Somerset TV presenter and designer Kevin McCloud has set himself his steepest challenge yet – to revolutionise housing development in the UK, starting with Swindon. Susie Weldon reports

Kevin McCloud is concerned about the new residents of his Hab Housing sustain- able development in Swindon. Not the human ones, at this precise point, but the four-legged ones.

He's telling me about designing walks for dog owners – and the need to include trees every so often for the dogs to pee against.

I can't help laughing – the great designer and Grand Designs guru Kevin McCloud is worrying about providing pee stops for dogs?

It may seem like taking pickiness to the extreme, but it illustrates the kind of detail that's going into the project, which has been two years in the preparation, but hasn't yet reached planning application stage.

That time isn't too far off, he hopes – possibly late spring. The aim is for two developments of 150-200 homes, one on a former allotment site with scrubland to the north of Swindon, the other on green- field agricultural land in Swindon's "front garden".

There's a great deal riding on this first project by Kevin's Hab Housing development company, not least his reputation, although he shrugs off questions about that.

"What was I supposed to do? Carry on making polite series for Channel 4 saying 'that's really rather good?'," he asks. "I'm not sure architecture commentating or criticising is helpful or noble."

The use of the word "noble" is revealing. It's too far-fetched to say Kevin is setting himself up as a white knight charging to the rescue of Britain's dismal housing schemes... but there is a hint of that, all the same.

He set up Hab Housing – the Hab stands for happiness, architecture and beauty – out of "a mixture of desire and anger" at the "sea of rubbish housing" littering the UK.

Why were standards so poor, he wondered, with identikit estates built with little or no thought for the communities that would inhabit them? So he decided to try to do something about it himself.

"I don't think it is ego," he says of his motive, as we chat over tea at Babington House in Somerset, where he is a member.

"I was brought up a Methodist, so I have this constant itch or drive to improve. It's not anything righteous, but anybody involved in design wants to improve things."

Despite dismissing questions about his reputation, Kevin knows he'll be under a critical spotlight once construction begins.

Everyone will be watching to see if the man who's spent nine years of pontificating about the best building projects on Grand Designs can come through with the goods himself in his first community housing development.

What he's doing is not hugely original, he admits: "It's just joining things up. None of it is rocket science, but nobody does it."

His aim is to build sustainable homes designed around what people want: "Light, space, openness, informal, open plan – if you watch my programme, these are all the things people talk about."

His homes will make the most of the sun's warmth and light (what developers call "solar gain"), and be so well insulated, they'll barely need heating at all.

They'll also be "future proofed", with wiring already in place so solar panels can be installed easily.

Nearly a third will comprise social housing, and everyone will have an equal share in a community land trust – "so if the paving's cracked, it's not someone else's responsibility to fix it, it's ours," says Kevin.

There'll be community orchards and edible hedgerows, bicycle paths and streams and, of course, trees for dogs to pee against. People will be encouraged not to use their car, with only one parking space per home instead of the usual two.

"But you'll have free membership of a car club, so you won't need the second car. Parking in the town centre will be free for the car club, and you'll be able to rent extra space in the car park if you need it," says Kevin.

"You'll be able to bicycle into town and the streets will be safer to walk in, and children will be able to play in them. There will also be a web portal – a bit of software – in every house which will tell you when the next bus is coming."

Kevin believes that once people see the benefits of giving up their car, they'll realise "it's a no-brainer".

He asks: "Why wouldn't you want to have a choice of cars without the cost of owning them? Why wouldn't you want to have gardens and public spaces where your children can play and are free to roam?"

Above all, his aim is to build a community. He points out that in the eco-community BedZED in south London, built in 2000, the average resident knows 19 of their neighbours. I count up the number of neighbours I know by name (six), and to nod to (six or seven). Sadly, I don't think I'm unusual for a city dweller.

Kevin lives in a 500-year-old farmhouse in the Mendip Hills with his wife Zani and four children aged seven to 20.

"We grow most of our food and we have sheep in our fields. A lot of the time we can sit down to a meal where everything comes from our farm or from a 10-mile radius, and my enjoyment of that meal is so much the greater," he says.

That's partly why he's so keen to include local food networks in his development: "The houses could all take part in a box scheme."

But why choose Swindon in the first place? It's been dubbed "the dullest town of its size in the UK", but Kevin describes it as "a delight", and talks enthusiastically about its industrial, engineering and scientific heritage.

Swindon also, crucially, has a very supportive council which has rather ambitious plans.

Peter Greenhalgh, who is the town's cabinet member for sustainability, says that the town is determined to push the sustainability agenda.

It wants housing developments that "take into account their surroundings, rather than being plonked on top. We don't want mediocrity, we want the best rather than just accepting what the developers give us."

Not everyone is happy that Hab Housing wants to build on greenfield sites, despite its pledge to work with Wiltshire Wildlife Trust to increase the land's biodiversity.

The neighbours of one site, Pickard's Small Field in Gorse Hill, have protested about losing the green space (the other site is at Wichelstowe).

This is a tricky issue, admits Peter Greenhalgh: "Unfortunately, we don't have any suitable brownfield sites at present."

And then there's the economic downturn, although Kevin says it won't knock the project off course. In the end, though, it's the market that will decide if his homes are a success.

It is a challenge, he admits, to build homes to these eco and design standards for a similar price to a more conventional development.

But this is an extension of all he's been doing in the plast decade: "What's lovely is when you're doing something with conviction and passion."