Policy to reality: evaluating the evidence trajectory for English eco-towns

Abstract

Can evidence reconcile idealized policy formation processes with the messy reality of large-scale sustainable projects? Was the main driver of the UK eco-towns project the national housing need or a local version of sustainability? To answer, this paper traces the progress of the eco-town policy: from a government-funded initiative to start a cohort of new towns, via the first pilot sites, to the delivery of a single eco-town. It maps the national policy intent, which incorporated industry and academic expertise into a strategic policy vision. Then the local interpretation of this generic eco-town definition is reviewed, along with how the authoritative knowledge on innovative eco-planning is distilled into guidance. By revisiting the original eco-town objectives, comparing them with the recently published garden cities prospectus, the limitations for intra-national implementation of national policy frameworks are considered, asking whether any lessons have been incorporated in the current round of policy formation. The success or failure of such policy implementation is found to be more of a socio-political exercise than an empirical or rationalist process. The eco-towns were less an attempt to establish new forms of sustainable habitations than a political attempt to use eco-planning to justify new large-scale housing settlements.

Keywords:

• built environment
• eco-town
• garden cities
• policy design
• policy evaluation
• policy formation
• public policy
• sustainable development

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments made by the participants at the University of Westminster's Eco-Cities Seminar, February 2012 and at the American Association of Geographers conference session, Contesting Models of Ecological Urban Living: Eco-cities and Beyond, April 2013, with particular thanks to Duncan Bowie, University of Westminster, Nicole Lazarus, BioRegional, and Edward Hobson, Innovate UK, for their comments and advice on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2015.1012821

Notes

1 See Stone's (2004) traditional view of policy transfer which described a ‘free market’ for policy, where supply and demand actors exchange and select policies based on expected excellence of performance. This market view accentuates successful transfers, emphasizing replicability based on perceived similarities, or generic criteria, as part of the process of deriving ‘best practice' or ‘lessons learnt’ to be repeated where similar conditions are believed to occur. Underlying this is the suggestion of the decay of ideas as successful ‘exemplar’ cities transfer policy and ideas to ‘lesser’ cities in an imperfect process of reproduction (Healey, 2010).

2 The key lesson from the literature on international eco-towns is the significance of the local context – responding to local municipalities' existing governance structures, funding models that can reflect existing land ownership patterns and sustained local leadership creating characterful places with a strong identity. This is achieved not top down by ‘imposing an unwanted burden' but by involving the whole community in deciding on the kind of place in which they want to live and physically and spatially providing settlements that work within the local infrastructure network (HCA, 2009, p. 16). A key priority of the Northern European eco-schemes was to equip local organizations and authorities with the skills to deliver better quality housing more rapidly than in the UK (PRP et al., 2008).

3 Interviewees of varying seniority were identified to cover a breadth of disciplines and viewpoints. Selection targeted those who actively provided strategic and practical advice to schemes, for example the project managers for Bicester and Whitehill Borden eco-town projects who made the procurement decisions, the civil servant who drafted the policy documents and guidance, or the design advisor who ran and selected participants for the review panels. Access was aided by the author's professional experience working on the fringes of the initial eco-towns policy development, and by the opportunity to talk with and observe colleagues working on eco-towns. I do not claim to have taken either a particularly objective or an immersive ethnographic approach. However, in endeavouring to construct a theoretical framework and interpretation of the activities and techniques that were part of the shared day-to-day practice, interviewees have commented that the interviews provided an unusual opportunity to reflect on the nature of the process in addition to recording its trajectory and outcomes. The research provided space to articulate what they had learnt, and how they have subsequently extracted value from the experience; with the interview process itself considered another effective mechanism to translate and communicate policy.

4 Hansard reports are the official, daily printed record of discussions and votes in both chambers of Parliament, select committees, written statements and written answers to parliamentary questions.

5 This can be seen as a crude, informal version of the  actor-network theory (ANT) network approach used by Rydin (2013) to map the relationships between individuals involved in the planning and regulation of a low carbon office building.

6 The reappearance of the term ‘sequential' demonstrated the usefulness of careful textual analysis of policy documents to identify ‘the linguistic strategies that are deployed by key actors to shape policy' (Fairclough, 1992, p. 41). The latest garden cities prospectus refers to garden cities as offering ‘a more strategic and thoughtful alternative to sequential development (or “sprawl”)' (DCLG, 2014, para. 2, added emphasis). This opening line conflating successive phases of housing expansion with sprawl may follow a vernacular usage of the term but contradicts the commonly held professional interpretation of ‘sequential planning' which was summarized in PPG3 as a local authority's presumption that previously developed sites should be developed before greenfield sites (Adams & Leishman, 2009).

7 The DCLG official and Eco-town delivery partners interviewed repeatedly mentioned ‘applying learning from abroad', but when pressed further named the same handful of schemes visited.

8 A Section 106 agreement is the planning obligation contractually agreed between the local authority and developers of a site. Planning permission granted is subject to Section 106 obligations, which can dictate the nature of the development (for example, the amount of affordable housing), compensate for loss or damage (for example, loss of open space) or mitigate the impact of the scheme (for example, by increasing public transport provision).

9 An acronym meaning ‘Not In My Back Yard' is used to refer to objectors to new development which may affect their personal interests.

10 Interview with Whitehill Bordon, Eco-house retrofit project manager, 2012.

11 Interview with the North West Bicester sustainability partner, 2012.

12 ‘Nine Garden City principles: Land value capture for the benefit of the community; Strong vision, leadership and community engagement; Long-term stewardship; Mixed tenure homes and housing types that are genuinely affordable for everyone; A wide range of local jobs in the Garden City within easy commuting distance for everyone; Beautifully and imaginatively designed homes with gardens, combining the best of town and country to create healthy, vibrant communities; Strong cultural, recreational and shopping facilities in walkable, vibrant, sociable neighbourhoods; Development that enhances the natural environment, providing net biodiversity gains and using zero-carbon and energy-positive technology to ensure climate resilience; Integrated and accessible transport systems, with walking, cycling and public transport designed to be the most attractive forms of local transport' (TCPA, 2014b, p. 3).

13 The Lyons Review was an independent review of housing undertaken by Sir Michel Lyons (and other commissioners) for the Labour Party. The report, published in October 2014, identifies key barriers to housing supply, setting out a strategy and the reforms required to transform the housing building industry to enable them to deliver at least 200,000 new homes per year by 2020.

14 Interview with a DCLG policy-maker, 2013.