<p>Environment secretary David Miliband and housing and planning minister Yvette Cooper have announced a raft of initiatives aimed at promoting low carbon and carbon neutral housing developments. Cooper has commissioned a feasibility study into whether the Thames Gateway could be made a low carbon development area within the next decade. The study will look at how this can be achieved in a way that is “cost effective, supports the 120,000 new homes and 180,000 new jobs being delivered, and safeguards existing jobs and communities as well.” </p> <p>The ministers also set out their plans to use Building Regulations, the code for sustainable homes and a forthcoming planning policy statement on climate change to support the carbon reduction strategy in an address to the Green Alliance. The announcements have pre-empted the summer launch of a second phase of the design for manufacture competition, which will be run by English Partnerships on six new sites with the aim of creating “small scale eco-community developments.” </p> <p>Developers will be required to deliver either lowcarbon or carbon neutral affordable homes and government plans to use the demonstration cocommunity schemes to “provide the evidence base for it to raise the bar and set more challenging …