Six hundred new ‘green homes’ are set to be built as part of the UK’s largest ever environmental building project.
Housing Minister John Healey today announced his support for plans to build the eco-show homes in four new locations across the country. Part of a £60 million home building programme, the new homes will provide people with an opportunity to trail a new carbon neutral way of living. The four sites for the new eco-towns are identified as Whitehill-Bordon in Hampshire, St Austell in Cornwall, Rackheath in Norfolk and North West Bicester in Oxfordshire.
As part of the plans, by 2016, the Government hopes to see 10,000 new eco homes built in the four pioneering new towns.
The towns will become a showcase for trailing green technologies such as smart meters to track energy use, electric car charging points, properly insulated homes built to the toughest ever standards and systems for saving water and recycling or composting waste. Most of the eco-show homes will be available for sale so that hundreds of families can experience green living and get a feel for eco-homes of the future.
The funding will also improve existing transport links, including rapid routes for buses with real-time travel information, green travel hubs and facilities for electric cars and bikes. Pioneering new energy projects will be set up so that residents take their energy from natural sources.
The new towns could help build a working prototype for an electric car infrastructure and help showcase the viability of the vehicles, helping to extend on-street charging points beyond the current London focus.
Announcing the new funding, John Healey, said: "Last year I gave the go-ahead to the first wave of world-leading eco-towns that will set the global standard for green living while helping tackle climate change and the shortage of affordable homes.
"Since then these four areas have done a huge amount of work to plan new homes designed and built to the toughest ever environmental standards. Today I’m backing them with £60m to help get these projects off the ground.”
