In 2007 the government announced its plan to build 10 eco towns in England. The plan was supported by the Town and Country Planning Association. The original aim had been to create 50 eco towns, a number of which would not have been new builds, but existing estates with added green ‘aspirations’. Homes in the UK currently account for 27% of the UK’s yearly total of 40 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. If the government is to achieve its target of reducing these emissions by 60% by 2050 then eco towns could make an important contribution.
Someday all places can be like Welwyn Garden City.
The aim of eco towns is to create places where people can live in an environment that is highly sustainable, thus lessening their impact on the environment. In addition the schemes were to provide 30 to 40% affordable housing, creating a mix of residents rather than ghettoising the poor. The houses themselves were to be built from recycled materials and energy production and waste disposal would be carbon neutral. Each house would have to achieve carbon savings of 70% above the current building regulations in terms of lighting, heating and hot water. Developments should be able to offer job opportunities for at least one member of the household, with employment being within easy reach by public transport, walking or cycling. Green space should be provided for the residents and local services such as shops, health centres, leisure centres and schools should all be within walking distance or accessible by public transport and all of them should be housed in zero-carbon buildings. Over the years the criteria for the towns have changed. New towns that have been approved in 2009 will have charging points for electric cars, smart meters that track energy usage and community heat sources. The houses will take all of their energy from renewable sources such as wind, earth and sun, and any excess electricity generated will be sold to the national grid.
These ideas are not as new as they might sound. Ebenezer Howard invented ‘garden cities’ such as Welwyn Garden City (1919) and Letchworth (1903) along similar lines. Each city was to be a self-contained and co-operative settlement. The land was to be owned by the community and all food would be produced locally. The people of the community would work, live and find education and entertainment within the boundaries of the town. Despite their name the garden cities were not all that green when you take into account the environmental cost of creating the infrastructure and building the new homes, but the idea was popular.
Cars like this will be instantly destroyed by envirobots in eco towns of the future. Probably.
Modern eco towns sound like an excellent idea, but the plans have been mired in controversy. Critics of the scheme claim that the new eco towns are merely a way of getting around the planning laws. The proposed Ford Eco Town site is just one example of a site that had been previously turned down by the local council. Local residents have also been unhappy as a number of the proposed sites involved building on agricultural or Greenfield sites. In their view the environmental impact of creating the town far outweighs any gains from the green homes, although if homes are to be built it is preferable for them to be as sustainable as possible. Many also pointed out that the public transport links simply did not exist to make these sites viable. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has argued that the number of towns should be scaled back and they would like to see the government focusing more on redeveloping derelict Brownfield sites, refurbishing existing properties and bringing the 800,000 empty homes across England back into use. Cities can actually be more environmentally friendly than rural areas because they have a high population density. City dwellers do not have to travel far for local services or entertainment and public transport and waste disposal can be more efficient. Eco towns also do nothing to tackle the environmental problems of the 26.4 million homes that have already been built.
Eco towns could work, but in order for that to be the case people would have to be persuaded to live without cars. Many people do live without a car, some because they cannot afford one and some because they simply don’t need one. Not all of these people are environmentalists, but the key point is that it has to be easy to get around without using a car. Access to rail services is particularly critical for an eco town to work as people could walk or cycle for short local journeys, but for longer journeys the train would be the best option. Critics of the eco towns have pointed out that the train lines do not exist and that it would be too expensive to provide such services without subsidies from the government. Worse still it appears that some of the proposals have been promoted merely as a way of funding major new road building schemes. Rather than considering where eco towns should be built in order to allow them to be sustainable now and in the future developers, local authorities and landowners were permitted to submit bids for any piece of land that they wanted to develop.
This little beast runs on batteries.
Recycling facilities also have to exist. There is no point in people recycling their waste if in the end most of it ends up in a landfill site or at the local incinerator.
Concerns have also been raised over whether the houses really will be as green as the supporters of eco towns claim. For the eco towns to make a contribution to tackling climate change and help the UK to reach its targets the houses must be built to the highest environmental standards.
Of course many people are highly sceptical that developers can do this and with good reason. When the recession bit many private developers wanted to offload their unsold properties on to housing associations. However, the housing associations rejected their offer citing poor build standards and inadequate room size as reasons for their decision. That is not to say that homes cannot be sustainable, but it requires careful planning. Every stage of a building’s life must be examined, starting with the materials it is built from and how they are transported to the site to how energy is to be supplied for heating and lighting. Most of the carbon emissions generated in the building process are emitted in the first year of construction. Online construction carbon calculators already exist to assist developers in making better choices. An important factor is where the building is to be built. Reclaiming land that was previously an industrial power plant to use it for offices or a school with landscaped areas is better than using a natural wetlands site.
The Beddington Zero Energy Development in Wallington, London is an example of how eco design can work and it has won many awards for its groundbreaking design. The site contains 100 homes and work for 100 people with lots of facilities that create a coherent community. All those who live at the development are committed to an environmentally friendly lifestyle which is essential if the project is to continue to be carbon neutral.
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