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How Eco-Towns can
Support Living within
Ecological Limits
The report recommends residential areas
should enjoy tree canopy cover of at least 25 per
cent to alleviate the impacts of climate change,
with 15 per cent canopy cover in mixed-use or
commercial areas.
Architects and developers are urged to set a
new trend by designing places which present
sociable and healthy alternatives to shopping
and improve quality of life.
Recreation provision should include great
parks and play spaces (including spaces
suitable for teenagers) and sports facilities and
green gyms (groups keeping fit while
maintaining open space). Consumer goods
account for 14 per cent of an individual’s
ecological footprint and the target should be to
halve the ecological impact of consumer goods
bought in eco-towns, whilst maintaining a
vibrant local economy. Measures to achieve
this might include greater repair and re-use
activity, swap shops and encouraging local
sustainable goods and services.
The report describes how eco-towns can
reduce carbon dioxide from driving - which
generates almost a quarter of an individual’s
carbon dioxide emissions - by 80 per cent.
This entails providing a good, frequent and
reliable low carbon public transport, and
supporting walking and cycling with a density
of 50-100 dwellings per hectare. A maximum of
one car parking space per household is
recommended. The report notes that
eco-towns should be as much about creating
employment and a local economy, as they are
about building homes. This will assist in
delivering the transport targets as well as
improving social and economic outcomes.
The report is inspired by the Government’s
eco-towns challenge panel. It draws on
BioRegional’s work on building sustainable
settlements and on CABE’s understanding of
what it takes to create workable and sustainable
places. The criteria recommended in it are a
contribution to the debate, they do not
represent an absolute or final statement of what
an eco-town should aim for.
Sue Riddlestone, Executive Director and
co-founder of the BioRegional Development
Group and an eco-towns challenge panel
member, said “We need to see trailblazing
‘Richard Simmons, Chief
projects worthy of the name eco-town.
Executive of CABE and an
Done well, these real-life projects should
advance industry best practice, inform
eco-towns challenge panel
government policy and show how we can
member, said: “If eco-towns are
reduce our impact to sustainable levels and
to have a fundamental purpose,
have an improved quality of life.”
CABE and BioRegional would like to see
it must be to show how we can all
these criteria by all new neighbourhoods or
live and work in well-designed, urban extensions, not just eco-towns.
low-carbon neighbourhoods’
157
See inside back cover for Reader Enquiry Card or go online: www.adfonline.eu
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