Living in an eco-town will cost £500 a year extra

Developers plan to levy an annual charge on residents to pay for the subsidised bus travel they will need and management costs
Jill Sherman, Whitehall Editor

Householders wanting to live in Gordon Brown's pioneering eco-towns face service charges of more than £500 a year on top of their annual council tax bill.
Developers in several of the 13 proposed sites are planning to levy annual charges for subsidised bus travel and management costs to be paid to a local community trust.
The disclosure coincides with government proposals, to be published tomorrow, that only one person per household in eco-towns should drive to work. Developers will be expected to provide trams, buses, trains and jobs in a town to ensure that more than half of all journeys are made by bicycle, foot or public transport.
Residents would be expected to make a huge “behavioural change” to meet the targets and it is unclear who would fund the extra public transport.

The proposals will be announced by Caroline Flint, the Housing Minister, as part of a progress report setting out the key requirements of an eco-town.She will make clear that only developments adopting the toughest green standards will make it on to the final shortlist.
Yesterday the Local Government Association stated that the proposals were open to judicial review because ministers had imposed new planning guidelines to bypass councils and speed up developments.
Only one of the thirteen eco-towns on the present shortlist has been put forward by a town hall, with the rest submitted by developers.
Senior civil servants have so far been disappointed at the calibre of projects proposed, with many failing to tackle water supply, waste and particularly sustainable transport.
Under the new requirements, all eco-towns will have to achieve carbon neutrality across the development and all houses will have to be built at “code level 4” or higher, which would make them 44 per cent more energy efficient.
Reduced dependency on cars should allow 50 per cent of journeys to be made by walking, cycling and public transport compared with the current average of 13 per cent.
Developers have already pulled out of Curborough, Staffordshire, and New Marston, Bedfordshire, and the district council has pulled out of a development in Manby, Lincolnshire.
There is now uncertainty over the proposed eco-town at Hanley Grange near Cambridge, which faces strong local opposition.
Jarrow, the developers of Hanley Grange, and Tesco, which would have a store on the site, are considering offering a one-off “dowry” to a community trust made up of residents and parish councillors to safeguard the town.
“But this will be supplemented by an annual service charge for subsidising bus services and managing parks and open spaces,” Sebastian Hanley, a spokesman, said. Several other developers were also considering levies, he said, which would all be on top of council tax.
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said that the charges would not be mandatory for eco-towns but developers would be allowed to impose them. “There will be carrots and sticks,” he said. “The sticks will include remote parking at town edges, charges for leaving town and fewer car parking spaces. When you live in an eco-town you will have to have big behavioural changes.”
Julie Redfern, chairman of the Stop Hanley Grange campaign, said that most of the opposition was because the site was totally inappropriate.
“We already have 43,000 homes proposed in this area. The roads are already congested and the new development will be built on a triangle of road-locked arable land. It will be too far to bicyle to Cambridge [12 miles, 19km] and extra buses will just add to congested roads.
“On top of that we are now being told we will be charged for parking, for taking cars out of the town and have to pay annual services on top of council tax. Nobody wants this development to happen,” she said.