TCPA issues low carbon homes guidance for eco-towns

Leading housing and planning charity, the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), has today published new guidance, endorsed by Government, on achieving the right housing offer in eco-towns.

The Eco-towns Housing Worksheet ‘creating low carbon homes for people in eco-towns’ highlights that a holistic approach is essential so that people will chose to live in an eco-town because of all the benefits on offer, from access to infrastructure planning, and from equity to land values, and not just for the eco-features.

TCPA Chief Executive Gideon Amos OBE said: “Aspiring to live in an eco-town will come from decent homes in good quality environments that combine the best features of town and country.

"We want to see attractive and excellent homes that will appeal to all as much for their utility, location and setting as for their green credentials. Providing homes of choice in eco-towns will be crucial to raising aspirations for the planning of all new development.”

Former Chief Executive of the National Housing and Town Planning Council and lead author of the Housing Worksheet, Kelvin MacDonald, said: “With the threats inherent in climate change being brought into even sharper focus in the run up to the Copenhagen Conference, it is more important than ever to show how planning and housing development can play their role in making the UK a low carbon country. 

"This demands a fundamental re-think of the ways we plan for communities – not simply by adding eco-bling onto individual houses.  This worksheet is designed to provide relevant – but challenging – advice on how to do this.”

The aspirational criteria for housing in eco-towns can be summarised as:

• Choice and flexibility:  A choice of how to live, a choice of types of housing, and a choice of facilities and services.
• Quality and inspiration: Homes and surroundings that have a quality that pleases residents, and allows them to be proud of where they live and of the fact that it has its own unique identity.
• Affordability: At least 30 per cent of housing to be affordable, including social rented and intermediate housing.
• Safety, security, and a sense of community: A feeling of belonging for local people, opportunities to join in community activities if they want to, opportunities to take responsibility if wanted, and feeling and being safe both at home and outdoors.
• Healthy living: Housing that helps to deliver good health in the community, including through air and noise quality, allotments, and recreation space.
• Having a stake – and a say – in the future: Full information about, and the opportunity to be involved in, decisions about the future including community-based assets.
• Addressing climate change: Housing that minimises the development impact on the environment and which contributes to achieving the goal of a zero carbon community.

Produced by the TCPA in collaboration with Communities and Local Government (CLG), the housing worksheet was developed through a series of roundtable meetings and consultation where experts from Play England, Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, Shelter, Oxford Brookes University, Home Builders Federation, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the RIBA Housing Group, Homes and Communities Agency, Proctor and Matthews, WWF, Enfield Council, Three Dragons, Chartered Institute of Housing and individual experts (specifically Kelvin MacDonald, Bob Colenutt, Dickon Robinson and Chris Chapman) provided useful insight and practical experience of best practice in developing inclusive design strategies. The TCPA gratefully acknowledges the support provided by Communities and Local Government in sponsoring the Eco-towns Worksheets.

The Housing Worksheet is the eighth eco-town Worksheet, following on from transport, community development, water cycle management, green infrastructure, economy, towards zero waste and inclusive design Worksheets.

Other Worksheet topics currently being developed include biodiversity, energy and delivery. 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.

These Worksheets are best practice guidance being made available as a resource for planning and designing eco-towns. The TCPA believes that only eco-town proposals that have the potential to meet the highest standards demanded should be given the go-ahead.

For more information on Eco-towns, visit http://www.tcpa.org.uk/pages/eco-towns.html