The government has confirmed it will progress work on the next generation of new towns across England, following publication of an independent report that recommends 12 locations as potential new towns.

It says it is “determined” to begin building at least three new towns before the next general election and is prepared to progress work on a far larger range of locations if it proves possible.

At this stage sites at Tempsford in Bedfordshire, Crews Hill in Enfield and Leeds South Bank look most promising.

A New Towns Unit will be established by government to progress development, working  with other departments and agencies to ensure new towns are a test bed for innovation and to unblock barriers to delivery.

The New Towns Taskforce, led by Sir Michael Lyons, was commissioned by the government to explore different approaches to large-scale development. In its report, the taskforce has recommended a mixture of large-scale communities including urban extensions, urban regeneration and standalone greenfield sites should be built.

It says each new town should have at least 10,000 homes with an ambition for a minimum of 40% affordable housing and half of which will be for social rent. The taskforce has also set out a range of recommendations for delivery, including the importance of accountable delivery bodies who are able to provide long term certainty for communities in new towns.

A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) will be undertaken to understand the environmental implications of developing new towns. No final decisions on locations will be made until this assessment concludes and preferred locations could change as a result of the process. 

The government will publish the draft proposals and final SEA for consultation in spring, before confirming the locations that will be progressed as new towns soon after. This will be alongside a full government response to the New Towns Taskforce’s report.

The 12 recommended locations are:

Adlington, Cheshire East: a standalone settlement serve the growing industries in Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

South Gloucestershire corridor: across Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc linking to the area’s research, advanced engineering and technology economy.

Chase Park and Crews Hill in Enfield: delivering green development and helping address London’s acute housing need.

Heyford Park in Cherwell: redevelopment of the former airbase near Oxford.

Leeds, South Bank:  building on the benefits of £2.1bn local transport funding allocation.

Manchester, Victoria North: inner city development supporting continued growth and attracting high-skilled workers to service the city’s diverse industries.

Marlcombe, East Devon: standalone development to strengthen the region’s labour supply and supporting the Exeter and East Devon Enterprise Zone.

Milton Keynes: a ‘renewed town’ reinvigorating the city centre and expanding to the north and east plus delivering a Mass Rapid Transit system.

Plymouth: densified development to align with government’s £4.4bn investment in HMNB Devonport.

Tempsford, Central Bedfordshire: new development to maximise the benefits of East West Rail in the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor.

Thamesmead, Greenwich: riverside development  linked to the proposed extension of the Docklands Light Railway.

Worcestershire Parkway, Wychavon: accelerating delivery around the existing train station to help meet regional housing need and act as a model for sustainable, carbon neutral development.

Sean Cleary, associate director at Ramboll, welcomed the taskforce report saying it was “important progress towards achieving a policy initiative that will be vital if we are to meet housebuilding targets”.

“The Government must embed resilience into the core of the programme to create safe, healthy, and attractive places,” he added: “Embedding resilience will require New Towns to focus on incorporating sustainability, liveability, and long-term value.

“Towns and cities succeed when people have a stake in their development. Inclusive engagement reduces planning friction, increases public accessibility, and helps to ensure that local infrastructure meets the actual needs of communities.

“We need to ensure new towns benefit, support, and help existing and surrounding communities by being locally sensitive, responsive, and helping all communities meet both current and future needs.

“New towns offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to meet a pressing need. Taking advantage of this opportunity to build sustainable, resilient, and liveable communities is a shared responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the policymakers, planners, investors, developers, and residents. The taskforce’s report is a positive start, but it is only one step on a much longer journey.”

Nancy MacDonald, regional business lead for infrastructure UK and Ireland at Stantec UK, added: “Perhaps the most striking feature of these sites is how varied they are. While some good common design principles apply everywhere, it is obvious that this new generation of towns cannot be a copy and paste across the country.

“Creating a community needs a bespoke, future-thinking approach to the site at hand and should consider a wide range of specific but evolving requirements. Delivering 10,000 new homes around Plymouth city centre quite clearly requires a different method to a garden settlement approach at Worcestershire Parkway, for instance.

“Our teams have been involved in shaping a number of these sites and we’ve also undertaken research into the public’s attitude around the new towns agenda. One theme which keeps coming up is connection. Connection to green space, to amenities, to public transport links, to healthcare facilities, to job opportunities – and to a genuine sense of community. In basic terms, people want these new settlements to feel like home.”

Patrick Clarke, UK and Ireland masterplanning lead at AECOM, welcomed then naming of the 12 new sites, but said the real challenge will be “delivering them at pace while ensuring they become attractive and sustainable communities people want to live in”.

“New towns will fail if they’re developed in isolation from their neighbouring communities and just considered as plots of homes. Significant new infrastructure will be needed to make these communities liveable, and that’s what is driving up the cost of development. The solution is to embed social infrastructure – schools, leisure, green space – from day one, while also retrofitting and expanding existing facilities in adjacent communities to improve viability and make affordable housing deliverable.

“Success also lies in early, detailed input from technical experts so that issues like water, ecology and heritage don’t stall delivery later. Bat tunnels and newts may grab headlines, but the reality is that there are a whole host of other important consultations, reviews and mitigations that need to be made for projects of this scale. Attempting to tackle these assessments one at a time in a phased approach risks bringing new towns to a grinding halt.

“There won’t be a one-size-fits-all delivery model for these 12 new towns, but the taskforce’s recommendation for a return to development corporations is encouraging given that these 10,000+ home schemes are incredibly complex, have multiple landowners and might need compulsory purchase orders. Homes England also needs to be empowered to use its new master developer role to de-risk the sites and work with local authorities to develop ambitious but deliverable masterplans, which will help to attract private financing and housebuilders.”

Click here to read the New Towns Taskforce report.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-towns-taskforce-report-to-government