Until the 2010 general election, one of the cornerstone proposals of UK housing policy was the creation of “eco-towns”, pioneered by then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. His push for a new, environmentally conscious type of conurbation has been reinforced by official insistence that new-build flats and houses also incorporate a wide range of energy-saving, carbon neutral technologies. Taken together, these policies represent a new approach to meeting Britain’s housing needs.

In a country where the volume of new-build housing is at best insubstantial, all this seems like a welcome development. Britain is still a long way off completing the estimated five million new homes needed by 2010, but optimistic estimates suggest that eco-towns can make a dent in this target. Central government support for these proposals remained strong right up until the formation of a new Parliament.

On a more administrative level, local projects are often nudged into accepting “green” technologies as a consequence of the planning process. Developers face an expanded range of technical stipulations when applying for planning permission, with energy efficiency and carbon neutrality as key objectives. In its intentions, it seems the planning system wants to make every future home into an eco-home.

Yet public support for such projects is often limited. Ever since the 1969 Skeffington Report, planning decisions require local consultation. Effectively, this meant that well-organised NIMBYs – the “not in my back yard” brigade – can block new homes at will, even eco-homes. According to construction consultant James Heartfield, “this policy is designed to square the circle of a commitment to defending the countryside against expansion, while also getting new homes built. Of course, the policy is all things to all people, which is the same as being nothing at all.”

In contrast, supporters of eco-homes argue that skeptics like Heartfield are helping to destroy the planet. This can be seen from the response to pundit Germaine Greer, who wrote in The Guardian newspaper of her constructive criticism of eco-homes, apparently prompting a sack of hate-mail from environmentalists. Greer’s article claimed that Gordon Brown’s eco-towns would need innovative design – specifically moveable solar panels – if they are not to be environmentally catastrophic and useless to their inhabitants. “My view of vernacular architecture is that it is a thing of the past – often lovely to look at, terrible to live in,” she claimed (11 August 2008). Hostility to Greer demonstrates the way that eco-towns invite public divisions, along the lines of existing beliefs and local loyalties.

Twelve years ago the Urban Task Force decreed that only land that was already built on – ‘brownfield’ rather than ‘greenfield’ land – should be developed. Following the logic of this, opponents of eco-towns, who often live in adjoining properties, are quick to redefine the sites of new developments as being in the countryside, regardless of the land’s previous function. Such arguments may decide the fate of Pennbury, a proposed settlement in Leicestershire built on land formerly owned by the Co-operative Society.

One step down from the creation of green towns is the installation of green technologies in individual new-build properties. Anecdotally, the results so far seem uneven, with residents reporting unreliable services and considerable inconvenience. A trip to Oakhurst Court (now renamed)  – an “affordable housing” settlement built on the site of a former timber yard in northeast London five years ago – shows how some of these projects are shaping up. The Court was marketed in ways which made much of its environmental credentials. In one corner of the L-shaped estate was an electricity generation wind turbine, while solar panels adorn the sloping roofs. In turn, each panel is linked to a water tank, underwriting the promise of free hot water, warmed by the sun.

Here the problems began – as more or less conceded by the developers within months of handing over the last set of keys. First of all the wind turbine was dismantled, allegedly because it presented a safety hazard when faced with, er, high winds. It did not last long enough to assess its real ability to supplement residents’ electricity supplies, let alone sell power back to the National Grid. Once the British winter got under way, the solar panels fared little better than the turbine. Before long workmen were going door to door, installing timer switches to the “emergency only” immersion heaters. This allowed residents to bathe and shower without having to rely on adequate supplies of sunshine breaking through the clouds all year round.

In fairness to Oakhurst Court, the causes of some of the residents’ problems are far from technical. The “mixed use” aspect of the development eventually filled the set aside “key worker” flats with actual owners, some of whom subsequently moved house as part of their jobs. Meanwhile neighbouring properties were purchased by buy-to-let landlords, leading to high turnover in tenancies. The promise of community has proved elusive, meaning that the luxuriant, grassy play area is not the site of countless barbecues and get-togethers, but instead a “Panopticon yard” and peeper’s paradise. Communities seldom form spontaneously, but even the diluted eco-housing of a place like Oakhurst Court throws up artificial barriers to neighbours really getting to know each other.

In microcosm, the Oakhurst Court experience tends to confirm the wider lack of support for the concept of eco-housing. Residents tend to find the eco-measures inconvenient and time-wasting, whereas the true believers committed to the concept will accept the nuisance associated with these measures. The future residents of eco-towns will tend to be a self-selecting bunch, willing to tolerate the petty inconveniences that will be built into these projects – if they get built at all.

About the author

Graham Barnfield is Programme Leader for BA Journalism at the University of East London. He is a domain editor for Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture and a Fellow of the Wolfsonian-FIU. With Philip Hammond, he co-edited the 2011 Journal of War and Culture Studies special edition on the Global War on Terror in News and Popular Culture.

This article was compiled by Rob Hubbard of Walker Fox Ltd.

Walker Fox Ltd are Commercial Management & Property Consultants who act for property investor clients in and around Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

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