Ecotowns to get go-ahead despite local opposition

The projects in Norfolk and Cornwall are part of a green package to tackle the climate change threat

Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
The Observer, Sunday 12 July 2009
Burton Wold wind farm in Northamptonshire. Photograph: David Sillitoe
An abandoned Norfolk airfield and a cluster of Cornish china claypit villages are to become the first of a controversial new breed of "ecotowns", offering thousands of new homes built within a cutting-edge eco-friendly community.
The decision will be a blow to villagers who have campaigned against new developments at Rackheath, just outside Norwich, and St Austell in Cornwall. Only Rackheath got a top rating from an independent panel set up to judge the green credentials of the plans, yet it is one of three projects expected to be taken forward by ministers this week.
The ecotowns will form part of a package of green announcements this week which Gordon Brown will argue can help Britain climb out of recession and reduce the threat from climate change. A white paper will propose major changes to the way Britons travel, work and consume in order to meet targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. Ministers will also set out plans to reduce pollution by investing in rail electrification - leading to faster trains - and in electric cars, as well as exploring new sources of fuel.
Households, however, may face increases of up to £200 a year in energy bills to help fund investment in renewable sources. An overhaul of the social tariff scheme that reduces fuel bills for the poorest is also expected, with an emphasis on spreading the costs of beating global warming so that those on low incomes do not bear an unfair burden.
Writing in the Observer today, Brown admits that adapting to climate change will not be painless but insists it is both necessary and potentially beneficial, by creating jobs in green industries. Ministers will argue that ecotowns offer test-beds for green ideas, from cutting back on car use to growing our own food, that could become standard in all new communities.
However, householders have voiced fears that nearby villages will be swamped and traffic increased: 71% of villagers polled by Rackheath parish council were against an ecotown. The site lies just outside the Norwich North parliamentary seat, where a byelection, triggered by the resignation of Labour MP Ian Gibson, will be held on 23 July. The Green candidate, Rupert Read, has warned that any carbon savings may be wiped out by plans to build a major road through the countryside north of the city to Norwich airport - funded by cash raised from the Rackheath project.
The St Austell site, where the ecohouses would mostly be tacked on to existing villages, has backing from local politicians but the Council for the Protection of Rural England in Cornwall has argued that the plans are "inappropriate". It argues that transport links are sparse and warns the project will be "doomed to failure" unless jobs are created for thousands of new inhabitants.
Brown originally promised to build 10 ecotowns with up to 200,000 carbon-neutral homes, but the 15-strong shortlist has been repeatedly whittled down as several projects withdrew or were hit by the housing slump: the Norfolk site was a late entry last year and not even on the original list for consideration.
Some of the sites have triggered furious local protests, with celebrities from Dame Judi Dench (campaigning against a proposed site in Middle Quinton, Warwickshire) to tennis player Tim Henman's father Anthony (opposing Weston Otmoor in Oxfordshire) spearheading opposition. The project was dealt a further blow by the Department for Communities and Local Government last year in a report that raised serious doubts over the financial viability of several of the shortlisted sites.
In a sign of the government's determination to salvage the scheme, John Healey, the housing minister, will insist that three projects have made the grade and that others could do so in future with more work on their proposals. The first ecotowns are due to be built by 2016 with the rest completed by 2020.
Tomorrow Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, will officially open south-east England's biggest onshore wind farm, Little Cheyne Court, near Lydd in Kent. Its 26 turbines have a total generating capacity of 60 megawatts, enough to power 30,000 homes.