On New Towns

Whether or not Albert Einstein actually said it, and the internet offers differing views as to whether he did or not, it is a widely acknowledged that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The members of the New Towns Taskforce will have better things to talk about when they get together than whether that quote can be attributed to Einstein or not, but, having done the easy part of their work (the ‘Call for Sites’ and the establishment of long-established Garden City principles), the essence of it, which is how to actually deliver the 'Next Generation of New Towns', will be at the heart of the group's ‘Next Steps’.

The Taskforce’s Interim Update identifies those next steps as follows.

The next stage of the Taskforce’s work will focus on exploring locations for new towns, focusing on areas ripe for early intervention as part of a first initial wave, alongside the longer-term pipeline. Location selection for new towns should be strategically rational, supported wherever possible by existing infrastructure and ideally with local support to ensure successful development. We will also be undertaking further analysis to understand the impact of different delivery and funding models, as well as the approach to land acquisition and placemaking, to inform our final recommendations for government. We will also be undertaking further analysis to understand the impact of different delivery and funding models, as well as the approach to land acquisition and placemaking, to inform our final recommendations for government.

It can be assumed that the initial wave, the areas ‘ripe for intervention’ have the principle of development in planning terms already established, be it by way of an allocation, an emerging allocation, or perhaps even planning permission already. These are the proverbial ‘low-hanging fruit’ and if, as Housing & Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook has said, work is to begin before 2029 it will be to expedite the delivery of these projects and put some next generation of New Towns' signs up around the sales cabins.

It is the ‘longer-term pipeline’ though where this exercise gets interesting and in particular the two questions that Chris Curtis MP put to Matthew Pennycook at a HCLG Committee meeting in November 2024.

Chris Curtis: I have two very quick questions on that. First, will local authorities get a veto on a new town in their local area? Secondly, how will that sit alongside the housing target that has been come up with under the new formula?

Matthew Pennycook: I do not expect the scenario that you are setting out to apply in many cases. I say that because the New Towns Taskforce has already gone out with a call for—expressions of interest might be too strong—a general sense from local authorities to provide evidence precisely as to whether there are sites in their areas that they want the New Towns Taskforce to look at. That has had a very significant response. We know there is appetite out there among local leaders to look at sites in their area.

Development that will come forward through the new towns programme will be separate to and in addition to LHN as defined in the revised standard method. We have to be very clear about it. We have been clear in the documents, but it seems to be slightly misunderstood. These new towns are additional to the general assessed housing need through the planning system. They are not necessarily a way that you might meet the totality of your need in area, but they are an important part to fixing the system and to ensuring that, in appropriate locations—the taskforce will advise us on what they are—we see large-scale new communities come forward.

It is reported that more than 100 potential sites have been submitted to the Taskforce for consideration, and the breakdown of them would be fascinating to see. A first category will be the densification of existing urban areas and will have been submitted by LPAs (the cynic would assume that those LPAs are Green Belt LPAs, but that would be to unfairly undermine the urban densification / renaissance agenda). A second category of submission, likely made jointly by the LPA and project promoter, will be that ‘low-hanging fruit’: the allocations, emerging allocations, or sites with planning permission already that have been slogging their way through the planning process for years and would welcome, finally, some Government wind in their sails.

The third category will be promoter-led submissions containing both entirely sensible propositions that local plans have not got anywhere close to allocating yet, and some old kites being dusted down and flown again.

The Interim Update talks enthusiastically about 'local support', but how enthusiastic about this latter category of submission will local leaders really be if a 10,000 home new settlement, and the political heat there from, is to be in addition to local housing need figures that just went through the roof?

What then happens if the Taskforce identifies some of this type of submission as strategically rational locations for new settlements that are supported by existing infrastructure, but local leaders and mayors will not entertain any conversations about them unless and until the homes in question do count towards local housing need?

Even when those questions are answered, and the parallel rewiring of the local government landscape alongside the introduction of Spatial Development Strategies will not make them easy to answer, how will the principle of developing these settlements be established?

If the principle of developing new settlements is to be established through local plans, or new Spatial Development Strategies, they will be as vulnerable to a change in local leader or mayor as the submissions to past 'Next Generation of New Town' initiatives now left abandoned on the wide, tree-lined boulevard of broken dreams. To Chris Curtis’ point, there is a de facto local veto on new settlements (and indeed everything…) and this veto needs negotiating away. Further, and as those past initiatives have also shown, if establishing the principle of development for a new settlement is so costly, risky and time-consuming, why would anybody invest in it?

A different result surely requires a different way of securing the principle of development, which is surely also the only way of securing new and different delivery and funding models (or old delivery and funding models in the case of New Towns legislation and Development Corporations).

That surely, in turn, points to a new National Policy Statement (NPS) on New Towns (linked as appropriate to other updated NPSs), with red lines on a plan around each proposed new settlement that no local or mayoral election can change.

If the Taskforce does not come to that conclusion then insanity surely beckons.