Eco towns

Eco-towns will be new towns which are exemplar green developments of up to 20,000 homes. They will be designed to meet the highest standards of sustainability, including low and zero carbon technologies and good public transport.

Government wants eco-towns to be a model for future development. They have the potential to be a real step forward in how we tackle climate change, helping on the journey to zero carbon homes by 2016, whilst providing the housing which families and communities need. The draft PPS sets out what we think should be the minimum standards which an eco-town proposal must reach, and the mechanism by which the local planning system can make this judgment.

The majority of housing growth has always been in our towns and cities, and this will continue. But we see many strong benefits from having free-standing eco-towns: they will relieve pressure for development in crowded urban areas, and provide green and pleasant places in which families can grow and communities flourish. By building settlements ‘from scratch’, eco-towns will be able to plan and deliver the right mix of housing to meet people’s needs, with infrastructure and services planned around them, while making best use of the latest technology to mitigate their impact on the environment.

Eco-towns are intended to be a combined response to three challenges:
climate change
• The need for more sustainable living
• The need to increase housing supply.
• They offer an opportunity to design a whole town to achieve zero carbon
development, and to use this experience to help guide other developments across the
country.

Suggested additional technologies/approaches on zero carbon
The following specific technologies/approaches relating to carbon neutrality were
highlighted by respondents:
• solar photovoltaics
• advanced gasification
• anaerobic digestion
• biomass systems
• combined heat and power plants
• ground source heat pumps
• onshore wind farms
• solar hot water
• smart metering
• horizontal ground loops using passive solar energy.