Who remembers eco-towns?

I've done a piece for Inside Housing asking whether Gordon Brown's grand project for eco-towns will come to anything. An announcement is (sort of) promised next month, but don't hold your breath...

More eco-towns spin

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that an advert in support of an eco-town scheme was potentially misleading, in that it made four claims that it could not substantiate.

Look out for state funded PR

I've done a piece for Comment is Free today on the eco-towns story.

One of the issues I've mentioned is the tendency for the government to give money to campaigning or "third sector" organisations, which then engage in positive PR in support of their policies.

In this case the Town and Country Planning Association has been very quick to issue a press release supporting a draft policy planning statement on which the department for Communities and Local Government is supposedly consulting. As I say:

There is no suggestion of a conflict of interest here, as long as you accept that TCPA is paid to support the government policy and treat its pronouncements accordingly. It just doesn't seem right that the government's allies are trying to influence a formal consultation process before anyone else has seen the documents.

A good day to bury eco-towns

I've done a piece for the Indy's Open House today, suggesting that the government is using the cover of the US election to back away from Gordon Brown's promise to build ten eco-towns, which in any case may not be quite as green as is claimed.

No news is...

The department for Communities and Local Government has told me that its announcement on eco-towns, promised in September, will not happen today or even this week. See previous post

I've done a piece on this for the Indy's Open House. It also covers yesterday's launch of a "coalition" in favour of eco-towns, which bombed.

Don't mention the eco-towns

A promise to build ten eco-towns (up from five) was a highlight of Gordon Brown's speech to last year's Labour conference.

This year Brown said not one word about them, neither did Hazel Blears. The only minister to say a word about them was housing minister Caroline Flint, who said this in a little reported speech:

we will rise to the challenge of climate change, creating greener homes for all including 21st Century Eco Towns.

More on the eco-towns non-announcement

Further to my earlier piece about the government not meeting a promise to publish key documents on eco-towns this month, neither opponents nor proponents are surprised. From both directions, it's seen as fairly typical. One developer said, "no surprise there then", while BARD says:

“If true, this latest delay comes as no surprise whatsoever. The whole process seems to mutate from stage to stage as it goes along, lending just further weight to the argument that the process has been flawed from the start. We have written to the Government to ask them to comply with the judge’s Order to offer up the various documentation on which they relied to compile their shortlist. We have also suggested they bring a halt the process until such time as the Judicial Review has been heard and determined. ”

Eco-town decision delayed

It looks as if the government's department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) is going to be late with another of its headline announcements, this time on eco-towns.

CLG had promised to publish two key papers this month, a draft planning policy statement and a sustainability assessment of the remaining eco-town bids. But a source has told me that they will not be published until early October - after the Conservative conference - at the earliest. A CLG spokesman has told me that "we have no date for the announcement but it will be at some stage in the coming few weeks", which translates as don't hold your breath.

My source suggests that the delay is caused by a desire to make the papers as robust as possible, given the threat of court challenges. Last week, the BARD campaign won the right to take the whole eco-town process to judicial review.

The "September" announcement has already been downgraded after it became clear that the actual selection of eco-town bids will not happen until early next year - or is that sometime next year?

Greywash

I've been researching eco-towns for a couple of articles and have tracked down a copy of the order made by Mr Justice Collins, allowing a judicial review of the government's programme. The review was brought by the BARD group, which was set up to make sure that an eco-town is not built in its green and pleasant backyard of Warwickshire/Worcestershire.

It's clear that all the news stories were based on BARD's press release, of which an MS Word version includes Collins' statement. The Telegraph is perhaps most guilty of muddying the waters.

Hazel Blears 'biased' over eco-town decisions

The Government's eco-town programme faced a fresh blow last night after a judge warned that the minister charged with deciding whether projects should be built could be seen as "biased" in favour of the controversial developments.

The problem is that Collins said that there must be concern that Blears (Secretary of State at the Department of Communities and Local Government) may have disqualified herself from considering any planning application for an eco town because of perceived bias in favour. The story is conflating the current process of selecting of eco-towns with the possibility that Blears may in future have to rule on a planning application, which is initially the job of local councils.