Are we back to a New Towns era?

As a town planner graduating under a conservative government (within the last 14 years) New Towns have been somewhat of an academic concept to me. Whilst most of us planners have written essays on Ebenezer Howard and toured the likes of Welwyn Garden City, since entering the world of work the majority of us have set those concepts to the side and focused on brownfield urban regeneration or smaller scale urban extensions... until now perhaps?   

The post-war New Towns programme was the most ambitious town-building effort ever undertaken in the UK. The 32 communities it created are now home to millions of people. Labour now wants to replicate that success.   

Well, that’s the plan.

Whilst we might not be in a post war era, we are in a sustained housing crisis and the long-established principles of brownfield-first development and sustainable urban extensions, just aren't delivering the numbers we need to overcome the crisis.

So, Labour have gone back to the drawing board and are introducing, or should I say re-introducing, the concept of New Towns. On the 31^st July 2024, the New Town Taskforce, chaired by Sir Micheal Lyons, was announced, with their first meeting taking place in September 2024. Alongside Sir Micheal Lyons, Dame Kate Barker will be the Deputy Chair, with eight further industry experts making up the taskforce. The target is to identify and recommend appropriate locations to deliver largescale new communities of at least 10,000 new homes within the next 12 months.

The press release announcing the Taskforce, whilst brief, states that:

• The New Towns programme is focused on largescale communities of "at least 10,000 new homes each, with many significantly larger";
• The programme will include large-scale freestanding new communities but "a far larger number" will be urban extensions or regeneration schemes; and
• Will be governed by a 'New Towns Code' focused on ensuring they are "well-connected, well-designed, sustainable and attractive places" with "all the infrastructure and public services necessary" and "targeting rates of 40% affordable housing with a focus on genuinely affordable social rented homes"

But Labour wants to see housing now, so can they have both? Whilst Labour's plans seek a considerable increase in housing numbers (66,000 above current targets), they also are seeking those houses quickly (within this parliament (5 years)). New Town proposals are not speedy and rightly so, there is an awful lot to consider when planning for such large scale development, whilst the current timescales of approximately seven years to deliver anything more than 2,000 homes certainly has some fat in it, New Towns within the next five years sounds almost impossible to me but thankfully not to Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook, who in an interview with BBC Radio 4, 9^th July 2024, backed what Angela Rayner said at this year's UKREiiF conference, that spades can be in the ground within five years on these proposed New Towns.

Pennycook clarifies that "just to be absolutely clear… our ambition on the New Towns front is over and above the planning changes we announced yesterday [30^th July] that 370,000 housing target so they’re not crucial to that … normal activity of local authorities bringing forward homes through local plans; they will be over and above".

Pennycook's statement poses another issue though, if New Towns are above and beyond the new housing targets, where is the incentive for local authorities to get behind them? There has been some suggestion in the post announcement analysis by the sector that perhaps authorities, which are supportive of the concept of New Towns, won’t be rushing to put forward their preferred options to the Taskforce, instead holding them back for their own Local Plan allocations, so that the developments count towards their housing targets.

Whether the New Towns come by way of Local Plans or as part of the New Towns Taskforce, it looks as if we may need to dust off those university textbooks and refresh ourselves with Ebenezer's early work after all.