The
New Towns Taskforce launched on 31
st July 2024 completes the jigsaw of Government planning reform announcements before parliamentary recess.
The commission is to be led by Sir Michael Lyons, with Dame Kate Barker as Deputy Chair, with further members to be appointed before September. Both the Chair and the Deputy Chair have an established pedigree in the property development sector and both have carried out significant reviews of planning and housing delivery for Labour
[1].
The press release and
Policy Statement does not have significant detail in terms of the process to be adopted by the Commission but key points are:
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The New Towns programme is focused on largescale communities of “at least 10,000 new homes each, with many significantly larger”
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Will include large-scale freestanding new communities but “a far larger number” will be urban extensions or regeneration schemes
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To 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”
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A 12-month process that will include,
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meeting with communities on design
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recommending locations
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engaging with local communities, working “in lockstep with mayors, local leaders and communities to advise on the right places for new towns”
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a final report with final shortlist of recommendations on appropriate locations
There is little information yet on how the Task Force will go about identifying potential locations.
However, in the notes to editors accompanying the October 2023 press release launching its housing policy, Labour described the process as:
“The Secretary of State … will publish a set of principles for identifying sites, looking for areas that are around busy transport hubs, in areas of very high housing need and avoiding nature spots or important green spaces.
We will open bidding for local leaders to bid for sites on the basis of these principles.
We will also task DLHUC with devising some broad ‘heat maps’ of areas suitable based on these principles, using the latest spatial data from across different departments and agencies.
Within six months, we will work in partnership with local leaders to designate a handful of sites across the country for development as new towns.”
In the Government announcement, Sir Michael is quoted as saying he will “work closely with local leaders and their communities as well as the wider development and investment sectors to make sure these new towns are built in the right places”. Dame Kate referred to it being vital that “the locations will also support economic growth over coming decades.”
Ultimately, it is implied that the process will be a mix of ‘top-down’ heat mapping but also ‘bottom-up’ suggestions from ‘local leaders’. Missing is a direct reference to landowners or developers putting forward their proposals for consideration, although those that wish will presumably not be shy in doing so.
Further clarifying the position, the Minister of State
interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme on 31
st July indicated that the New Towns identified by the Task Force would be additional to normal local planning and targets, saying:
“just to absolutely clear… our ambition on the New Towns front is over and above the planning changes we announced yesterday 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”
Heat Mapping
What might the heat mapping look like? Lichfields has taken three of the indicators identified by Labour to identify the kinds of locations that might emerge, based on applying spatial data on these factors to sift out unsuitable areas and providing a starting point for where new towns might be most appropriately located. The three criteria are locations that:
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are accessible ‘around busy transport hubs’ such that they are sustainable, offer a range of transport modes and are reachable to/from other places. We focused on rail stations on the basis these either will already be, or can be come, busy transport hubs in the future
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respond to housing pressures being ‘in areas of very high housing needs’. We looked at housing affordability, population growth, housing under-supply and economic forecasts of future job growth; and
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protect sensitive areas ‘avoiding nature spots or important green spaces’, such as those areas with national and international designations. We screened out National Parks, National Landscapes, and designated ecological sites (SSIS, Ramsar, SAC and SPAs).
Green Belt is clearly an elective land use policy choice – and it is possible areas protected by that policy might provide good locations for large-scale new development, including urban extensions - but for the purposes of this exercise we have assumed that it is unlikely large-scale developments of the scale of 10,000+ homes will match the emerging 'Grey Belt’ criteria identified in the
consultation and will not be priority areas of search. In addition, by virtue of our methodology, our assessment will also exclude opportunities (e.g. of regeneration) that might exist within urban areas.
In the context of the above, the outputs are shown here:
Figure 1 Illustrative New Town opportunity heat map
Source: Lichfields analysis
Obviously, the Task force will develop its own approach, but the above perhaps gives a flavour for the kinds of locations that might emerge.
The Lyons Housing Review
The Lyons Housing Review
[2] from 2014 also provides some insight to how the Taskforce might approach its task. Chapter 6 referred to a “
A new generation of Garden Cities and Suburbs”. Some of its analysis appeared to draw on its perceived lessons of the (then relatively fresh in the mind) ‘Eco-towns' on which it said:
“The review received evidence about the need to learn the lessons of the Eco-towns program [sic], including from the ‘bidding’ process which can prove problematic. For example, those with the most resources (not necessarily the most sustainable locations) were able to submit bids and a number of recycled, previously failed proposals were re-submitted. Neither was it clear how new Eco-towns fitted in the local, regional or national planning process which antagonized some communities who felt the process bypassed local plans.”
The Executive Summary of the report said:
“It clearly makes sense to build on brownfield land where we can and the brownfield first policy should be strengthened, but building Garden Cities, Garden Suburbs and reshaping and expanding existing towns will be essential to meeting housing need over the medium to long-term. The next government should immediately initiate such a programme, to be delivered by new Garden City Development Corporations and New Homes Corporations based on reformed New Towns Legislation.
Government should set out criteria that Garden Cities would be expected to meet so that local authorities can come forward with proposals to be developed in partnership. Proposals from private promoters will be accepted, but only where they can demonstrate local support.
Incentives should include the ability for new Garden Cities to retain 100 per cent of business rates for 30 years to invest over the longer-term, as well as providing financial guarantees to support up-front delivery. This locally-led development model would be able to play a central role in building a new generation of Garden Cities. This should be combined with a rolling programme of Garden Suburbs. The aim should be for local leadership to promote and enable many more new settlements though a mix of freestanding new Garden Cities, new Garden Suburbs, and remodelled towns, in a range of places across the country. Together our recommendations could help accelerate the delivery of up to 500,000 homes.”
The report itself set out more detail on identifying locations and designating Garden Cities suggesting a three stage approach:
1. Identifying broad areas of search
As described in the report this seems broadly comparable to the heat mapping exercise we illustrated above, although specifics might vary.
2. Setting the criteria that Garden Cities would be required to meet
The Review suggested criteria that would include: applying principles similar to the ‘New Towns Code’ described by Government; potential to exploit existing or planned investment in national infrastructure networks, including transport, energy and communications and support wider objectives for rebalancing the economy; aligning areas where people will want to live and can access jobs and employment; the support and long-term commitment of local authorities; tenure mix and increased rates of build out; clear proposals for the delivery, financing and long term funding and stewardship of the new settlement.
3. Designation of specific sites
The review recommended that Government should then invite proposals for sites from individual local authorities or city/county regions, prioritising the areas of search and then progress forward with local authority agreement to create Development Corporations, with the Board appointed by LPAs, with the SoS using powers to designate as a last resort. The report said that it would be “our expectation that sites will be identified by local authorities, in collaboration with residents and businesses.”
Implications
It remains to be seen how the New Towns Taskforce will carry out its mission but one can already piece together some challenges and possible contradictions, over the issue of local support and the net additionality of the initiative:
- Genuinely large-scale developments of over 10,000 – especially those that are “much larger” for example, 15- 25,000 homes – can be said to be nationally-significant in scale and it is unproven to what extent genuine local support is a prudent indicator of whether or not an otherwise good location for a new town should come forward.
- Locally-led initiatives have to date been more likely to be compatible with the ‘Garden Town and Village’ scale of development; of the 49 designated Garden Communities[3], the majority were below the 10,000 home size threshold and a number of the largest-scale projects (such as the 43,000 home North Essex initiative) actually comprised multiple separate schemes (and not all were actually succesfully allocated - although that's another story).
- Local support was not obviously a major feature of how the post-war New Towns were identified, with objecting residents of Stevenage old town famously losing out to then Minister Lewis Silkin who found himself greeted at Stevenage railway station with the signs altered to read "Silkingrad", a reference to what many felt were similarities between Silkin's approach and that of a totalitarian regime[4].
- The Government’s mantra on planning reform is ‘how’ not ‘if’ and this is the approach it has adopted to mandatory local housing need. No ifs no buts, local authorities must aim to meet those numbers (themselves or across boundaries). Relying on local leadership for new town selection would seem to run counter to that approach.
- Finally, and perhaps most significantly, what incentive will there be for local authorities to identify and support these New Towns? The Minister of State’s interview on Today was clear that the ambition of the programme is additionality: they will not count towards meeting local targets drawn from the Standard Method. They will not, of themselves, reduce the pressure those areas will face to allocate other land to meet often punchy local housing need figures. In that context, LPAs who do support new towns as a form of development – and who might otherwise allocate them in Local Plans – might find themselves holding back their preferred options from the Taskforce and saving them for their own allocations, on the basis that in doing so their projects will count against their local targets. They would also still be able to make use of locally-led Development Corporations and CPO powers if needed. If New Towns were to count against local plan targets, the additionality of the proposal will be lost.
In the context of the above, it is clearly right and proper that the taskforce draws upon engagement with local communities, Mayors, LPAs and other bodies in identifying opportunities (and welcoming support if it is there). But it seems more consistent with the policy approach for this to be focused on defining the ‘how’ not the 'if' (or 'where'). The Taskforce will need to be careful ensuring that locally-led is not the only source of inspiration for this nationally-significant initiative, and the difficult-to-measure level of local support should not represent a power of veto over what can come forward, particularly in the areas where New Towns are most appropriate or likely to bring the most benefit in the national interest.
[1] The Lyons Housing Review is available here. The two Barker Reviews are Housing Supply and Land Use Planning
[2] Lyons Housing Review pp 90-99
[3] See How Does Your Garden Grow: A Stock Take on Planning for the Government’s Garden Communities Programme – 2019
[4] See this BBC article here
