A key government adviser on eco-towns told a Labour conference fringe event this week that only two or three of the plans were good enough to be developed.

Sunand Prasad, the president of the RIBA and a member of the eco-towns challenge panel set up by the communities department to check the quality of the developments, said all eco-towns needed to allow residents to live low-carbon lifestyles. He said: 鈥淚鈥檇 be very happy to see just two or three eco towns. Ten would definitely be too many on the evidence we have before us.鈥�

At last year鈥檚 Labour party conference, prime minister Gordon Brown pledged to build 10 eco-towns. In April the government shortlisted 15 locations, however a number of developers have since pulled out, and there has been much speculation that it will ultimately go forward with just two or three.

Responding to a question at the same fringe event, Iain Wright, the junior housing minister, said the government had not yet decided how many eco-towns there would be. He said: 鈥淭here is no set number in our minds. What we are doing is asking if they meet very strict criteria; it鈥檚 not a done deal at all.鈥�

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