Planning, building and the environment

Twelve experts sign up for eco-towns challenge

Published	9 April 2008

Twelve experts from the worlds of design, the environment, transport and sustainability have signed up to join the Eco-towns Challenge and play a key role in shaping the future of the biggest new towns programme in the UK for forty years.

The panel of leading figures announced today by Housing Minister Caroline Flint will provide expert advice and support to developers whose proposed locations were announced in last week's shortlist of fifteen potential sites. They will also play an important role in challenging the developers to meet the highest standards possible for sustainability and design in their final proposals.

The twelve members of the Eco-towns Challenge panel are:

John Walker (Chair) - Former Chief Executive, British Urban Regeneration Association. Expert in delivery of large mixed use development
Dr Liz Goodwin - Chief Executive, Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP). Expert in use of natural resources and recycling
Stephen Hale - Director, Green Alliance. Environment expert
Sir Peter Hall - President, Town and Country Planning Association. Expert in urban issues, housing and planning
Wayne Hemingway - Founder, Red or Dead. Expert in design and social issues
Stephen Joseph - Executive Director, Campaign for Better Transport. Transport expert
Nick Mabey - Chief Executive, E3G. Expert in energy issues and economic development
Kris Murrin - TV presenter, expert in sustainable transport and children's issues
Sunand Prasad - Royal Institute of British Architects President. Expert in design and architecture
Liz Reason - Director, Reasons to Be Cheerful consultancy. Expert in innovative approaches to energy issues and climate change
Sue Riddlestone - Director, BioRegional Development Group. Expert in sustainability and sustainable development
Joanna Yarrow - TV presenter, green-lifestyle specialist and founder of sustainability company Beyond Green

Housing Minister Caroline Flint said:

"The high calibre of those who have signed up is testament to both the excitement generated by eco-towns and the opportunity that this presents to shape the way we live, not just in eco-towns but across the whole country.

"We need more homes in this country and we need greener homes, and eco-towns present an opportunity we cannot afford to miss to combine both. I would like to thank these members of the Eco-town Challenge for agreeing to play such a tough but vital role in the development of eco-towns."

Up to ten eco-towns will be built by 2020 and Caroline Flint announced a shortlist of fifteen potential locations last week for consultation to give the public their say. Eco-towns will be zero-carbon sustainable developments of between 5,000 and 20,000 homes, which help address the twin challenges of a major shortfall in housing and tackling climate change by cutting the carbon emissions of housing. Proposals will have to demonstrate they meet tough criteria on providing affordable housing, sustainable development including leading edge green technologies, delivering key infrastructure such as good public transport, schools and health facilities, and safeguarding local wildlife. No new homes will be built on Green Belt land and at least 30 per cent of the total new houses will be affordable housing, delivering tens of thousands more homes for those on lower incomes.

The panel's role will be to maximise the potential for eco-town development in shortlisted locations by both encouraging bidders to develop and improve their vision for eco-town development and injecting new thinking on how eco-towns could best be delivered in each of the short-listed locations.

They will address issues such as using resources and the site's natural assets and opportunities efficiently, ensuring house designs are sensitive to local surroundings and create homes people will want to live in, creating a vibrant and healthy community for people of all ages to live in, and encouraging more journeys on foot, bicycle and public transport.

The Eco-town Challenge panel will publish recommendations to each bidder on how they could improve their vision for eco-towns development.

Notes to editors

1. The twelve members of the Eco-town Challenge are:

John Walker (Chair of the Eco-town Challenge) BSc, DipTP, Hon D Arts
John Walker works in various roles involving large scale sustainable growth and regeneration, as an advisor, a consultant and Chairman at Board level. John currently advises the Government on Eco-town development; is working in two of the Government's Growth Areas; and is setting up a Parks and Community Trust in Northamptonshire on behalf of Bee Bee Developments.

John has previously worked as an advisor/consultant to various public and private sector clients, including the Department of Communities and Local Government, the Government Association and The British Urban Regeneration Association, the Town and Country Planning Association. Previous roles have included chair of the Central Milton Keynes Project Board and was Chief Executive of the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) (external link).

Liz Goodwin
Liz is a chemist by background and has a PhD in chemical physics. She held a number of technical and production related roles with ICI and Zeneca before moving into the environmental field within the chemical industry.

Liz is now the CEO for WRAP. She continues to drive the current business plan and set new targets for the organisation going forward. Key aims include fostering greater engagement with stakeholders to increase partnership working and ensuring that the link between climate change and waste minimisation and recycling is clearly understood by all WRAP's audiences.

For further information about Liz see: www.wrap.org.uk/ (external link).

Stephen Hale
Stephen is Director of Green Alliance, a think tank focused on making environmental solutions a priority in British politics. Green Alliance has carried out research on a range of issues related to sustainable communities. Before joining Green Alliance he worked at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and as a consultant on environmental issues at Environmental Resources Management (ERM) (external link), an international environmental consultancy.

For further information about Stephen, see: www.green-alliance.org.uk (external link).

Sir Peter Hall MA PhD HonDSS HonPhD HonDlitt HonDEng Hon MRTPI
Peter Hall is Professor of Planning and Regeneration at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College London and President of the Town and Country Planning Association (external link). He is author, co-author or editor of over 35 books on urban and regional planning and related topics. He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Town Planning Institute (external link) in 2003 and the Balzan International Prize in 2005. Sir Peter has previously been a Special Adviser to Government and recently he was Chair of ReBlackpool (external link), the Blackpool Urban Regeneration Company.

For further information about Sir Peter, see: www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk (external link).

Wayne Hemingway
Wayne (with his wife Geraldine) created the highly successful Red or Dead. Wayne and Geraldine later set up HemingwayDesign, which specializes in affordable and social design. Their highest profile project is The Staiths South Bank, which has won many awards.

Wayne is the Chairman of Building for Life, a CABE (Commission for Architecture and The Built Environment) (external link) funded organization that promotes excellence in the quality of design of new housing. Wayne was awarded the MBE in 2006.

For further information about Wayne, see: www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk (external link).

Stephen Joseph OBE
Stephen Joseph has been Executive Director of the Campaign for Better Transport (formerly Transport 2000) since 1988. He has previously worked for a range of environmental and voluntary organisations in the UK and abroad, including the Town and Country Planning Association (external link). Stephen has also been an adviser to Government on transport and he was a member of the Commission for Integrated Transport 1999-2005.

Stephen was awarded the OBE in 1996 for services to transport and the environment. In July 2004 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the National Transport Awards.

For further information about Stephen, see: www.bettertransport.org.uk (external link).

Nick Mabey
Nick Mabey is a Founding Director and the Chief Executive of E3G, an independent not-for-profit organisation that works in the public interest to accelerate the global transition to sustainable development. Until December 2005 Nick was a senior advisor in the UK Prime Minister's Strategy Unit leading work on a variety of policy areas, including energy, fisheries, unstable states and organised crime.

For further information about Nick see: www.3eg.org (external link).

Kristina Murrin
Kris recently presented The Woman Who Stops Traffic for Channel 4, the series in which she tries to get cars off the roads, to simultaneously promote healthier lifestyles and encourage a greener way of life. She has also presented three series of Honey We're Killing the Kids for BBC1 and BBC3.

In October of 2005 Kris was appointed by Education Minister Ruth Kelly to The Board of Schools Food Trust in recognition of her work bringing Jamie Oliver's vision for school dinners to the political agenda.

Kris has been at the forefront of innovation and creative problem solving for over a decade. As a partner at ?What If! (external link), the world's largest specialist innovation and creativity organisation, Kris has paved the way for a fresh and original way of thinking about innovation and creativity in the work place.

For further information about Kris see: www.firstartist.co.uk/client.asp?nm=kristinamurrin (external link).

Sunand Prasad MA AA Dip PhD RIBA FRSA
Sunand Prasad is President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (external link) (2007-09) and co-founder/senior partner of Penoyre and Prasad LLP, whose highly regarded designs he has described in the recently published monograph Transformations. A founding commissioner of CABE (external link), he launched its Enabling Programme and also chaired its Skills Programme. He lives in Hackney with his family in a house built together with friends.

For further information about Sunand see: www.penoyre-prasad.net (external link).

Liz Reason
Liz Reason is an experienced policy analyst and strategist in the energy and climate change arena. Liz set up her consultancy Reasons to be Cheerful in 2004 to apply her skills to climate change communication and strategy.

Liz is currently director of the AECB's CarbonLite Programme (external link), aiming to ensure that the AECB's expertise is used to help deliver a national framework and programme of work that will speed up the delivery of more sustainable buildings. Liz is also a trustee of the National Energy Foundation (external link).

For further information about Liz see: www.r2bc.co.uk (external link).

Sue Riddlestone
Sue is Executive Director and Co-Founder of BioRegional an award winning organisation which develops real-life solutions for sustainability. BioRegional initiated the BedZED eco-village and are based there. Sue co-founded One Planet Living, a global initiative developed by BioRegional and WWF and is working with local partners to introduce sustainable communities from China to the USA. At BioRegional Sue has also pioneered projects on sustainable paper production and led a team to develop the MiniMill, new small-scale technology to produce paper pulp.

As a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission, Sue has worked on setting targets for reducing London's CO2 emissions and the London 2012 Olympic bid. BioRegional, with WWF, subsequently worked with London 2012 to write the sustainability strategy One Planet Olympics.

For further information about Sue see: www.bioregional.com/ (external link).

Joanna Yarrow
Joanna Yarrow is one of Britain's leading experts in green living, and specialises in helping people understand environmental principles and put them into practice.

She presented BBC3's Outrageous Wasters, is GMTV's green expert, and regularly appears on a range of news and current affairs programmes. Joanna wrote 1001 Ways You Can Save the Planet and How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint, and has fronted a number of national sustainability behaviour change campaigns.

Her company Beyond Green runs strategic sustainability projects. These range from designing neighbourhoods that encourage sustainable living or strategies for low carbon cities to developing sustainability action plans for organisations across a range of sectors.

For further information about Joanna, see: www.knightayton.co.uk or www.beyondgreen.co.uk (external links).

2. The panel's role will be to recommend potential improvements to each developer for their eco-town proposals. The panel will not be responsible for assessing proposals or judging their relative merits. The Government will be responsible for assessing the proposals and Ministers will make the final decision on locations for Eco-town development based on the quality of bids and with reference to the criteria set out in the Eco-town Prospectus.

3. A shortlist of fifteen potential sites for eco-towns was announced last week by Housing Minister Caroline Flint. Full details of the announcement are available at: www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/737721.

4. The Eco-town Challenge will run from April until July 2008. For more details about the panel please contact the Communities and Local Government press office on 080 7944 4953.