Margaret Beckett

Chris Ames: Red faces over green towns

The British government has lost faith with eco-towns but is trying to save face By all accounts, Gordon Brown's eco-towns programme is very sick. Officially, the government is consulting on a draft Planning Policy Statement...

Bill Blanko: Party politics

And there's only one thing to do on a night off: party, of course. Among a stack of US election night party invitations landing on my desk in Red Top Towers in recent weeks, one, from the "UK Obama for President" campaign,...

Homebuilding plans are on shaky ground

Well it turns out the cynics (and, ahem, the Observer a couple of weeks ago) were right about ecotowns: Margaret Beckett admitted yesterday that Gordon Brown's commitment to build 10 of these model green communities is more a...

Alternative bid for eco-town plan

An alternative bid to build an eco-town in Oxfordshire has been announced after the government said plans for another site were unlikely to go ahead. Housing Minister Margaret Beckett said the plans for Weston Moor ranked low...

City region eco-town plan shelved

Officials are now looking at developing brownfield sites at four locations. Plans for an eco-town in the Leeds City region have been scrapped by government officials after a long-running struggle to find a suitable site....

Eco-town planning rules 'will circumvent local democracy'

New details of proposals to build a series of eco-towns prompted renewed debate over the controversial plans for the "green" settlements tonight. The publication of draft planning rules which will govern the eco-town scheme...

Most ecotown sites 'unsuitable', say experts

Just one of the 12 sites competing to become one of Gordon Brown's ecotowns is currently considered suitable by the government's green consultants.Experts say 10 more might make the grade with further work, but appear to have...

All Change in Britain too: Brown resuscitates the cold and the dead

Home Comment at end 3rd November, 2008 WHERE & WHEN IS BROWN’S RAISING FROM THE DEAD GOING TO STOP? In January, at the nadir of his unpopularity, I wrote a post here on “Brown & The Undead Government”. He then had an equally...

Paris Hilton and Richard Branson feature in this week's money news

It was a week in which the banks went to the appeal court over charges, self-assessment taxpayers without internet access got their paper work done and petrol and house prices both fell. And there were more signs of economic...

Tories: Government bury bad news on Home Information Packs

The Government’s flagship housing policy of Home Information Packs has been undermined by Whitehall’s own research, the Conservative Party has announced. On Friday afternoon, the Department for Communities & Local Government...