From the Guardian: Free bikes, no uPVC – green light for prince’s ecotown.

The first homes will come with a free bicycle, and giant wind turbines will power mandatory low-energy light bulbs. Welcome to Sherford, the Prince of Wales’s south Devon ecotown for 12,000 people, which has been granted planning permission.

Cars are likely to be banned from some areas and the sun’s rays will be harnessed to heat water in what the prince’s advisers believe will be the greenest new settlement in Britain.

Sherford has been designed in collaboration with a private development consortium including the Royal Bank of Scotland. Like Poundbury, the new town in Dorset which Charles started building on his Duchy of Cornwall land 10 years ago, the buildings are inspired by historic townscapes.

A Georgian-style high street modelled on the Wiltshire market town of Marlborough will become the backbone of the new community, to be built between now and 2020 on rolling farmland on the edge of Plymouth. [continue]