Ministers have been forced to delay the timetable for implementing Gordon Brown’s eco-towns scheme, in the latest setback to the project. A shortlist of applicants due to be published in October will not come out until next year, it has emerged. In addition, there is evidence that ministers may be starting to row back from their target of 10 towns.The government had a long-list of 16 applicants, drawn up in April. Three of those dropped out but the Financial Times has established that three others – in Norfolk, north Yorkshire and near Cambridge – are facing difficulties. One more – in Rossington, south Yorkshire – has been reduced from 15,000 homes to just 5,000. In Coltishall, Norfolk, the government has just won permission to build a prison on the same site as the proposed eco-town.

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© The Financial Times Limited

20 August 2008