Would you forgo the sunny fairways of Spain and Portugal to reduce your carbon footprint and tee off in Devon instead? Greg Dyke, former director-general of the BBC and unlikely eco-evangelist, is hoping his new venture will encourage you to do just that.

Dyke, 60, whose property interests already include the Lambourne Golf Club, in Buckinghamshire, is developing 19 ecofriendly cottages on the edge of the Championship course at the Dartmouth Golf & Country Club.

For this project, Dartmouth Green, the broadcaster turned developer has insisted that the cottages are built using sustainable technologies. “It’s my obsession,” Dyke says. “Given what we know about global warming, my view is that, if you develop new properties, you have an obligation to do what you can.”

The properties at the village will all have ground-source heat pumps, which should reduce fuel costs to a fraction of those in more traditional homes. Dyke has also installed a heat pump under the football pitch in the grounds of his own Hampshire home.

Owners of the two, three-and four-bedroom cottages – which range in price from £325,000 to £525,000 – will gain membership of the golf and country club, with its health spa, swimming pool and tennis courts, and enjoy shared use of three boats, kept five miles away at Dittisham, on the River Dart. Local stone, slate and thatch will be used to build the properties – which are intended as holiday homes.

Further west, another, larger golf resort is being built.

Bob Tomlinson, 51, has several eco-village projects across the country, but now he and his girlfriend, Carole Salmon, also 51, are entering the holiday-homes market, offering a “low-carbon” alternative to foreign trips.

As part of the biggest investment in Cornwall since the Eden Project, their company, Living Villages, is creating three villages of 217 holiday homes alongside the European Tour golf course at St Mellion, in Saltash. From next year, the course will host the English Open.

The couple hope that the development will have a “socially sustainable” design that encourages residents “to interact and form real communities”. The first village, West Wollaton, which comprises 66 flats and houses, should be complete by December, with prices ranging from £223,250 for a two-bedroom flat to £464,000 for a four-bedroom house.

The designers have studied the layouts of traditional Cornish villages to create the feel of an established community, but one that maximises sun exposure and conserves energy.

“We looked at anthropological reasons why the layout should be as it is,” Tomlinson explains. “Clusters of 12 houses are a good idea because that’s the equivalent of an extended family: the number of people you can get to know well without being pressurised to behave in a certain way.”

The couple visited eco-housing schemes in Scandinavia, America and New Zealand, too, and became convinced of the need for allotments, orchards and woodland.

For serious golfers, however, the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course is likely to be more of an inducement. The course is undergoing huge development in time for the English Open; a new four-star hotel is being built and the clubhouse will have three pools, a leisure centre, bars and restaurants – all open to residents of the new villages.

The Tomlinsons’ first, award-winning socially sustainable village, the Wintles, in Shropshire, has attracted 30,000 visitors since building started in 2003. “There’s been enormous interest, especially among developers,” Tomlinson says. “They come with cameras and tape measures.”

It remains to be seen, however, whether Living Villages at St Mellion can create sustainable communities. They are holiday homes, after all, so owners must have a primary residence elsewhere – and there won’t be allotments, at least initially. Community spirit may depend more on encounters at the 19th hole than those by the potting shed.

The one certainty for both developments is the changeable British weather. As Dyke points out, though: “Golfers in Barbados have to get up at 6am to play before it gets too hot. That’s not a problem in Devon.” Nor in Cornwall.

Homes at Living Villages at St Mellion are for sale through Savills; 01392 455721, www.livingvillageatstmellion.com

Cottages at Dartmouth Green are for sale through Marchand Petit; 01803 839190, www.marchandpetit.co.uk

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