The UK will have to build more new towns than it has ever constructed before if they are to contribute towards the government’s target to boost housing by 1.5 million homes over the next five years, says a development thinktank.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner appointed Sir Michael Lyons to chair the New Towns Taskforce last month, which is tasked with building a range of new towns and urban extensions “of at least 10,000 new homes each”.
The government says 40% of these communities must include affordable housing, adding that the scheme will be the “largest housebuilding programme since the post-war period”.
But the Centre for Cities says: “If the government wants to make a dent in its target of 1.5 million new homes, it will have to build more new towns and urban extensions than the UK ever has before.”
Its analysis shows that between 1947 and 1993, New Town Development Corporations in England, which oversee building in new towns, built 307,000 houses.
This represents 3.3% of all housebuilding in the 40 years after the landmark 1946 New Towns Act.
By contrast, 880,000 houses were built in Greater London during the same period.
But the thinktank says: “While the overall number of homes built was modest compared to total housebuilding, new towns build at a faster speed than other parts of the country.”
It adds that during the 1970s peak for new towns almost 5% of houses in that decade were delivered by New Town Development Corporations.
The most famous example of this is Milton Keynes, which built its first home in 1970 and today has an urban housing stock of 106,698 homes for its 264,000 population.
The study says: “Milton Keynes shows the art of the possible but history suggests that it was also somewhat of an outlier.”
It also points to a Dutch 10-year urban programme, which ran from 1996-2005 and delivered 450,000 homes across 90 schemes, but adds that the UK government “should not underestimate the challenges in achieving this”.
Labour has promised to provide 300 extra planning officers across the country to speed through developments, at a cost of £20m.
But the thinktank warns that these officers “certainly won’t be enough to build the required capacity and expertise in master planning, land assembly and project management in new development corporations and local authorities”.
The government has instructed Sir Michael to recommend locations for the UK’s next generation of new towns “within the next year”.
