A new generation of New Towns and Garden Cities

Around 2.6 million people live in the 30-plus New Towns and cities built since the Second World War, many of which were inspired by the Garden City principles set out by Ebenezer Howard in his work, Garden Cities of Tomorrow, over 100 years ago. These inclusive principles of affordable housing and the creation of new jobs and sustainable lifestyles have stood the test of time and are arguably more important now than ever before. We need to return planning to its visionary principles and enable people to shape places they live.

Evidence shows that we are building less than half of the homes we need to keep up with demand with the gap between housing supply and housing demand estimated to stand at 1 million homes and set to increase. This housing shortage is central to the cost of living crisis, leaving millions of working people unable to afford homes of their own.

If home ownership is to be a realistic aspiration for working people, and rents are to be affordable, then we will need a step change in the scale of house building. That is why housing will be a key priority of Labour’s agenda for 2015 and why we have established a Housing Commission – chaired by Sir Michael Lyons – to develop a framework to enable the delivery of at least 200,000 homes a year by the end of the next parliament.

It is increasingly clear that to deliver new homes on this scale, we will need to go beyond piecemeal projects and enable comprehensively planned developments that also meet the urgent need for improved infrastructure and the ever-increasing environmental pressures we are facing.

The Lyons Commission will set out detailed plans to establish new towns and garden cities as well as to expand existing towns and cities where appropriate. To do this it will consider how a future Labour government could work with groups of local authorities who will identify – working closely with their local communities – locations capable of sustaining suitable large scale sites for new towns and existing town expansions.

The Commission will build on the announcement in Ed Miliband’s 2013 Conference speech that Labour will incentivise local authorities either individually or in collaboration with others to bring forward plans for the next generation of new towns, Garden Cities and urban extensions. Under Labour, local authorities that want to expand and build the homes their communities need will have a ‘right to grow’ and access to a fast-track planning process to resolve any issues with neighbouring authorities that are blocking development.

It is clear that we need a new relationship between people and planning. All too often, discussion about new garden cities and new towns is avoided in part because it is assumed that local opposition will be insurmountable. Yet 80% of the British public think that there is a housing crisis. Developing a more community based planning system of the type long argued for by the Town Country Planning Association is something Labour needs to do especially if people’s faith in the planning system is to be restored.

Valuing local government and localism is absolutely essential to a national growth strategy and to building a fairer society, key principles of the Labour movement and of Howard’s original Garden Cities vision. But really embracing localism has to go beyond devolving more powers to local government, important though that is, to really giving communities a say in important decisions that affect them.

People rightly want to know about the kind of community that will result from any new development. They want to know what it will look like, where they will work and where their children will go to school and it is through recognising and planning for this that support for new towns, Garden Cities and urban extensions should be able to be achieved. The arguments for giving local councils and communities more power resonate now more than ever.

Roberta Blackman-Woods is Shadow Minister for planning policy and procurement

Today is “Cities Day” on LabourList in association with centre for Cities. Ahead of the General Election, Centre for Cities is asking all parties to Think Cities. To read, listen and watch contributions from some of the UK’s leading city thinkers, politicians and practitioners visit www.thinkcities.org.uk