Prince Charles get go-ahead to build Britains greenest town

A free bicycle with every home and wind-generated electricity - welcome to Prince of Wales eco-town.

London, May 3 : A free bicycle with every home and wind-generated electricity - welcome to Prince of Wales' 'eco-town'.

Prince Charles has been granted permission to build Sherford, a brand new town for 12,000 people, in South Devon that is billed as Britain's greenest settlement.

The Prince's advisers have suggested that cars should be banned from some areas and three quarters of buildings fitted with solar power panels.

The ambience of the town will be traditionally English.

Also, there are plans for a cricket pitch and bowling green.

The Prince has said he wants to build places "we all know strike a chord in our, by now, rather bewildered hearts, however 'modern' we are - places that convey an everlasting human story of meaning and belonging".

The project is due to be completed by 2020 on the rolling farmland on the edge of Plymouth and planners intend half of all Sherford's energy to come from renewable sources on site. Wind turbines will loom over the town's 400-acre park.

"We try to design places that are timeless and will be as efficient and enduring in 100 years as they are today. Building something of our time can often mean we look back in 10 years and think, 'Oh my God, what were we thinking of?'" the Telegraph quoted Hank Dittmar, the chief executive of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, as saying.

"We have tried to study the past and its techniques and improve it," Dittmar added.

ANI