Parliament and the public were misled on eco-town claims

Grant Shapps has accused the Government of "consigning local democracy to the scrapheap" after they published new rules that allow eco-town applications to be forced through regardless of local concerns.

Despite their original claims that eco-rowns were planned only for brownfield land, Labour Ministers have now admitted a number of sites were actually on greenfield locations.

The Shadow Housing Minister said that the rule change will allow Whitehall to force local councils to accept these "unsustainable" new developments.

Grant said, "It is no wonder that the Government has published the long-awaited small print on eco-towns on the day of the US elections. Labour Ministers have admitted that many of their so-called eco-towns will be built on green fields. Dumping a new housing estate on green space isn't eco-friendly by any meaning of the word.

And he added, "Conservatives have always said that we will lend our support to genuinely environmentally friendly housing schemes. But Gordon Brown’s so-called eco-towns have become an eco-con."