Brown unveils new eco-homes target

25-Sep-2007

Gordon Brown has used the occasion of his first Labour party conference as prime minister to announce a doubling in the number of eco-towns planned for the UK over the next few years.

The PM has said that interest in the scheme has proved too great too ignore, with the end result being that ten of the towns - which it is hoped will be host to 100,000 sustainable developments - are now to be built as opposed to the original five.

The announcement is the latest stage in a delicate balancing act being performed by the government, as it aims to increase the provision of affordable homes to first time buyers while simultaneously demonstrating Labour's commitment to sustainable, environmentally friendly developments.

Dealing with the plight of first time buyers has of course been a central theme of the Brown premiership thus far, with the former chancellor outlining his plans to create a "home owning, asset-owning, wealth-owning democracy" before he had even become leader.

That was followed by a pledge to build 240,000 new homes a year by 2016, something that Mr Brown says will be helped by the revision of the eco-towns target.

The question of how to respect the environment has been answered, the government believes, by its plans to build the majority of such developments on reclaimed brownfield land around the UK.

This new focus, along with a slowdown in the growth of house prices and the feeling that interest rates have now peaked, seem to paint a rosier future for first time buyers, but potential problems still remain down the line.

Not least the fact that the number of homes being built actually fell, rather than rose, in the first half of 2007 - by some nine per cent year-on-year.

No wonder then, that the Town and Country Planning Association has called on local authorities to use this week's announcement as an impetus for releasing more sites for development.

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