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SMALL details can scupper even the most ambitious plans, as the builders involved in John Prescott’s Millennium Communities Programme have discovered.

When the Deputy Prime Minister launched the challenging project to raise standards and promote environmental building in 1997, he could not have known that the developers would have to go all the way to Denmark for double-glazed windows made from slow-grown organic pinewood, nor that it would take four months for these superior windows to be delivered. Ordinary uPVC frames are usually on-site within two weeks.

But the criteria for taking part in the Millennium Communities Programme, an initiative intended to explore new ways of planning, designing and building homes, were deliberately exacting.

Developers had to create schemes that would be a model to builders and an inspiration to us all. They had to build environmentally sound homes of several sizes to attract a mix of people. There had to be green open spaces and wildlife areas. Transport, shops and services were to be a priority. Developers were also asked to give as much thought to pedestrians and cyclists as to drivers.

The aim was to show the building industry that it is possible to construct exemplary homes on difficult sites and to sell them successfully. Developers who made the grade were allocated brownfield land by English Partnerships (EP), the government quango in charge of the project. But, ten years down the line, how much impact have these policies had on mass-market builders? Has the Millennium Communities Programme fulfilled its noble objectives?

There are seven Millennium Communities being developed. The Greenwich Millennium Village in London was the first off the starting blocks, followed by schemes in Allerton Bywater near Leeds, New Islington in Manchester, King’s Lynn, Telford, Hastings and Milton Keynes. Crest Nicholson, Miller Homes, Taylor Woodrow and Urban Splash are some of the bigger developers involved.

Maureen Stephen, a sales adviser for Miller Homes at Allerton Bywater, says: “People come in and say: ‘About time too.’ They don’t want acres of tarmac and houses that are all the same.” Elsewhere, Morston Assets, the developer behind the scheme in King’s Lynn, has sold all 21 homes in the first phase of the project despite a slow local market. At New Islington, the uncompromisingly trendy Chips building by Urban Splash has been even more successful, with every home sold off-plan.

For the builder, the programme provides an opportunity to research new construction methods before legislation requiring all new homes to achieve a carbon-neutral rating comes into force in 2016. However, only 955 new homes have been completed across all seven Millennium Communities, with a further 995 under construction. But some 170,000 new homes are built every year in England, and if the latest report from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) is to be believed, many of these are soulless eyesores “built for nowhere but found everywhere”.

Jayne Lomas, the head of Millennium Communities, says: “The project has been criticised for its slow progress, but people don’t see what is going on behind the scenes.” She blames the delays on the slow process of planning consent, on cleaning up the brownest of brownfield sites (the Allerton Bywater and Telford developments are on former coalfields) and, indeed, on negotiating with the developers for the delays. Building work on most schemes did not start until well into the new millennium. The Milton Keynes project is the greatest laggard: the site was allocated in 2000, but work will begin only this year. Assuming that all goes to schedule, the six other projects should be finished between 2011 and 2014.

For those buying a home in these schemes, it may be worth the wait. A Millennium Communities property costs £3,000-£10,000 more to build than an average home, but EP absorbs most of this by subsidising the builders. In turn, developers have to plough profit over a certain amount back into the quango. With little incentive to make a killing, prices are competitive. Great for the buyer, but does it work for the business? Small margins may not be an issue for projects under English Partnerships: in the real world, the finances of eco-building are trickier.

Nick Smith, the marketing director at Taylor Woodrow, says: “Home buyers ask about greener homes and some people will pay extra, but rarely will that be enough to cover costs.” Smith says that Taylor Woodrow has adopted similar eco-strategies to those of the Millennium Communities only in developments where an appropriate premium can be charged.

However, the climate is changing, in all senses. Laws requiring builders to be greener are set to become more stringent, especially if Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister. After all, where did the idea of building zero-carbon homes come from? The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s PreBudget Report in December.

Builders should start sourcing their eco-friendly windows without delay.

GREENWICH

THE Millennium Village at Greenwich, southeast London, is the oldest and most distinguished sibling in John Prescott’s brood of seven precocious model communities, writes Lucy Alexander. The 325-acre site, a former gasworks, has won or reached the final stages of no fewer than 27 awards .Schools do projects on it, and foreign delegations come to study the “urban village” concept.

“We had Russians last week,” says Keith Lamey, of Taylor Woodrow, joint developer (with Countryside Properties), “and French mayors the week before that.”

Emerge from space-age North Greenwich Tube station and the impression is of a half-finished sci-fi film set – a windswept wasteland marked only by the eerie Dome and the hangars of the David Beckham Football Academy. Then one encounters the first buildings in what may one day be a real village: a jumble of red, green, blue, orange and yellow blocks around communal gardens, creating a jolly (if somewhat Toytown) effect. The surfaces of the blocks are further broken up by balconies, glass, terraces with pot plants, wood panelling and jutting arches. Its architect, Ralph Erskine, died last year – so the remaining three phases of building will be different again.

The waterfront site will boast 2,750 homes by 2014. Of those, 880 are finished and occupied, ranging from one-bedroom flats of 457 square feet with views over a nature reserve and the Thames Barrier to four-bedroom houses of 1,305 square feet with private gardens. One and two-bedroom flats are available from £280,000. Up to 35 per cent of the homes are for housing association tenants. Eventually shops, restaurants and cafés will surround a “village square”, and residents will have a car club, nursery, play areas and an ice-rink. Chichi central Greenwich is a 15-minute bus ride away.

The land is owned by English Partnerships (EP), which spent millions in public money on decontaminating the ground and building roads, parks, a cinema, supermarket, health centre and primary school. Taylor Woodrow, which has a 999-year lease, expected difficulties selling off-plan in 1999, when “there was no Jubilee Line, no Dome, no shops, just wasteland, but we priced them to sell and they sold like hot cakes”, says Lamey. John Prescott welcomed the first residents in December 2000. EP laid down tough criteria, with the aim, says Lamey, of “stretching the entire development industry”. A high standard of energy efficiency (an EcoHomes “Excellent” rating) has been achieved, and residents are consulted on future plans. Lamey says that meeting EP’s standards is expensive, but that he is happy to get a head start, as similar targets will become compulsory across the industry.

In the meantime workers in the City and Canary Wharf are competing to buy at Greenwich Millennium Village, and even the Dome is due for a revamp: from July it will be a music and sports arena, and a venue for the Olympic Games. Better than a casino any day. www.union-gmv.co.uk

HASTINGS

HASTINGS is the baby of the Millennium Community family. This seventh and final village is actually three sub-villages dotted across the hills and valleys of the pretty Sussex seaside town, writes Lucy Alexander. And Hastings Millennium Community differs from its big brothers in more than just its layout. For one thing, English Partnerships (EP) does not own the land and is undergoing a lengthy acquisition process. And Hastings, for all its pastel-coloured Regency townhouses, features in the 10 per cent most deprived areas of the country, according to government figures.

EP is preparing the land, a hilly mix of industrial and boarded-up residential, and is in negotiation with bidders for the development contracts. Building will begin later this year and homes will go on sale in 2008. The main site, Ore Valley, north of the town centre, will have up to 700 new homes for private buyers and social tenants, ranging from one-bedroom flats to three-bedroom houses, plus shops, offices, a further education college, health centre, public square and extensive green space. This will be followed by 120 flats at Station Plaza in the town centre and 100 waterfront flats at West Marina in neighbouring St Leonards. The flats, says Henry Kennedy-Skipton, of EP, will be “a decent size” (at least 500 sq ft for a one-bed-room), and all the houses will have gardens.

Transport is crucial. The Ore Valley is, in Kennedy-Skipton’s words, “not an inviting area”. A local railway station in the bottom of the valley has “a poor reputation for crime and is basically just a vandalised shelter”. EP will spruce up the station and will lobby for improved services from Hastings main station, from which a train to London Charing Cross takes an hour and 45 minutes, almost twice as long as the journey from London to Brighton. Improved bus links and cycle routes are also planned, but Kennedy-Skipton says that “we won’t attract London commuters unless the trains improve”. EP is encouraging first-time buyers by offering to pay 15 per cent of the purchase price – a share that EP retains and will recoup on sale.

As a sign of commitment to the Ore Valley, EP has funded the building of The Bridge, a community centre and crèche that also serves as a model for some of the eco-friendly methods to be employed in the residential homes, such as using wool from local lambs for insulation, which is described as “expensive but effective”. www.englishpartnerships.co.uk/hastings

GRAND UNION VILLAGE

ONE aim of the Millennium Communities plan was to show property developers that they could build good homes on unattractive urban sites and still turn a profit, writes Lucy Alexander. Taylor Woodrow, which is involved in the Communities at Greenwich and Telford, has indeed applied lessons learnt on these projects to ordinary developments: the company is converting the canal-side site of its former construction yard in Northolt, a run-down part of northwest London, to 950 homes, to be known as Grand Union Village.

Using a consultation method honed at Greenwich, Taylor Woodrow invited the neighbours round in 2001 and produced a master plan. It then set up residents’ working groups to discuss issues such as social facilities and transport: this paid “fantastic dividends”, says Keith Lamey, director of planning and regeneration.

So far, 550 homes have been built on the site, which had been in industrial use since 1942 and required serious decontamination. The properties range from one-bedroom flats starting at £170,000 to five-bedroom houses costing from £420,000. As at Greenwich, the flats have communal gardens and roof terraces and the houses have private gardens. The design is much plainer than Greenwich, but is still varied and pleasing to the eye.

Eco-measures are in place, but the cost of meeting the most advanced standards are prohibitive for most developments. The homes at Grand Union Village are one step below the EcoHomes “Excellent” standard achieved at Greenwich, which is described by Lamey as “a research and development exercise . . . Not every site can fulfil that function. Most developments have to have good business through-put.”

Other ideas from Greenwich include a car club and the provision of green spaces, shops and schools to give the community a heart. Taylor Woodrow has created a 20-acre park, built a one-acre basin in the canal for pleasure-boat moorings and spent £2.7 million on expanding a local school. The site will have two shops, a crèche with 75 places, a health centre, gym, restaurant and community police station.

“There is extra expense involved in a project like this, but we are making decent returns and the units are selling well off-plan,” says Lamey. “Ealing Council is looking at Grand Union Village as a model. The area still has some grim estates and we want to be a catalyst for change.” www.bryant.co.uk/grandunionvillage/index.htm

Is modern architecture unfairly reviled? Join the debate and send your photos of the good and the bad to: property@timesonline.co.uk

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