LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME



[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]

Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

Get weekly updates
RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Stripe

Donate via Paypal

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Whitehall to force through eco-towns 

Ministers are plotting to “crash the planning process” for their new eco-towns, restricting the opportunity for residents to object, according to the government’s own expert adviser.

Professor David Lock claims the communities department wants to fast-track the towns, intended to provide environmentally friendly housing. This is despite the government’s public declaration that normal procedures will be followed.

Lock claims Caroline Flint, the housing minister, wants to “cut out a whole lot of processes” to ensure that five of the towns are completed by 2016.

If the fast-track approach, which Lock backs, is not followed, he argues it could take 10 years just to overcome initial planning hurdles.

His disclosure will anger those who fear the developments will be imposed by Whitehall with little regard for due process or local opinion. They complain that, while the developments claim to be environmentally friendly, many of them are simply “greenwashed” old housing schemes rejected years ago.

Lock, who chairs the Town and Country Planning Association, made his comments after a meeting with officials at the communities department last week.

Ministers have shortlisted 15 possible sites for eco-towns of at least 5,000 houses each, in areas including Oxfordshire and near Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, to help address the housing shortage.

Last month Flint told The Sunday Times that normal planning procedures for the towns would apply – “no ifs or buts”. However, Lock said: “They want to collapse the process and go faster. Certainly the government is trying to cut short the planning process.

“She [Flint] cannot cut out those processes that come from the [European Union]. What she can cut out, and has said she wants to cut out, are all the preliminary policy frameworks, at local and regional level, which can take seven to 10 years.”

Lock said bypassing these preliminary frameworks would “cut out the need for local and regional debates, crash it from the top, if you like”. He said he agreed with this approach and urged ministers to be “more open” as well as doing more to sell the attributes of eco-towns.

He admitted any failure to follow normal procedures to the letter would create a backlash: “Of course it will upset people.” Among the options being discussed, according to Lock, is taking responsibility for scrutinising individual eco-town proposals from local authorities and giving it to a national statutory body.

Yesterday officials admitted this had not been ruled out, but insisted it would simply lift the burden of dealing with large-scale developments from councils with limited resources.

Campaigners reacted angrily. David Bliss, of the campaign group Bard, which is protesting against a proposed site near Stratford, said: “If this is true, it just supports what we feared all along, that the deeply flawed consultation process is a sham.”

Ministers are facing mounting resistance to their plans. Stratford district council last week voted against an eco-town by the village of Long Marston, saying it would ruin the rural surroundings. The Bard campaign is supported by the actress Dame Judi Dench and John Nettles, the star of Midsomer Murders.

Ministers denied trying to speed up the process. Flint said: “I have made absolutely clear all eco-town bids will be subject to the proper local planning process.”

Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor

Times Online

18 May 2008

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Contributions
   Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)
Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI M TG TS G Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook Wind Watch on Linked In

Wind Watch on Mastodon Wind Watch on Truth Social

Wind Watch on Gab Wind Watch on Bluesky