Episode 187 - UK Government 'New Towns' Plans

This week we will be talking about the Government’s plans for New Towns. This episode content meets PC3 - Legal Framework & Processes of the Part 3 Criteria.

Resources from today's episode:

Websites:

• https://www.ribaj.com/buildings/government-plans-new-towns-housing-infrastructure-what-shape-will-they-take?utm_campaign=30/09/2025 Editor's cut&utm_content=New towns are back once again – but what shape will they take?&utm_term=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Adestra
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-new-towns-for-the-future
• https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68d694b79cb44667f7a1cee7/New_Towns_Taskforce_Final_Report.pdf

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Transcript

Episode 187:

Hello and Welcome to the Part3 with me podcast. 

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I am your host Maria Skoutari and this week we will be talking about the Government’s plans for New Towns.Todays’ episode meets PC3 of the Part 3 Criteria.

The UK government’s renewed commitment to new towns represents a bold, multi-faceted strategy to address the nation’s deepening housing crisis and modernise infrastructure and placemaking. The new towns will utilise a mixture of options including urban extensions, a development corridor and redevelopment of a redundant military base. This initiative is rooted in the findings and recommendations of the New Towns Taskforce and reflects both historical lessons and 21st-century ambitions for environmentally resilient, well-connected, and inclusive communities across England. The proposition is for a new generation of large-scale residential development identifying 12 potential locations for the new towns from over 100 submissions chosen for their growth potential, infrastructure connectivity, ability to respond to acute housing need and likelihood of rapid delivery.

Why has this initiative come about now:

The UK’s housing landscape has been under significant strain for decades, with demand far outpacing supply and the crisis impacting everything from labour mobility to social health and economic growth. Recognising these pressures, the government has tasked the New Towns Taskforce—established in July 2024—with spearheading a new era of planned urban growth. Its remit is to recommend and deliver a new generation of new towns and major urban extensions that will overturn patterns of undersupply and urban congestion, while leveraging construction innovation to create high-functioning places at scale.

Unlike earlier 20th-century new towns built in response to post-war pressures, today’s model incorporates lessons from history, but is equally fixated on contemporary imperatives such as climate resilience, biodiversity, net zero, and inclusivity. The ambition is not merely about delivering volumes of housing, but shaping thriving, resilient communities equipped for future social, economic, and environmental shifts.

Currently, the government is seeking to initially develop three of the locations identified as potential new town locations although this will be definitively confirmed next year once strategic environmental assessments have been carried out. As well as seeking guidance from government departments and regulators about how to factor the new towns into future spending plans. 

So what is the Taskforce's Vision and Principles Behind the New Towns:

The Taskforce has articulated an expansive vision, moving well beyond quantitative housing targets. 

Its recommendations published in February 2025, lay out a holistic approach that frames new towns as engines of growth and cohesion. The guiding principles at the heart of the proposition focus on:

• Placemaking: Whereby new towns must be planned and built around the lived experience, prioritising high-quality design, distinctive identity, and robust social and transport infrastructure from the outset. They are to be local in character, but nationally significant in ambition.
• Comprehensive Masterplanning: Recognising that early, strategic masterplanning is mandated, covering housing, infrastructure, employment, green spaces, and social assets. This is intended to avoid the piecemeal, car-dependent sprawl associated with some past new town developments.
• Scale and Delivery: Focusing on each new town delivering at least 10,000 homes—far beyond what traditional planning mechanisms can routinely achieve—in mixed tenures and with an explicit commitment to affordable and social housing. The strategy requires pooling public land, negotiated acquisitions, and, if necessary, the use of compulsory purchase powers to ensure land assembly at sufficient scale.
• Funding and Governance: Initiatives of this scale demand upfront public investment, robust delivery bodies (like development corporations), and strong, long-term stewardship. The government is considering both direct capital support and innovative funding mechanisms, including guarantees and partnerships with domestic and international institutional investors.
• Environmental and Social Sustainability: The programme places equal emphasis on climate resilience, low-carbon and nature-positive design, sustainable infrastructure, and the delivery of social and community assets. Engagement with environmental assessments is intended from the earliest stages.
• Strategic Integration: New towns will be integrated into their wider regional economies and transport networks, supporting broader goals for economic growth, productivity, and levelling up.

So based on these principles and to achieve these benefits, the Taskforce and government envision that: 

The new towns model will be shaped by five central ambitions outlined by the Taskforce and government:

1. The first one focusing on unlocking economic growth, whereby new towns should be catalysts for regional economies, improving labour mobility, and creating jobs both in construction and the long-term local economy.
2. The next ambition focuses on accelerating housing delivery by consolidating land and deploying powerful delivery vehicles, these developments aim to dramatically upscale build-out rates and ensure homes are available in years, not decades.
3. Another key point of focus relates to strategic regional placemaking, whereby developments will respond to demographic change, economic opportunity, and local need, with infrastructure designed to support sustained, diverse growth.
4. Strong, Healthy Communities of high-quality social, health, educational, and cultural facilities are also sought to be designed in from day one, embedding a sense of place, identity, and social capital as part of one of the five central ambitions.
5. And lastly, the fifth one relates to environmental ambition, thereby Net zero, biodiversity enhancement, flood resilience, and sustainable mobility infrastructures—walking, cycling, transit—are pillars of these new developments.

The government’s initial trawl for potential sites drew interest from over 100 locations, but not all will of course qualify. Sites are rigorously evaluated against criteria such as regional population need, infrastructure connectivity, landscape and biodiversity constraints, and deliverability at scale. Where land is in fragmented ownership, public bodies are empowered to assemble sites, including, where necessary, through compulsory purchase—essential to prevent developer speculation or piecemeal, less ambitious development that could undermine the comprehensive vision.

A distinctive feature of the new towns initiative is the emphasis on powerful delivery vehicles—typically statutory development corporations tasked with “single-mission” oversight. These bodies are charged with partnership working, land assembly, infrastructure sequencing, and stewardship well beyond the initial build-out, ensuring quality and resilience endure.

Long-term public and private capital will fund initial construction and infrastructure. Development corporations are required to reinvest land value uplift and operational revenues back into social and community provision, thus institutionalising a culture of stewardship.

The Government also recognises that upfront funding is essential—particularly for infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, utilities, and transport—which anchors communities and fosters buy-in from investors and local people alike. The Taskforce recommends long-term loans, flexible funding instruments, and guarantees for development corporations. Cross-departmental government leadership and clear policy direction are deemed vital to prevent bottlenecking and ensure delivery remains aligned with national priorities.

Also collaboration with local authorities, residents, and private sector partners is integral to the programme’s success. Early participatory planning is designed to avoid the pitfalls of imposed top-down solutions, learning from both successes and failures of the postwar new towns and more recent development projects.

To enable the success of these new towns, the Taskforce and Government have reflected on lessons learnt from historic attempts and setting new ambitions for the Future to deliver better thriving new towns:

The UK’s earlier new towns—Stevenage, Milton Keynes, Harlow, and more—speak to both ambition and caution. While they succeeded in delivering physical housing and rapid growth, some failed to embed sufficient social, economic, and landscape integration, creating challenges in transit, community, and long-term resilience. The “new generation” programme therefore has dual motivations: scale and speed, but also quality and sustainability.

From reviewing earlier new towns the Taskforce identifies both strengths and failures. Physical housing was delivered, rapid growth was achieved. However, infrastructure frequently lagged behind, communities fragmented, and stewardship culture was often lost after handover to local authorities or market actors. The key challenges, critical issues and lessons learnt therefore identified include:

1. Avoiding infrastructure lag, as rapid housing delivery can run ahead of roads, schools, water, and digital infrastructure, risking car dependency, social isolation, or fragmented development. Lessons from history argue for sequencing and prioritising infrastructure at least in tandem with housebuilding, if not ahead.
2. Another key challenge relates to premature speculation that can disrupt land assembly and inflate costs. The call for interim planning policies—to allow for refusals or call-in of speculative applications—aims to maintain public control and integrity of masterplanning processes.
3. Political and economic uncertainties, including inflation and cost pressures, threaten the certainty of upfront and long-term funding that underpin sustained, high-quality delivery and should be key considerations for the development of the new towns.
4. Ambitions for net-zero and biodiversity net gain must move from rhetoric to enforceable requirements at every stage of the development of the new towns.
5. The fate of many past new towns was sealed by handover to under-resourced local authorities or the market; today, a culture of stewardship and reinvestment is essential for long-term success.

So what is the vision for the road ahead for this initiative:

The government is set on a rapid timetable, with the ambition to begin construction in at least three new town locations within the current parliamentary term. Locations such as Tempsford and Leeds South Bank are flagged as leading contenders and potential standards by which future large-scale community-building can be judged. The scale and visibility of these projects guarantee that their successes—and any missteps—will be closely scrutinised by the public, sector professionals, and policymakers alike. 

The new towns programme is one of the most ambitious policy shifts in UK housing and regional planning in recent decades. The Taskforce is developing its recommendations alongside the government’s ten-year infrastructure plan and wider industrial strategy and is working closely with other government departments who will be crucial for the success of new towns implementation.  The programme seeks to blend urgency and scale with quality and environmental spirit, placing the lessons of history alongside contemporary needs and future ambitions. For architects, planners, local communities, and investors, it presents both a formidable challenge and an enormous opportunity: to deliver not just housing, but robust, resilient, and future-proof communities that will define the next era of British placemaking. The coming years will reveal whether this vision can be fully realised—and if it is, the “new new towns” could provide a sustainable model for growth that is copied around the world.

To sum up what I discussed today:

• The new town Taskforce initiative, tasked and established by the government in July 2024, is a direct response to decades of housing undersupply and urban congestion, aiming to meet acute national demand through rapid creation of large-scale, well-planned communities.
• Guided by the New Towns Taskforce’s principles, new towns will embrace placemaking, comprehensive masterplanning, and robust infrastructure to create local character, social cohesion, and regional significance, with strong emphasis on environmental and social resilience.
• Each new town will deliver at least 10,000 homes, supported by upfront public investment, dedicated delivery bodies (development corporations), and mechanisms for large-scale land assembly, aiming for swift, high-quality implementation rather than piecemeal growth.
• Environmental ambition—net zero, biodiversity gain, resilient infrastructure—plus high-quality community assets for health, education, and culture are built into the core vision for the new towns, moving beyond historic mistakes and fostering stewardship and reinvestment over the long term.
• Learning from past successes and failures (e.g., infrastructure lag, fragmented communities), the strategy prioritizes infrastructure sequencing, robust governance, and continuous funding, with early collaboration among authorities, residents, and private sector partners to ensure enduring value and adaptability.