Planning, building and the environment

Exemplar Developments

The Carbon Challenge is run behalf of Communities and Local Government by English Partnerships. The programme will act as a test bed for the Code for Sustainable Homes helping pave the way to building zero carbon new homes by 2016.

The Carbon Challenge was launched on 7 February 2007 and will build on the success of the Design for Manufacture Competition. The lessons learned about skills and technologies will be disseminated to the home building industry and its supply chain helping them gear up to meet the new standards.

Sites will be offered for sale subject to demanding criteria requiring high standards of design and construction. These will deliver high quality zero carbon communities that are both affordable and sustainable. The homes must achieve level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Phase 1 of the Challenge will focus on delivering over 1000 homes on a minimum of five sites. The first two sites are English Partnership-owned(Bristol and Peterborough) and the successful developer for the first site will be announced in late 2007 with construction starting summer 2008. The Challenge is open to other public and private sector landowners and we have received an encouraging interest from Local Authorities.

Eco-Towns

The Eco-towns Prospectus was published on 23 July 2007 and sets out the vision and outline criteria for eco-towns, and how the Government can support projects.

The Eco-towns Prospectus sets out the Government's vision for new towns of 5-20,000 homes. These towns will be exemplar "green" developments, and will be designed to meet the highest standards of sustainability, including zero carbon technologies and good public transport, as well leading the way in design, facilities and services, jobs, health, and community involvement. The Prospectus is accompanied by an invitation for local authorities and other stakeholders to respond with their views on potential sites over the next few months.

In order to ensure we learn the lessons both from urban renaissance and New Town developments in the past, the government has asked the Town and Country Planning Association, to provide further advice on the practical application of the key sustainability and development criteria for schemes of this kind, including carbon use, transport, services and community development,. The TCPA have published a scoping report for their work.