Eco-towns approach could be 'unlawful' » Local Government » 24dash.com

The Government's approach to delivering a series of eco-towns could be "unlawful", lawyers advising local councils warned today.

Ministers are using a new planning policy statement (PPS), to be published later in the summer, to set out the standards and potential locations for the environmentally sustainable new settlements.

But lawyers engaged by the Local Government Association (LGA) said the proposals go against the principle of the current system of development through plans drawn up by local authorities, and could be open to legal challenge.

John Steel QC and James Strachan also said an existing PPS covered the concept of providing housing in new settlements in an environmentally sustainable way.

As a result, there did not seem to be any justification for promoting eco-towns outside the existing rules, "other than the Government's wish to avoid the system due to the proper need for scrutiny, which takes time", they said.

The LGA said the legal advice showed the Government's approach to eco-towns was "deeply flawed".

The Association's chairman Sir Simon Milton said the LGA was not opposed to the eco-towns as a way of meeting housing needs and combating climate change.

But he said there were concerns the current proposals would bypass local planning processes to impose the schemes on the public and councils.

He urged: "Ministers must talk to council leaders about adopting a new approach that will deliver development in places where councils and local people agree that eco-towns can work.

"Eco-towns must be delivered without bypassing the planning processes and ensure that new developments have good transport connections alongside the schools, health and leisure facilities which are needed to create places where people would want to live."

The Government, which shortlisted 15 proposals for the new settlements in April, has said up to 10 final approved bids would have to go through the planning process once they have been chosen later this year.

But 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 environmental sustainability, has run into controversy.

Local groups - and celebrities including Judi Dench and Jilly Cooper - have voiced opposition to the plans in their areas.

Bidders for eco-towns at Manby, Lincolnshire, and Curborough, Staffordshire, have pulled out, while part of a third bid, New Marston, Bedfordshire, has also been withdrawn.

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "We absolutely disagree with the LGA's claims and believe this legal advice can only have been obtained on the basis of a misrepresentation of our policy.

"We have made it absolutely clear throughout that eco-towns will be different and will have higher environmental standards than a normal development and the applications will also have to be considered through the normal planning process.

"Later this week we will set out our current thinking on the stretching green standards which proposed eco-towns will have to meet."

Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said the legal advice would add weight to the argument that ministers had "effectively destroyed their own eco-town project".

"Labour's cack-handed approach to tackling the housing shortage has once again been exposed as fundamentally flawed.

"They need to follow our lead and put in place policies that will work with communities to build the hundreds of thousands of new environmentally-friendly homes needed for hard working families and young people," he said.

Liberal Democrat communities and local government spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy said: "Not only is Gordon Brown's pet eco-towns project facing opposition from residents and councils up and down the country, but now we learn that legal challenges are also likely.

"This must sound the death knell for this attempt to bypass the local planning process and local public opinion.

"What this Government fails to understand is that centrally-imposed solutions are doomed to failure. The real solution to the housing crisis is to free councils to build the homes that their areas need."