Alison Benjamin at Guardian Unlimited, Friday December 14 2007

Britain's biggest housebuilder is to build England's first eco-village, the housing and planning minister, Yvette Cooper, announced today.

Barratt has won the bid to create a new community at the site of the former Hanham Hall hospital near Bristol, which has been commissioned by the government's national regeneration agency, English Partnerships.

The village is expected to be built in three years' time, ahead of the government's 2016 target, when it wants all new homes to be zero carbon. The onsite biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plant will deliver energy to all 200 homes.

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