Sustainable transport central to eco-town planning

At least one worker per household in new eco-towns should be able to get to their job by walking, cycling or using public transport, according to plans outlined by the Government today.

Proposals for standards that the environmentally-friendly settlements will be expected to meet also include ensuring that half of all journeys made by residents can be done so sustainably.

The planned standards, which also include previously announced requirements for 30% affordable housing, will be set out by housing minister Caroline Flint.

They include ensuring a minimum of 40% of land within the town is undeveloped green space, with at least half of that open to the public, for example as parks.

The whole development should be "zero-carbon", including business sites, and the average home should be within a 10 minute walk of frequent public transport and neighbourhood services.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) also said it would be raising the environmental threshold for individual homes to meet level 4 of the Code of Sustainable Homes, while those built from 2016 will have to adhere to the same zero-carbon standards as all other new homes.

Outlining the proposals, Ms Flint will say: "These would be the toughest standards ever set out for new development, and would demonstrate that there will be no compromise on quality when it comes to eco-towns.

"We need to build more homes in this country, but given housing contributes 27% of our carbon emissions we must also take this opportunity to trial new ways of tackling climate change.

"In both cases, doing nothing is not an option."

The Government, which shortlisted 15 proposals for the new settlements in April, is also clarifying how the planning process for eco-towns will work.

A planning application will have to be submitted for each of the up-to-10 bids given the go-ahead by ministers, which will be considered by local authorities. They must also comply with existing planning policy.

The clarification comes after lawyers for the Local Government Association suggested the Government's approach to delivering the eco-towns could be "unlawful" by bypassing existing planning policy - a claim denied by the CLG.

The scheme, which aims to deliver towns of 5,000 to 20,000 homes which are zero-carbon overall and an "exemplar" in one area of environmental sustainability, has attracted protests from local people unhappy with plans for their areas.

And one local group - the Bard campaign against a proposed development near Stratford upon Avon - has already applied for a judicial review of the consultation process.

Lawyers for the campaign today queried where the jobs for the towns' inhabitants would be and whether they would be suitable.

They also asked whether the short-listed developers had given commitments to meet the proposals, and if they would be rejected if they did not.

Friends of the Earth Campaigner Paul de Zylva said: “Eco-towns must have genuine green credentials and the publication of minimum standards that an eco-town must meet is long overdue.

"It is vital that Ministers make clear the criteria they have used to select each eco-town in the interests of open public debate.

“The transport emissions that will be generated from people living in eco-towns must be included in the Government’s assessment of how green each site will be.

“It is now possible to build true low carbon housing and all homes built in eco-towns should meet the upper levels of the Government’s own code for sustainable housing.

"Britain’s housing sector currently accounts for a quarter of all our carbon dioxide emissions.

"It’s not enough to set a high environmental standard that only applies to new homes in eco-towns, all of the three million homes the Government is planning must be built to the highest green standards.”

“The Government should put forward a comparison of what it would cost someone to live in an eco-town compared to another community so that people can understand whether some extra costs will be balanced out by other savings.”