Deputy prime minister John Prescott and chancellor Gordon Brown have announced the formal start of the Design for Manufacture competition, challenging developers to design high quality homes with a construction cost of around £60,000. The competition is being run by English Partnerships on behalf of the ODPM. Public sector land is being provided for 1,000 homes, and developers are invited to bid for the right to construct the schemes. Around 470 homes will be built on the initial pilot sites which are located at Oxley Park, Milton Keynes; Oxford Road, Aylesbury; Upton, Northampton and the Allerton Bywater Millennium Community, near Leeds. "Improving access to high quality, affordable housing is crucial to our policy of increasing prosperity and social justice in every region," said deputy prime minister John Prescott. "We have shown that with imagination and determination it is possible to provide attractive homes in good locations, while protecting the countryside and combating sprawl. By insisting on higher design standards we can build more homes using less land to create truly sustainable communities." EP director of corporate strategy Trevor Beattie said: "This competition will stimulate fresh thinking in the way we construct our homes and demonstrate how we can build more …