For the next 18 months the Barratt ecovillage will be a giant laboratory for scientists from the University of Manchester who will assess the merits and drawbacks of various technologies. Their aim is to establish which, if any, could feasibly be rolled out on a mass scale by Barratt, Britain’s second largest volume builder.

The scientists will be testing wind turbines, photovoltaic roof panels, geothermal energy, rainwater harvesting and domestic power generators. Other measures up for inspection include the predictable double-glazing, roof and wall insulation, underfloor heating, energy-efficient appliances and water-saving lavatory cisterns.

All this eco-wizardry has been installed in standard homes. As David Pretty, group chief executive, points out, the eco-properties “are not arty-farty houses . . . We could have built really futuristic designs, but we were keen to show that environmental measures can be accommodated in the kind of conventional housing still favoured by most British homebuyers”.

Experts already predict that harmful carbon emissions from the seven homes could be reduced by more than 16 tonnes a year and annual fuel bills cut by up to a third. Barratt builds almost 15,000 new homes a year, so the cut in carbon emissions from Barratt homes alone could be important if all future homes adopted these technologies. That is the debatable theory, anyway.

But green technology is not the only thing being tested at Chorley. The scheme, which is part of Buckshaw Village, a £400 million new development on 395 acres of former Ministry of Defence land, is open to the public, who will be monitored as closely as the electricity meters under the stairs. What Barratt really needs to know is whether homebuyers will be prepared to pay the price of going green. None of the new technology being tested is cheap.

According to Barratt, it costs £7,800 to buy and install geothermal technology in an average two or three-bedroom Barratt home. The cost of solar PV panels in the same property is £4,800, and a simple wind turbine can set you back between £1,500 and £2,250.

These hefty sums make up a significant proportion of the cost of homes at the lower end of the market in which Barratt chiefly operates.

At the eco-village in Chorley, the homes come in seven different designs — the same ones being sold elsewhere in the vast Buckshaw development. The results of plotting the cost of the green technologies against the asking prices on the scheme are staggering.

For example, three-bedroom Palmerston semi-detached houses are selling for £157,050. At the EcoSmart village the same property with green technology would cost an extra £15,600, almost 10 per cent more, if Barratt chooses to pass on the full cost of buying and installing all the eco-gadgets. By comparison, potential annual savings on the utility bill add up to £271. So the homeowners would have to live there for 57 years simply to get their money back, never mind making a saving.

Can Barratt make it work? All buyers want more for less, but at the lower end of the market builders must be seen to deliver even greater value for money. The Barratt homes at Buckshaw have been designed to cram in as many rooms as possible into every square inch of available space. The design is so much of a squeeze that, to maximise the feel of the space, none of the show homes in the village has internal doors.

Buyers in this market are perhaps not the sort of people prepared to spend £2,000 on rainwater harvesting to save £60 on their annual utility bill. The sums do not add up.

But perhaps Barratt is seeking to impress a different audience. Mr Pretty makes no bones about promising to give the Government the results of this research while asking to buy land at 25 per cent below its market value. EcoSmart is an experiment on many levels. And one which will also be testing the Government’s good will.

www.barratthomes.co.uk/ecosmart

Times recommends

• Fall in house sales hits builders, estate agents and mortgage brokers
• Why the property credit crunch favours cash buyers
• The blood-curdling history of Quarrelwood House