Shapps: Developers 'running scared' from eco-towns

Developers are "running scared" from plans for eco-towns and the whole programme should be scrapped, Tories said today.

Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said the "small print" of the Government's draft legislative programme, published last week, revealed that plans for eco-towns had now been "pushed back to 2020".

Housing Minister John Healey said he would make an announcement within the next two weeks on all potential eco-town sites.

At Commons question time, Mr Shapps said: "The Prime Minister launched this eco-town programme in a blaze of publicity in May 2007 and then upped it to 10 eco-towns.

"And here we are two years later, the Government's still consulting on the matter, still consulting about planning guidance."

Calling for the "unpopular" programme to be scrapped, he went on: "So will the minister, the fourth who has been across the despatch box from me, now just admit that this programme is a shambles?

"That developers are running scared from it, that judicial reviews have delayed it, that they require massive public subsidy at a time when the coffers are bare ... "

Mr Healey told him: "Be a little patient. I've said to the House that I expect to make an announcement before the recess.

"I haven't finished four weeks of the job at the moment."

Eco-towns would help meet the need for new affordable homes and would be environmentally friendly, he said.

Earlier, MPs from Leicestershire urged the Government to scrap plans for an eco-town in Pennbury.

Tory Andrew Robathan (Blaby) said there was "next to no support" for the proposal.

"There is nothing ecological about building on a greenfield site, there is no demand for housing on this scale.

"So will you learn the lesson of past new towns, of building huge new towns without any infrastructure already existing and how unpopular they have been and what a disaster this will be for the people of Leicestershire."

Mr Healey told him he would make an announcement before the summer recess on sites "with the potential to become an eco-town".

He added: "As I come to make decisions on this, I have the benefit of quite an extensive consultation (and) additional assessments that have been undertaken ...

"The links that any developer or company may have with any of these eco-town proposals, with any political party are simply not a material consideration for the decision I take and won't be."

Labour's Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester S), former Leicester City Council leader, and Tory Edward Garnier (Harborough) also called for the Pennbury plans to be scrapped.