UK eco-towns timetable delayed

By Jim Pickard
Published: August 18 2008 23:31

Ministers have been forced to delay the timetable for implementing Gordon Brown’s eco-towns scheme, in the latest setback to the project.
A shortlist of applicants due to be published in October will not come out until next year, it has emerged. In addition, there is evidence that ministers may be starting to row back from their target of 10 towns.
The government had a long-list of 16 applicants, drawn up in April. Three of those dropped out but the Financial Times has established that three others – in Norfolk, north Yorkshire and near Cambridge – are facing difficulties.
One more – in Rossington, south Yorkshire – has been reduced from 15,000 homes to just 5,000. In Coltishall, Norfolk, the government has just won permission to build a prison on the same site as the proposed eco-town.
At Hanley Grange, near ­Cambridge, a partner in the proposed scheme has withdrawn. In Selby, north Yorkshire, developers have been blocked by local authorities.
The government admitted it was being forced to delay the announcement of its shortlist in a little-noticed line in a recent statement on green transport plans for eco-towns.
The Department for Communities and Local Government said ministers needed more time to reconsider submissions whose details had been revised.
The spokesman insisted most schemes were still going ahead and the “proof will be in the pudding” as to which were a success.
The eco-towns plan for communities built to the highest environmental standards was at the heart of Gordon Brown’s policy platform at last September’s Labour conference, where he committed the government to building 10 of them. But Caroline Flint, housing minister, has recently begun to talk about “up to 10 eco-towns”.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008