WHY ARE ECO TOWNS ARRIVING?

Catherine Morrow investigates

Eco towns have become the latest green initiative in combatting the housing shortage throughout the UK. Housing has reached crisis point in terms of proactively guaranteeing developments such as future property sustainability and cutting carbon emissions within British households and its 63 million residents.

Issues such as increased life expectancy, higher divorce rates and a liberal immigration policy are all having knock-on pressures for UK housing.

Now, since the last legislation of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, new towns will be built for the first time in the UK for 40 years. The British Government has announced 15 shortlisted locations for towns across the UK. A final list of 10 locations offering 120,000 homes will be drawn up in October, with the first five towns due to be built in 2016.

It is these towns signal the arrival of eco towns.

Recent and ongoing UK media coverage has highlighted how these new towns have received widespread support as well as considerable criticism. Essentially, the eco towns, as they will be categorised, are designed to challenge three key factors:

The latest publication from the Town and Country Planning Agency has succintly summarised the green issues at hand. "The UK now faces a new set of pressures for change, presenting new concerns to be addressed through the planning system - most significantly a changing climate, an unparalleled demand for new homes, driven by demographic and population factors, and a crisis of affordability. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are now at their highest levels for 3 million years, and global temperatures have increased by about 0.6% in the last 150 years." (Source: T&CP Tomorrow Series Paper 9: Eco-Towns and the Next 60 Years of Planning).

So, what will the eco towns consist of? Click on the 'what is an eco town page?' to find out more.