THE first carbon neutral homes in Basildon are almost ready.

Swan Housing has spent £3.7million building New Cranes Court in Church Road and the houses are being offered exclusively to people who are on the council house waiting list.

The 16 houses and 12 flats are being built on the site of former hostel the Foyer and are due to be finished by February .

When they are finished it will double the number of carbon neutral homes in the country.

A zero carbon home is one that returns to the National Grid as much power as it uses over the course of a year.

Paul Hebdon, a spokesman for Swan Housing, said: “Swan is really proud of what this development is going to bring to Basildon when it is completed.

“It’s an important step forward for us and we hope it will be a flagship development which other people can look at.

“We have taken this step because we all need to be aware of carbon emissions and we must do all we can to reduce them.”

The homes have triple-glazed windows and the walls are about one-foot thick to keep the heat in.

They also have tiny radiators, powered by one community boiler, which heats all the homes.

It will be fuelled by glycerol, a by-product of making soap and can be extracted from cooking oils.

The rooms in the homes also have regulators which move heat around the homes to even out the temperatures if one room is hotter than the other.

Malcolm Buckley, Basildon councillor responsible for the environment added: “This is great news for Basildon. It shows that we are at the forefront of thinking of the future and our environment around us.

“I am pleased to see Basildon is going green and that our residents will be able to benefit from this development.”

The development includes one, two, three, four and five bedrooms homes and will be for the 3,800 people on the Basildon Council housing waiting list.

There are currently carbon zero homes in Chelmsford and Slough in B erkshire, and the Government’s target is to make sure all new homes built are carbon zero by 2016.