Painting the town green

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is consulting on its proposals for the first wave of "eco-towns," but local campaigns against them have already formed at every proposed site.

The DCLG states that construction at some sites will start as early as 2010. The sites in question are in Leeds, Rossington, Manby, Rushcliffe, Curborough, Pennbury, Coltishall, Middle Quinton, Marston, Henley Grange, Weston Otmoor, NE Elsenham, Bordon-Whitehill, Ford and St Austell.

It was just after Gordon Brown's coronation as leader of the Labour Party that plans for 10 to 15 new eco-towns were announced to great fanfare. Back then, Brown was riding high in the polls and, just like Brown, the sheen has since begun to come off the eco-towns.

There are serious concerns with every alleged benefit of these new eco-towns - environmental, housing and democratic.

On the environmental case, many green groups that initially welcomed the proposals are now expressing concerns that, far from being about the reclamation of brownfield sites adjacent to existing conurbations, almost all the short-listed schemes in the consultation paper are on greenfield sites.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England states that it "supports the idea of exemplary development that achieves high environmental standards," but it warns that the majority of current proposals "appear to be in unsuitable, unsustainable locations."

Friend of the Earth (FoE) also states that, "by being sited on top of a former wildlife haven or by causing lots of new road traffic," even the best eco-town "is unlikely to be a model of green development and living."

FoE also rightly questions why the environmental criteria applied to eco-towns cannot be applied to all new housing and to existing settlements, as has been achieved in other countries.

Of the over 100,000 homes that could be built through these proposals, it seems that somewhere between none and very few will be council homes. Instead, the proposals refer to the nebulous concept of "affordable housing."

The role of councils in the whole eco-towns scheme is also limited. The detailed proposals are shrouded under "commercial confidentiality," as the new towns will be run by a management body, which will "co-ordinate delivery of services and manage facilities."

The Local Government Association has raised concerns that "locally agreed planning policies could be bypassed" and "councils would be unable to insist that services such as schools, shops, parks and public transport are integrated into the new settlements."

In other words, these new eco-towns could be corporately controlled towns and national planning rules will override local democratic accountability in their design and construction.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the DCLG website and the deadline for responses is June 30. For more information see www.consultationwatch.org.uk

Andrew Fisher is co-ordinator of ConsultationWatch.