Labour’s Housing Minister Caroline Flint has set out the UK's toughest ever green standards for new housing.

Labour are committed to ensuring that only the best quality schemes, with very high sustainability standards, should qualify for eco-town status. The new standards are set to include:

* Achieving zero carbon status across all the town's buildings
* Allocating 40 per cent of land within the town to be green space, at least half of which should be open to the public as parks or recreation areas.
* Providing a minimum of 30 per cent affordable housing to provide more homes for social rent and assist those struggling to get on the housing ladder
* Creating more options for travel and reducing residents' reliance on cars.
* Ensuring a minimum of one job per house can be reached by sustainable transport
* Locating the average home within 10 minutes walk of frequent public transport and everyday neighbourhood services
* Raising the threshold for individual homes so that they must all achieve at least level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, which includes standards for household waste recycling, construction waste, water efficiency measures and reduced pollution

Labour’s Housing Minister Caroline Flint said:

"These would be the toughest standards ever set out for new development and demonstrate that there will be no compromise on quality with eco-towns.

"We need to build more homes in this country, but given that housing contributes 27 per cent of our carbon emissions we must also take this opportunity to trial new ways of tackling climate change. In both cases, doing nothing is not an option."

"Eco-towns will meet part of our housing need by creating attractive, new communities with all the facilities that people look for when choosing a place to live."