So those British eco-towns I wrote about yesterday might not be so fantastic after all. According to the British Green Party, these proposed villages will have a devastating impact on the environment. Politics.co.uk writes

Derek Wall, the party’s principle speaker, urged the government to concentrate on using empty existing properties instead.

“In England alone, there are almost 700,000 empty homes. We desperately need to see better use of empty privately owned property – through empowering local authorities to use empty property use orders, in appropriate cases and with proper safeguards and rights of appeal,” he said.

“In this way, the Green party would give priority to the maintenance and improvement of existing properties before new house building is considered. This should be the first step towards creating an affordable housing market.”

That is a fair and valuable critique. Working with the existing infrastructure to make it relevant and useful is far more important than abandoning it for the sake of something new. To read more about the Green Party’s stance on this proposal, go here.

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