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The government’s approach to eco-towns is “deeply flawed” and wide open to legal challenges, the Local Government Association has warned, but the Department for Communities and Local Government has poured cold water over the claims.

Read more about the “Deeply Flawed” Eco-Towns

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.

Find out more about the Eco-Town dwellers service charge

Campaigners against an eco-town at Hanley Grange have warned the proposal could still go ahead - despite the Wellcome Trust announcing it would not sell land to developers.

Read the rest of the article on the Hanley Grange Eco-Town

We have a government target to cut our carbon emissions by 15 per cent by 2010, and far more stringent targets are being proposed. Patients don’t really appreciate how much energy and water we use. But in our trust, more people are aware of it - we’ve been banging the drum now for three years.

Read the rest of the article on the NHS goes green

The announcement by the Water Consumer Council a week ago that bills might rise by £30 per household and that more drought orders and hosepipe bans could be imposed, will pile pain on hard-pressed homeowners. But there are ways to harvest water for many of your needs and you could also be helping to reduce flash flooding.

Read more about how saving water can cut bills

Developers want to build a community with 5,000 homes and 2,500 jobs at the site of the former Rossington Colliery, alongside the M18. Under the proposals, a railway station and new road would be created to allow direct access for buses to Doncaster town centre, with the route forming the first link of a road between the motorway and Robin Hood airport. But to ensure the carriageways remained free-flowing for buses, private cars would be banned from using the road during the most congested periods.

Find out more about how motorists may be forced to give way to Eco-Road plans

The number of Gordon Brown’s flagship eco-towns should be slashed by two thirds because most of the proposed schemes are not green enough, senior civil servants have warned. They have advised ministers to cut the number from 10 to only two or three “exemplar” towns, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Read the rest of the article about the scrapped eco-towns

The man behind controversial plans to build an eco-town at a former Norfolk RAF base said last night he was prepared to move his scheme closer to Norwich after it emerged ministers were keen on the idea.

Read the rest of the article on the relocated eco-town

A top Government minister is expected to visit the county to discuss eco-town plans in the next two weeks. However, it has not been confirmed whether housing minister Caroline Flint will visit the actual site of the proposed eco-town, south-east of Leicester. It is believed she may be visiting Market Harborough on Monday, July 28, but the Government said this was not finalised. Campaigners are concerned the minister may not find time to visit the location of the proposed 15,000-home eco-town.

Read the rest of the article on the eco-friendly MP

Fife residents would install more renewable technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels on their homes if they knew it would lead to lower fuel bills, research by one of the country’s leading environmental organisations has revealed.

Read the rest of the article on going green to cut energy bills

Littlehampton Town Council has voted to oppose the proposed Ford Eco-Town, following a heated debate. The full council met on Thursday, June 29 with members agreeing by a 12-three majority to object to the scheme on a number of grounds, including a lack of transport links and concerns over how “eco” the town would really be.

Read the rest of the article on Ford Eco-Town rejected by local counsil

Two more major organisations have waded into the debate over plans for an eco-town at the former RAF Coltishall airbase by voicing fresh concerns. With an announcement due within the next six months on whether the ambitious proposals will make the cut, Reporter Kim Briscoe takes a look at the support and opposition for the plan.

Read the rest of the article on the growning list of Eco proposals

The BBC have produced a guide to Eco-towns and why they have become a contentious issue. They also have a site by site break down which is very interesting.

Q&A: Eco-towns
Plans to develop sites in England into housing as “eco-towns” are drawing protesters to parliament, as a second round of consultation on the issue is launched. But why is the idea controversial?

Read the article from the BBC on the Eco-towns

Every year for the next 40 years, half a million UK homes will need extra insulation, new windows and other energy saving features if we are to fight climate change and fuel poverty. The vast majority of our homes were built decades, if not centuries, ago and leak hot air. Eight-five per cent of these draughty, leaky homes will still be standing in 2050, by which date we must have cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent.

read the article on cutting heat emissions in homes

As part of the government’s plan to build energy efficient, affordable housing in Britain, Manby or Strubby could be chosen to house a new eco town of 5,000 homes after being shortlisted by the government.

read the article on more plans for eco-towns

TheToyota Yaris has been named Green Car of the Year 2008 by the Environmental Transport Association. The car named and shamed as the least green car is the Dodge SRT-10 sports car.

read the article on Green car of the year

Here we have three more stories about the eco-towns, each one is intriging on it’s own; finding out that Tesco is the sole backer behind one town, revelations that the proposed number of homes for the RAF Coltishall site could double or just a very well written for and against from The Times. All are worth a read.

HANLEY Grange truly would be a Tesco town after Andrew Lansley MP discovered the supermarket giant was currently the only financier of the scheme.
Jarrow Investments has been the public face of the controversial scheme which could see an eco-town of up to 11,000 homes built near Hinxton.
But Mr Lansley said Tesco was, in fact, totally financing the town and no other organisations were involved in the bid to Government to create an eco-town.
read the article on the Tesco eco-town.

The number of homes proposed for a new eco-town on an ex-north Norfolk airbase could be doubled to 10,000. Developer Richard Davies, whose consortium is behind the eco-town bid at the former RAF Coltishall, has confirmed he is about to unveil three different options to create environmentally-friendly homes in a sustainable development at Scottow.

read the article on the Manby eco-town

Ecotowns: for and against:
Ten new clean, green ‘eco-towns’ will be built by 2020. And pigs might fly, say critics. They argue that the government is bulldozing through a programme that will create the slum estates of the future
read the article on The Times - Ecotowns: For and Against

A nearly waterless washing machine is to become available in the UK as of next year. The machine, developed by Xeros Ltd, will use small plastic chips, rather than soapy water, to remove stains and dirt from clothes. It will require only 2% of the water and energy used by current machines.

The new technology also threatens to render the tumble dryer obsolete - as clothes will be left fully dry at the end of the wash cycle.

With washing machines responsible for an average 13% of UK household water use, the Xeros machine would make a significant impact on UK water usage. The financial incentive here might be small (as water prices are both stable and relatively low), but the massive energy saving alone (98%) should provide more than enough reason to make the switch.

With the machine’s cost expected to be roughly equivalent to upper-end standard washing machines, there seems little to hold this technology back, assuming the plastic chip cleaning system is as effective as the company claims. As well as lowering bills, it could also save space in the home for those who previously used a tumble dryer (and the effort of hanging washing out for those who didn’t).

In addition there are also the more general benefits of reducing water usage to consider, such as lessening the potentially crippling impact of a water shortage, either here in the UK or abroad.

Such new technology is just one of the many ways to cumulatively bring about a drastic reduction in our consumption of resources - without changing our lives beyond all recognition. With the UN this week releasing a set of guidelines on how to effectively increase the sustainability of our lifestyles, it is a good time to look at other everyday measures also worth considering.

The UN report (released on June 5th; World Environment Day) touches on common points such as driving less and using public transport; but, perhaps more importantly, it outlines the need to ditch unnecessary electronic appliances such as electric toothbrushes and shavers. This might seem like a small, even insignificant, change but not so when considered in terms of its cumulative effect.

Take what is for many a typical pre-work morning routine: wake up, shower, brush teeth, shave, get dressed, put the kettle on for breakfast, eat etc.

Now, at almost every step in this everyday routine, there is the opportunity to reduce waste. For example, ditching the electronic toothbrush and shaver would cut electricity usage. Taking a quicker shower (and avoiding baths altogether) would save massively on both water and electricity use. Using the kettle more efficiently (one of the most energy-demanding appliances in the modern home), by boiling only how much water will be used now, would save more energy than many people realise.

Considering that such savings would be multiplied by at least a few hundred times each year, it quickly becomes apparent that small daily savings, though insignificant out of context, become hugely important when viewed as part of the bigger picture.

And here’s the real point; none of these changes would reduce quality or standards of living - they merely represent the altering of deeply entrenched habits, which here requires near minimal effort. Yet the benefits both to us personally, on a financial level, and to the greater good, from an environmental perspective, can be staggering in the long run.

Dejan Levi

Prospective residents of the proposed eco-town at Long Marston, should the site make it into the government’s shortlist, could pay less than £100 per year in domestic heating bills according to a leading authority on energy conservation.

Ian Ward, one of the directors said “I would go as far as saying that it will be possible to heat a family home for less than £100 per year, perhaps as low as £50 in the best circumstances.”

read the article on the Long Marston site

Under current UK government legislation all new-build homes must be zero-carbon after 2016. However, some of the major builders are trying to get a head-start on this deadline and have begun developing designs and prototypes already.

One such company is Barratt Developments - one of the UK’s largest firms - which this week unveiled designs for what will become the country’s first zero-carbon house built by a volume builder. The first examples of these homes will be available from 2011, in a 200 unit batch at the site of Hanham Hall hospital, near to Bristol.

All of this sounds great, except for one snag - the cost of the homes. Though Barratt have not specified the exact value, their chief executive, Mark Clare, has said that it will be ‘difficult to reduce the cost of the current prototype to commercial levels’.

Now, it’s all very well having lots of zero-carbon homes, but not so great if they all lie empty because nobody can afford to buy one… The question is; what can be done to avoid this situation from developing?

Well the simple fact is that such projects will require quite a degree of government assistance to succeed quickly. No doubt Barratt and other developers will do what they can do drive building costs down - but ultimately there is only so far this can be taken before we are left with a zero-carbon, but ugly and low quality home that nobody wants to live in.

In the first few years after 2016 (maybe even before) it will be crucial that the government subsidises the cost of such homes so that they can compete with the older properties on the market. Some measures have already been introduced, such as a stamp duty waiver until 2012 on zero-carbon homes worth over £500,000 (homes under that value are eligible for a £15,000 stamp duty discount).

This is a start - but hopefully only the beginning of a series of similar moves.

Barratt’s prototype for example utilises solar panels, rain-water harvesting, and an air source heat pump. It is these features, along with its super-insulation and triple-glazed windows, that have earned it the best possible energy use rating of grade 6 (signifying a completely zero-carbon home). Perhaps the industry sectors producing this technology could do with a few tax cuts, or incentives in return for helping reduce costs.

It is true that a zero-carbon home will face only very minimal running costs and hence a case for the higher asking price could be made on these grounds. The problem is that, if would-be buyers cannot even secure a mortgage for the house, the rest becomes irrelevant.

This is where banks have a part to play - by introducing a different mortgage option for buyers purchasing such homes they could be instrumental in the success of zero-carbon housing. With the current credit problems many banks have reigned in their mortgage options of late - but those buying a zero-carbon home in the future will have a greater ability to repay a big mortgage - due to the lack of gas and electricity bills. A bigger loan could therefore be repaid in the same time as a smaller one on a non grade 6 property.

There are many other potential measures currently being discussed - but the main point is that the government needs to seriously consider further legislation (or funding for buyer-assistance schemes) in order to ensure that the initial mandate of zero-carbon by 2016 is the success it has the potential to be. If this can be effectively managed then the (positive) consequences could be far reaching indeed - from the inherent environmental benefits, to reducing the cost (while raising the standard) of living in the UK. Let’s hope those involved can get it right, for we all stand to reap the rewards of this effort.

(A detailed image of Barratt’s design can be found here).

Dejan Levi