Download There are two faces to FOE

Let me begin by saying that Saffron Walden Friends of the Earth is totally
opposed to the proposals to build a new town on the site to the north east of
Elsenham.
As a national organization Friends of the Earth supports the idea of developing
sustainable communities, but what does this mean? It should mean striving to
develop communities comprising energy efficient buildings, planned so as to
encourage energy-saving habits and, where new communities are created,
applying the principals of sustainability to the whole development process.
Ideally, in the case of new towns, they should be located close to existing urban
areas to benefit from good infrastructure and existing employment opportunities.
With this in mind, it is hard to see how the plans for the Elsenham Eco-town can
be made to be either eco-friendly or sustainable. In fact, I struggle to see how they
could be any worse.
So, from an environmental perspective, what’s so wrong with the Elsenham site?
To begin with, by building a new settlement on a Greenfield site we face the
removal of a valuable natural space. These are areas that we need to absorb
carbon dioxide from the air and to soak up the additional rainfall that will result as
our climate becomes warmer and wetter in the future. They also provide an
important haven for our native wildlife. The loss of such green spaces will cause
more environmental harm than good, no matter how eco the new town is.
From an infra-structure perspective, the Elsenham site is not a good example of
sustainability. We know that the infrastructure around here is already under
severe pressure – road, rail, utilities and amenities are all creaking at the seams. A
new town would take many years to develop self-sufficiency, if it achieved it at
all. What happens in the mean-time? Do we all hop into our cars and join a
snaking 5 mile queue of traffic winding its way into Stortford? Or maybe it would
be more fun to sit in the traffic jam on one of Fairfield’s nice new buses. To
achieve 50% local employment, the new town will need to attract businesses. But
what businesses are going to want to move here, when they can’t get their goods
and services in and out on the roads? I have chosen an example of the impacts of
poor road infrastructure, but could have spoken of drainage, sewerage,
electricity… The trouble is that in choosing a site within an area of already
stretched infrastructure, environmental problems are wprsened. Upgrading the
local infrastructure would lead to unacceptable harm to the environment, as would
leaving the problems unresolved.
So, again, no matter how eco- the town itself is, choosing Elsenham as the location
would lead to overall environmental harm.
On a slightly different note, if Stansted’s second runway is given the go ahead
then local levels of air pollution will increase. According to BAA’s own estimates
the Elsenham area will see concentrations of nitrogen oxides approaching levels at
which vegetation is harmed. In humans, levels of nitrogen oxide only a little
higher than this can cause respiratory and heart problems in vulnerable groups
such as the elderly and asthmatics. When BAA calculated its predicted pollutant
concentrations it did not include 5000 new homes, with the associated traffic and
emissions that these would generate. Start to build significant numbers of new
houses around here and we will be creating an area plagued by poor air quality,
poor health and poor environment, rather like the areas surrounding Heathrow.
This runs counter to any arguments on the sustainability of these proposals.
A final point: The government has chosen to rely on private developers to propose
locations for these eco-town projects which have at their heart the environmental
goal of sustainability and the social goal of affordable housing. Most developers
operate with an entirely different goal in mind – that of maximizing profits. By
leaving the developers to suggest suitable sites for eco-towns we are seeing
potential profits and not potential environmental or societal benefits as the key
factors in determining the alternatives put forward. The Fairfield Partnership’s
proposals for Elsenham provide a very good example of this. The excellent
ambition to discourage the use of the private car has been exploited and used as an
excuse for ignoring the fundamental and irredeemable shortcomings in the local
road network. This is an entirely cynical use of the eco-towns idea, and betrays
Fairfield’s lack of any real commitment to sustainability.
In summary then, Friends of the Earth rejects the Fairfield partnerships eco-town
proposals for Elsenham. They are unsustainable and will cause overall
environmental harm. I would also question the motives of the developer, and have
strong doubts over their commitment to sustainability. In this time of mounting
environmental crisis such cynical exploitation of the eco label is deplorable.
We will continue to lend our full support the Save Our Village campaign in its aim
of having these proposals abandoned.