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TCPA publishes eco-town biodiversity guide
03/12/09
Edited by Sophie Griffiths. The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has published new guidance outlining the "essential steps" for ensuring that the design, development and long-term management of eco-towns protect and promote biodiversity.
Launched at the association's annual Social Justice, Climate Change and Planning conference, the Eco-towns Biodiversity worksheet has been developed in partnership with conservation body Natural England.
The guidance says the principal objectives for biodiversity strategy must be to protect existing habitats and to mitigate the impact of development on the local environment by making compensatory measures that produce a "net biodiversity gain".
Conservation should therefore be a key element of eco-town masterplans and designs for residential property in these developments should incorporate measures such as living roofs, nesting sites and hard landscaping including the planting of trees.
TCPA chief executive Gideon Amos OBE said a century after the UK's first planning act, the new guidance sets the standards for the eco-towns of the future.
"In the build-up to the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, it's right to focus on how low carbon communities can also support rich and developing levels of biodiversity," he added.
On Tuesday (December 1st), housing minister John Healey announced that nine sites had applied to become part of the second wave of eco-town developments.
