Will people be at the heart of the 12 new towns?

The post-war new towns were shaped by very different pressures than those of today, primarily severe housing shortages following World War II. Today, the context is not so much overspill in major towns and cities, but a need to provide much-needed homes in areas with sustainable transport connections and collaborative workspaces.

The proposed new towns are centred around public transport, based on the assumption that while some residents will work locally, many will commute. Therefore, access to transport links, together with the option of active travel in and around the town itself, are vital to new towns working for people.

A common temptation in large-scale delivery is to focus on the visible components of a map, such as road layouts and zoning. A sense of community may be less tangible than roads, but it matters just as much, shaped by access to healthcare, usable public space, everyday services and community infrastructure.

“In the early days, residents saw the absence of amenities and public transport as a considerable downside to moving to a new town”

Evidence from previous new towns suggests that community facilities often lagged behind growing populations. In the early days, residents saw the absence of amenities and public transport as a considerable downside to moving to a new town – as an early residents’ survey of Milton Keynes highlighted. More recent developments have sought to reverse this and embed community and the associated facilities into schemes from the outset.

There should be a framework for the delivery of sufficient community infrastructure that scales with growth and is supported by the public sector in a transparent way.

I am not suggesting a national checklist that ignores local nuance. Instead, I am proposing baseline expectations tied to phasing so that the community offer keeps pace with the settlement’s growth. This requires flexibility in the planning system and in planning decisions.

A framework should be realistic about phasing. A new town takes many years to evolve, and it is unrealistic to expect a fully formed traditional town centre before the population exists to sustain it. The answer is to plan for ‘meanwhile’ uses – flexible spaces that can host services, social activity and local enterprise from the start and evolve as the place grows.

There is no question that mixed tenure is at the heart of a healthy community. A people-first new town needs a genuine blend of social rent, affordable rent, shared ownership and build-to-rent alongside market housing to prevent the town being reduced to a commuter dormitory or investment product.

“Community infrastructure is not only about what is built, but how spaces are managed and cared for”

This is important because registered providers and master developers do much more than deliver housing and infrastructure: they act as long-term community anchors. In practical terms, that means being involved early in design and phasing, and staying active in community life as the place grows.

Community infrastructure is not only about what is built, but how spaces are managed and cared for. Stewardship provides long-term funding and management of what makes a town work, including parks, green corridors, civic squares, community buildings and the public realm that binds neighbourhoods together.

The case for stewardship is clear and an important part of the planning process, providing a long-term framework that can adapt as schemes evolve.

With large-scale developments, there is always a risk that high-quality development proposals can be impacted by the realities of viability and infrastructure costs. The best approach to manage delivery and maintain quality is to use the tools provided by proper stewardship: service charges and commuted sums where appropriate, commercial income streams in mixed-use areas, cross-subsidy across phases and, where the scale supports it, endowment models that provide resilience. But these plans only succeed if they are put in place early.

Each of these fundamental ingredients of new towns’ success is dependent on a framework: clear baseline expectations on community infrastructure that scale with growth, alongside a transparent position on public sector support. That should include how meanwhile uses are encouraged, managed and allowed to evolve; how the various stakeholders play their parts, and how statutory bodies engage and are accountable.

If we get that right, people can and will be at the heart of the 12 new towns.

David Churchill, partner, Carter Jonas