ASA Adjudication on Department for Communities and Local Government

Ad

A regional press ad, for a Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) consultation, invited people to give their views on eco-towns. The ad stated "An eco-town near you? Curborough, Staffordshire, where a bid has been made for 5,000 homes on the brownfield site of the former Fradley airfield."

Issue

Fradley Against Curborough Town (FACT), Lichfield District Council (LDC) and a member of public objected that ad was misleading, because it implied:

1. that the entire development would be on brownfield land, whereas they believed most of the site was greenfield, and

2. that the development would be located on an old airfield, whereas they believed the majority of the airfield was already covered by a business park.

3. LDC further objected that the claim "affordable - up to half of the new homes will be priced so that first-time buyers and families can afford to buy them" was misleading, because they believed the actual proportion of affordable housing had not yet been determined.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. & 2. DCLG said the Curborough eco-town proposal was made by The Curborough Consortium.  They pointed out that the ad was intended to promote a public consultation on the proposal and encourage interested parties to offer their views. DCLG said, as part of the first stage of their consultation, the proposed location for the eco-town at Curborough was set out in the consultation document 'Eco-towns - Living a greener future'. The document stated "The eco-town proposal is for a 314ha site, 7 km NE of Lichfield, part of former Fradley airfield and is 15km from Burton and 35km from Birmingham. Two existing residential communities lie to north and east - Fradley Village and South Fradley. A brownfield site with hardstanding and old airfield buildings".  DCLG acknowledged that the documentation was factually inaccurate and the majority of the proposed site was on greenfield land and only partly on the site of the former Fradley airfield. They believed an error had been made in preparing the consultation document, which was repeated in the subsequent ad. They therefore accepted that the ad was unintentionally inaccurate but maintained that there had been no deliberate attempt to mislead.

3. DCLG said the Government had consistently made clear that all eco-town proposals, including Curborough, will need to offer 'affordable housing' at between 30% and 50% of the total housing stock built. They said it was for bidders to decide what final proportion of 'affordable housing' would form part of their bid, within the set parameters. DCLG maintained that stating that 'up to half' of homes will be 'affordable' was a factual statement and in no way misleading.  They pointed out that the use of the words 'up to'  signalled that final decision was yet to be taken and believed that the statement did not imply that half of homes would be 'affordable homes' in every eco-town proposal.

Assessment

1. & 2. Upheld

The ASA noted DCLG acknowledged the factual inaccuracy in the ad. Because we understood the proposed eco-town would be built only partly on the brown field land of an old airfield, we concluded that the claims were likely to mislead.

On these points, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

3. Not upheld

We noted the Government had stipulated that between 30% and 50% of houses in eco-town developments should be classed as 'affordable housing'. We noted the exact proportion for the Curborough development had not yet been determined. We considered, however, that the use of the phrase 'up to' made clear to readers that the percentage of affordable homes at the prospective Curborough site was variable and was unlikely to lead readers to believe that a specific proportion had been determined at the time the ad appeared. We concluded that the claim was unlikely to mislead.

On this point, we investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

Action

On points 1 & 2, we welcomed DCLGs acknowledgement of the error they made and told them to ensure that the claims did not appear again.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)