Government considers 'eco-town' developments

The Government has signalled it will consider plans for so-called eco-towns as part of its New Growth Points programme. Announced in December 2005, the New Growth Points initiative is designed to provide support to local communities who wish to pursue large scale and sustainable growth, including new housing, through a partnership with Government.

Some 45 councils have already come forward with plans for new homes and jobs and some of the proposals include new settlements.

Now planning and housing minister Yvette Cooper has said the Government is interested in considering specific proposals for eco-towns with between 5,000 and 10,000 homes based on zero or low carbon impact development and utilising brownfield sites, possibly on surplus public sector land.

Communities and Local Government has set up a £2m fund to help councils develop such proposals and has commissioned Professor David Lock, chair of the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), to report on the criteria for assessing eco-towns.

In a related development, the TCPA has advocated clusters of ‘mini-new towns’ linked to larger existing urban areas by public transport and information technology.

That proposal surfaced in a report published by the association which argued that a settlement pattern like that would be a sustainable solution to soaring housing demand.

The report makes a case for linking a number of small settlements to a larger neighbour on the grounds that ‘quality of life can be raised and carbon emissions from transport reduced’.

Traditionally new towns have aimed to be self-contained, providing employment and leisure needs as well as homes. However, the association argues that future new towns need not to be so big, so distant or so self-contained

TCPA chief executive Gideon Amos said: 'We must allow communities to develop their own local solutions, identifying new settlements where they offer the most sustainable option. Bringing regeneration and urban extensions together through 'linked new settlements' is crucial as part of a portfolio of solutions. The term should now enter the planning lexicon.'

The report, Best practice in urban extensions and new settlements, highlights the North Northamptonshire growth area of Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough and East Northamptonshire as an example of potential 'linked settlements'.

It also points to Cambridge's 'new town' at Northstowe and new settlements proposed outside Plymouth and Exeter as evidence of a burgeoning new trend of smaller new settlements close to existing urban areas.