-20,000 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. At the Labour Party conference in September 2007, Gordon Brown as Prime Minister announced a further five eco-towns would be built, at least one in each region, making a total of 10 altogether.
The CPRE is sympathetic towards the eco-towns initiative. However, it says, whether it can support the proposal of individual eco-town proposals will depend on where they are located, what form they take, and how they are developed. Schemes, it argues, should genuinely secure a step-change in environmental standards. They should not be a smokescreen for making housebuilding appear more palatable. They should be exemplars of environmentally sustainable development.
For ‘eco-towns’ to succeed, states the CPRE, they must be well integrated with existing settlements and agreed with, not imposed on, local communities. Provided the right approach is taken eco-towns are an opportunity for planners and developers, working with communities, to inspire and set standards for others to follow. CPRE argues eco-towns should be subject to the same tests as any other new settlement proposal, as well as adding value by achieving better environmental standards.
It seems to us, at whatgreenhome.com, that the CPRE has made a considered case for thorough and rigorous planning and consultation to take place before the headlong rush to create between 100,000-200,000 new homes in up to 10 eco-towns takes place. It’s a tough call, primarily because we don’t have the time to pontificate. If we are to achieve a 60 per cent reduction (many are now saying a minimum of 80 per cent is necessary to affect a significant slowdown in climate change) in carbon dioxide emissions (on 1990 levels) by 2050, we’ve simply got to get on with it.
Yet, what we don’t need or want is to rush headlong into creating tens of thousands of new eco-homes, each making a huge social impact whilst effecting only a small climate change. The iconoclast Wayne Hemingway has described the potential scenario as one where if we hurry the process, as we did with the last great housebuilding push in the UK in the 1950 and ’60s, we will end up with crap housing again, but this time it will not simply be crap housing but crap housing with solar panels on the roofs!
So what to do? A coherent policy to produce energy from renewables above the current two per cent being achieved would be a start. Joined up thinking would be a great help. Let’s hope that the newly appointed first five members of the independent Committee on Climate Change, who were announced by environment secretary Hilary Benn, on 22 February, meet up very soon with the newly appointed chief executive, Sir Bob Kerslake, of the new ‘super agency’ the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). The HCA has been formed from the merging of the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships.
It is imperative that they meet soon and dynamically if the UK is to have any chance of meeting its climate change obligations, under the Climate Change Bill, currently before parliament, especially as the built environment accounts for 48 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Carbon Trust. Reducing this figure, therefore, will play a huge role in lessening Britain’s overall greenhouse gas emissions, which in 2006, according to government statistics, were down only 0.5 per cent on 2005 levels.
Some good news is that the other home nations are pushing ahead with plans to reduce their carbon reliance. The Welsh Assembly has announced ambitious proposals, which within two decades could mean the Principality would meet all its electricity requirements from renewable and low carbon sources. According to a consultation strategy document just published, the requirements would be met from wind generation, marine power, the deployment of micro-generation for domestic buildings, and the use of biomass for district heating schemes.
The Assembly is firmly behind plans to capture tidal energy in the Severn Estuary and signals the possibility of running a competition for what could be the world's first tidal-energy lagoon. Among other features of the strategy are plans to establish a series of community-scale wind energy generation projects, a strategic environmental assessment of further large-scale, offshore wind schemes in Welsh waters and proposals to make all new buildings zero carbon by 2011.
In a separate but related development Northern Ireland’s environment minister Arlene Foster has issued draft planning guidance on wind farm development, which sets out in detail the landscape sensitivities of the most scenic areas and assesses the capacity for turbine projects.
In Scotland, on the Isle of Lewis, local councillors have recently approved proposals for a 13-turbine scheme on the Eishken Estate. Latest Scottish government figures indicate that public inquiries into wind farms schemes are taking place at a rate of at least one a month at present. Over the last two years some 22 schemes went through the planning regime.
