Eco-town bid submitted

The company behind an ambitious scheme to create at least 5,000 homes in a self-sustained community at Shipton Quarry has bid to become one of the ten eco-towns that Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he wants to see built.

As the deadline for bids arrived on Wednesday, it emerged that the Shipton Quarry eco-town proposal is one of only about 30 schemes to have been submitted to the Government.

Kilbride Properties, the company behind the plan, says it is hopeful of meeting conditions set out in a Government prospectus for new settlements required "to achieve zero carbon development and more sustainable living".

The Shipton Quarry scheme shows schools, shops, sports facilities, businesses, a new rail station, a park-and-ride site, marina and nature reserve.

Kilbride believes a scheme to transform a former cement works between Woodstock and Bicester into a thriving community is in tune with Government calls for sites with "separate and distinct identity but good links to surrounding towns and cities in terms of jobs, transport and services".

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said the submitted schemes would be examined by the Department of Transport and Department of the Environment. A shortlist would later be drawn up after consultation with local councils.

The Government says ten eco-towns will be built in two phases, the first five by 2016 and second five by 2020.

Kilbride's Patrick Kearon said: "The Government invited schemes for eco-towns. This is our opportunity to say we are here. The Government says it wants to re-use brownfield sites. We are putting forward a brownfield site on a railway line."

A presentation will shortly be made to Oxford City Council, with many councillors already convinced that the proposed urban extension south of Oxford, off Grenoble Road, creating 4,000 homes, will not be sufficient to combat the city's chronic housing shortage.

A recent report by planning inspectors on housing numbers in the South East expressed little enthusiasm for thousands of homes at Shipton Quarry, arguing that it would exacerbate existing traffic problems.

But eco-towns are known to be the brainchild of the Prime Minister, who sees them as a way to balance increased housebuilding with the needs of the environment.

In his recent speech to the Labour Party conference, he announced that the number of eco-towns would be doubled to ten.

City council executive member for improving housing, Patrick Murray, said that the Government had also signalled that money would be made available for infrastructure, after a review of Government bodies distributing money.

He said: "Whereas before it would have been difficult to get a railway station at Shipton Quarry, it may now be possible. The big problem has always been infrastructure. Some of the obstacles have been removed. Shipton is a potentially interesting site. It is a large site that would go some way to easing the current crisis."

Housing and Planning Minister Yvette Cooper this week sought to give Government eco-plans new momentum by launching a separate competition for architects and landscape designers.

They are being urged to come up with ideas and designs for ten eco-towns.

She said: "We need to deliver the best eco-towns for the sake of the planet and the next generation. However, we don't want each town to be the same, but to instead reflect the history, aspirations and character of each area. This is why it is crucial that we involve local people."

But Andy Boddington, Oxfordshire campaign manager for the Campaign to Protect Rural England, expressed grave concerns about the Shipton Quarry as a site.

He said: "The greatest problem is traffic. The surrounding roads are already clogged. Having thousands of people travelling to and from there, with a large park-and-ride would make the situation far worse. There is no infrastructure for it."

An intervention by the head of the regeneration quango, English Partnerships, raised the intriguing prospect of the Grenoble Road development becoming an eco-town.

Baroness Margaret Ford said eco-town status and funding should be made available to smaller developments, connected to existing settlements. She said that she had encouraged councils to bid for eco-town status for developments that don't fit the Government definition.

The Baroness said: "I've had people come to me and say, 'we don't think we can have 20,000 people. We've got maybe 5,000'. I've encouraged that. We may find there's a different way of skinning a cat." She said smaller eco-developments could receive eco-development funding "alongside the free-standing propositions that come forward".

Charles Young, the senior bursar of Magdalen College, which jointly owns the Grenoble Road site, said: "This is a fast-moving area. Clearly we would have to conform with whatever the standards and requirements are at the time when planning permission were granted."