Only one or two eco town sites out of a possible 10 are likely to actually be built, according to reports in the national media.
The Government’s plans for up to 10 model green communities are said to be in jeopardy, thanks to a combination of the credit crunch, a struggling construction industry and local opposition.
The Observer newspaper claimed ‘officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government have concluded only “one or two” of the 15 shortlisted projects are genuinely viable, according to a source close to the discussions’.
A spokesman for the DCLG insisted the plans were on track, but many experts also seem to believe the plans are faltering. Liz Reason, a member of the independent Eco-towns Challenge Panel, which provides expert advice and support to developers involved in the proposals, believes financial viability will be an issue.
She told Surveyor: ‘There would be no point in awarding the brand to developments that will not get off the stocks. The fact is, the challenge is a momentous one – reducing emissions by 80% from the current – and few developers had grasped just how radical their thinking had to be.’
Huw Jones, of the County Surveyors’ Society strategic planning committee, said he would ‘not be surprised’ if many eco town proposals were not pursued by developers. ‘In the current economic climate, if a developer has a site it could get permission for through the usual processes, why go down this higher-risk, higher-cost route?’
Eco town proposals would only survive where developers ‘couldn’t get permission any other way’, due to the location of land that they owned, said the director of environment and economy in Oxfordshire. ‘We’ll get a couple of schemes coming forward to aid the regeneration of garrison towns,’ he predicted.
Reason argued that however few of the proposals finally went ahead, ‘they have the potential to help advance thinking about low-carbon communities in interesting and valuable ways’.
Housing minister, Margaret Beckett, will take the final decision on how many should go forward.
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