by Michael Smith
The Department for Communities and Local Government has been rapped over the knuckles by the advertising watchdog for misleading claims that a proposed eco-town in Staffordshire would be built on brownfield land.
Now who would have thought that about our government agencies doing that with regards to eco-towns? How much else then is a lie about those eco-towns?
An advert put out by the DCLG inviting the public to share their views on the proposal suggested that the entire development would be built on a brownfield site, while the truth is that the greatest part of the site would be built on greenfield land adjacent to the formerly-developed site, an old airfield.
The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint about the advert made by Lichfield District Council and a local pressure group, which is opposed to the eco-town.
The advert read "An eco-town near you? Curborough, Staffordshire where a bid has been made for 5,000 homes on the brownfield site of the former Fradley airfield."
DCLG accepted that the advert was inaccurate and said that the error had been made because it was based on information from a former consultation document, itself also inaccurate, which suggested the entire development would be built on existing hard standing at the airfield.
It said there had been no deliberate attempt to mislead and agreed not to publish the claims again.
What a lame excuse by the government department in question. No no deliberate attempt to mislead had been made and someone else is obviously at fault. I am afraid that my bullshit meter here is going well off the scale.
The way things appear more and more, to me at least, is that there are lots of lies being circulated from this government – and no, I do not think that a Tory or Lid-Dem government would be any more transparent and honest – as to this and that with regards to the environmental projects, such as those eco-towns that no one, but the government, wants and that are not the answer at all.
We need to green existing villages, towns and cities and NOT build eco-towns in the middle of the countryside. If we want to build anything like that and use old airfields then, please, use just that land only and nothing else. Maybe 2,500 homes instead of 5,000. That still would make an eco-village, and why not?
But this government knows it needs to build more homes and the eco-towns, initially claimed they were going to be counted in that number, are now going to be included in it and hence they need to be pushed forward regardless. This is total and utter stupidity. Not that we have come to expect much else form our governments.
I will say it again, just in case it might thus sink into the heads of those who make decisions: what we need is not new eco-towns but to make our existing villages, towns and cities “greener” and sustainable. It can be done. In fact it is being done in other countries. Here we are, as per usual, harnessing the horse the wrong way onto the cart. Surprise? Not really. When it takes a government extremely expensive studies to discover that wood can be burned and that inland water ways and canals can be used to carry freight, in the latter case they were initially built for that very purpose, then what can one expect.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Govt over-states eco-town's green credentials
