Three ideas to make new towns into places people want to live – Inside track

It’s not often the government gets an opportunity resembling a fresh start, but embarking on a set of new towns holds that promise.

The government has invoked the post-war Labour government’s renewal programme in its mission to build 1.5 million homes by 2030. It should remember Aneurin Bevan’s prescient judgement: “We shall be judged for a year or two by the number of houses we build. We shall be judged in ten years’ time by the type of houses we build”.

Housing Secretary Steve Reed has admirably committed to building “not just homes, but communities”. He aims to start at least three new towns this parliament. Here are three big ideas to guide their development:

1. People should be able to choose how they get around
Freedom might not be the first word you think of when you think of planning. But good transport planning is about just that: giving people as much choice as possible about how they go about their lives. Over the past 15 years new developments have become more car-centric, leaving a growing number of people “trapped behind the wheel”. This increases congestion, costs the UK nearly £8 billion a year, causes air pollution contributing to up to 43,000 early deaths a year and shrinks peoples’ economic and social opportunities, particularly if they cannot drive.

An obvious first step is to locate new towns where public transport links already exist, rather than starting from scratch. Building at ‘gentle densities’ and locating essential services, like GPs, amongst residential zones facilitates public and active travel like walking and cycling. Sustainable transport choices, from day one, should be enabled by the government’s ambitious bus and rail reforms.

Bus franchising can give local transport authorities more control over where routes go, and the establishment of Great British Railways to co-ordinate the whole country should make train provision simpler for new towns. The upcoming Integrated National Transport Strategy should enable not just good services but joined-up services for new towns, ie no buses arriving just after the train has left the station.

Important to this change is rethinking how transport projects are assessed. Great weight is given in transport appraisal to shaving minutes off car journeys in a notional future scenario in which traffic only grows. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where more roads are built, with minimal economic gain. But cycling and buses can generate a much higher rate of up to £5 for every £1 invested.

2. Towns should make good use of precious resources
Construction is the most wasteful sector of the economy by volume, producing 62 per cent of all waste generated in the UK. It is also responsible for 25 per cent of the UK’s carbon footprint, when supply chain emissions are included. When he was environment secretary, Steve Reed drew attention to the major gains in economic value and resilience from getting better use out of materials in construction.

Material costs have gone up by a quarter since Covid, driving up the total cost of construction. This is growing the business case for circular economy solutions. Our research has found that improving design practices alone could reduce material use by more than a fifth (22 per cent), cutting overall costs.

Steve Reed has said he will mobilise “the full power of the state” to build the new towns. Government investment and procurement should demonstrate and scale innovative techniques. For example, modular construction (or pre-fabrication) can save nearly half the carbon of traditional on-site building and uses fewer materials. With the right framework, new towns could create new markets for resource-efficient construction that could then be deployed elsewhere, all while saving taxpayers money.

3. Everyone should have access to nature
People want to be able to get out into nature more, with 70 per cent of UK adults saying that being close to nature improves their mood. Houses in national parks come at a 25 per cent price premium due to higher demand. But access to high quality green spaces is highly unequal in the UK. Women, young people, disabled people and people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups report being less able to access nature. Better access could save the NHS billions a year through more active lifestyles and improvements to mental health.

The inclusion of high quality spaces for nature can be a crucial ingredient in making a new town feel established and like a community, rather than just a collection of houses. The government should draw on positive examples like the project in Houlton in Warwickshire which delivered 6,200 new homes on the site of the demolished Rugby Radio Station. Nature was built in from the start and now every single resident can reach at least two hectares of green space within 300 metres of their home. The project has delivered a 27 per cent biodiversity net gain and great crested newts are coexisting happily with thousands of new residents.

Integrating and protecting nature is also a long term insurance policy. A new town where asphalt and concrete dominate is much less able to deal with the flooding and heatwaves that will be more prevalent with climate change. Six million English homes are threatened by the risk of flooding. Adding thousands more to that number would be extremely short sighted.

New towns are a chance for the government to literally set its ideas in stone. Working with nature, using resources wisely and providing sustainable transport choices will make more people’s lives better.