Janet Street-Porter: But would you want to live in an eco-town?

Independent.co.uk  - Thursday, 28 February 2008

Soon the majority of the world’s population will be living in towns and cities rather than the countryside, according to a new United Nations report.

The problem with eco-towns is they are fully formed dream schemes being dropped into mainly rural areas – and our track record of building towns from scratch has been lamentable. Look at Thamesmead, Stevenage and Basildon to see how arid and unlovely these town centres are – bleak areas with rubbish blowing about, large areas of concrete, boarded-up shops, gangs of feral youth hanging around because there’s nothing for them to do. About as far removed from the community spirit you find in small towns and villages in rural areas as you can imagine.

Unless eco towns have sufficient money invested in all the essential non-housing elements like green spaces, skateboards and BMX parks, communal buildings to house youth clubs, farmers’ markets, the WI, pilates classes, mother-and-baby mornings, and what I call “talking points” which give a sense of place (like the Angel of the North), they will never be communities that people will want to stay in for more than a short period.

Wayne Hemingway sold his fashion business Red or Dead to set up a business specialising in affordable design, advising large building companies on how to create socially-aware low cost housing. At the same event, he observed that most of the housing built in the 1970s in Britain only had a life-span of 30 years – and so eco-towns may erode the countryside for only short-term benefit, if they are not carefully created mixed communities which people will become emotionally attached to.

Sustainability, according to Wayne, isn’t about solar panels or earth roofs. It means creating places where small children can kick balls, teenagers can do their own stuff, local shops thrive, and people feel safe. The Government’s burden of the eco-targets that have to be met by builders means that money for all of this is being squeezed to an unacceptable level.

Instead of eco-towns, it would have been better to revitalise existing small-town centres, tear down the second-rate shopping parades and put up affordable housing right slap bang in the centre of existing communities, close to shops and transport, instead of creating acres and acres of new build in the countryside surrounded by giant retail boxes. The current plan will only alienates rural inhabitants and create more ghettoes for the future.