UKC

Hi Folks,
seing as there are numerous environment threads, I thought I'd point you in this direction:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7327717.stm

Now I am clearly no expert, but having a flick through the towns that made the short list, Bordon is the closest to me. I know they want to build them near green belt which is great, Bordon has acres of prime forest and is also a huge training facility for the Forces, with Bordon Garrison being the main provider of the town's income, chippies, shops, pubs etc.

My concern there is that they have no more room to build houses as it is already cramped and surrounded by Forest and scrub. Are they not just making the problem worse by clearing away nature and building more houses?

Quote from the article:

"Most were on greenbelt land, threatened wildlife or were similar to projects previously denied planning permission"

If you scroll further down, it says:

"But there are concerns among environmental campaigners that most of the proposed eco-towns will increase car pollution because they will not be big or diverse enough to sustain viable public transport"

This is also a major concern. Bordon, is in the middle of nowhere and is a great commuter town for Farnham, Guildford and Portsmouth etc, etc and surely making it an Eco town with affordable housing will increase the pollution? The public transport facilities are limited enough due to the fact it is more isolated than other towns and I know half a dozen people from there who all drive to work rather than get their arses out of bed earlier to catch the train.

I understand that we need more housing, but surely this will just clear away more forests and green belt?

Have a look at the proposed towns, any near you, what do you think?

Den

PS: Maybe we should start restricting how many kids we produce, that will solve the housing problem. ;0)

In reply to Atholl de-Saint-Croix:

I'm pretty cynical about anything supposedly green the government does. I think a motivating factor is more like it's good for the economy, and good PR. If they want more people to own their own homes then there are already a surplus of empty properties in this country. They should sort that out first before building more. That would be far greener approach: reuse is better than recylcing etc..

As for 'affordable housing' a friend of mine can build eco buildings from cob (clay, straw, mud mix) for a fraction of the cost of a normal house and says it's not that hard to do. These buildings can last for centuries, be very warm, use little energy to build and can simply knocked back down into the ground when they're finished with. Unfortunately the very strict planning laws in this country prevent people from carrying out one of the most fundamental of human skills: building our own homes.

In reply to Atholl de-Saint-Croix:

As a planner myself, I suspect that this is yet another trick to get housing development in the countryside and specifically in the green belt - which has been vigorously protected over the last 60 years. Where's Swampy when you need him?

In reply to stp:

Those 'very strict planning laws' have protected the countryside and the green belt, and prevented urban sprawl for the last 60 years. Lots of people build their own homes on brownfield sites within towns.

In reply to Pekkie:

I think he may mean the building regs that the individual homes have to be built to.

If these "ecotowns" are going to be commuter towns then they cannot be good for the enviroment. Lots of new houses are still going up around here, it'd be brighter to just make all these new houses to this spec.

In reply to Pekkie:


Thats what my initial though was as far as building the homes go.

If you label it "Eco" then maybe people will care less that they lose some green belt for new eco homes, what a load of pants.