Housing & Eco Towns
CPRE supports the aspiration for more sustainable, affordable housing, but for eco-towns to be truly sustainable, exemplar schemes they must be built and planned in the right way and send a compelling message about the way forward. CPRE Oxfordshire led a concerted campaign against the proposed eco-town arguing that ‘Weston Otmoor' was a smokescreen for making house-building on green fields appear more palatable’.
Eco-Towns Programme
Eco-Towns are a government-sponsored programme of new towns to be built in England, which are intended to achieve exemplary standards of sustainability.
The eco-towns programme was intended to offer the opportunity to achieve high standards of sustainable living while also maximising the potential for affordable housing. Some 30% to 40% of housing in each eco-town is to be allocated as affordable, and made available to the thousands currently on the local housing waiting lists.
The largest will provide up to 20,000 new homes, with officials saying the towns should be "zero-carbon" developments and should be exemplary in one area of sustainability, such as energy production or waste disposal. The new environmentally-friendly towns - low-energy, carbon-neutral developments built from recycled materials - are intended to be largely car-free, with pedestrian and cycle-friendly environments.
In 2007, the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) announced a competition to build up to 10 eco-towns.
Initially over fifty eco-town bids were suggested, many of them modified versions of existing housing scheme proposals. The initial list of eco-towns included two in Oxfordshire; ‘Weston Otmoor’, a proposal for an eco-town of 15,000 homes near Weston-on-the-Green, and an eco-town of 5-10,000 homes in Shipton-on-Cherwell quarry, a developed (old cement works) site to the north of Kidlington.
In April 2008, a shortlist of fifteen sites was announced and included Weston Otmoor. The proposed eco-town at Shipton-on-Cherwell was dropped from the list.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) consultation document ‘Eco-towns: living in a greener future – consultation paper’ sought the public's views on the vision for 'eco-towns' and the shortlisted locations proposed.
The CPRE Oxfordshire listed its objections to the proposed eco-town in its response to the consultation
Oxfordshire County Council was also sceptical about the scheme, saying it would be critical to ensure that the project directly benefited nearby Bicester, particularly in providing more jobs. Cherwell District Council strongly opposed the proposal; their policy being to focus most of its new development on expanding Banbury and Bicester. Councillor Barry Wood, Executive Leader, said that if the 'eco-town' received planning permission the council would fund a Judicial Review of the planning process.
A community pressure group, the Weston Front, which represented all the local parishes, threatened to take any approval of the scheme to Judicial Review. The Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), along with the RSPB, also opposed the eco-town.
From July 2008 there was a second round of consultations on the draft Planning Policy Statement on Eco-towns (PPS) and the Sustainability Appraisal, which provided a more detailed assessment of the proposed locations.
On 30 April 2009, the consultations on the draft PPS and the Sustainability Appraisal ended. CPRE Oxfordshire submitted its response outlining the many drawbacks of the Weston Otmoor location.
The Planning Policy Statement on Eco-towns incorporating the final shortlist list of proposed sites was published in July 2009, describing the standards that eco-towns would have to meet.
The four successful eco-town bids included North West Bicester in Oxfordshire, but Weston Otmoor was dropped from the shortlist. The others were: Whitehill-Bordon (Hampshire), St Austell (Cornwall), and Rackheath (Norfolk).
The new Housing Minister John Healey announced that developers in the four successful locations would be able to bid for a share of £60 million to support local infrastructure. He said he wanted to see at least six second wave areas identified in 2010 and announced up to £5 million available for councils to conduct further planning work on proposals.
Find Out More
Below are a list of links to further information regarding this campaign: