Shadow Secretary of State Angela Rayner’s speech at UKREiif in Leeds on 21 May 2024 was interesting, particularly on new settlements. I have emboldened some key passages below:
“New Settlements
And while we work with the grain of local communities and their character, we’ll also consider how urban regeneration and extension can play their part.
We want homes on these sites within the first term of a Labour government.
But these new large settlements must be built in the right place, in partnership with local people.
This is why an expert independent taskforce will be set up to help choose the right sites and a list of projects will be announced within our first 12 months of government, so we can start building the towns of the future within months, not decades.
Our next generation of New Towns will build homes fit for the future. Creating places where people want to live. Inspired by garden suburbs like Hale in Manchester, Roundhay in Leeds, and the Garden City project
But let me be clear – I will not simply demand “more units, at any cost”.
The reason many local communities resist new homes is often because the housing is of the wrong type, in the wrong place – it doesn’t come with the schools, GP surgeries and green spaces that make communities, not just streets.
Or the affordable and social housing local people need.
Our next generation of New Towns will build homes fit for the future. Creating places where people want to live. Inspired by garden suburbs like Hale in Manchester, Roundhay in Leeds, and the Garden City project.
We will set out a New Towns Code – criteria that developers must meet in these new settlements:
More social and affordable homes – with a gold standard aim of 40%
Buildings with character, in tree-lined streets that fit in with nearby areas
Design that pays attention to local history and identity
Planning fit for the future, with good links to town and city centres
Guaranteed public transport and public services, from doctors’ surgeries to schools
And access to nature, parks, and places for children to play “
New Towns are just one way we get good quality, affordable houses built in the national interest.
Our local housing recovery plan will reverse the Conservatives’ damaging changes to planning, getting stalled sites moving at speed.
We’ll give Mayors the tools they need to deliver homes in their areas, revitalising brownfield first, unlocking ugly, disused grey belt land for housebuilding and setting tough new conditions for releasing that land.
Our ‘golden rules’ will ensure any grey belt development delivers affordable homes, new public services, and improved green spaces.
This means more social and affordable homes and we will ensure that brownfield sites are approved quicker so homes get built fast.
Together, we will unleash the biggest wave of affordable and social housing in a generation.
Because a safe, secure, affordable home is the foundation of a good life.
We can see the consequences when that foundation is taken away.
Today, there is an epidemic of homelessness and rough sleeping in Britain.”
Some intriguing aspects here that go beyond the Labour Party’s Plan to Power-Up Britain that I covered in my 13 April 2024 blog post Powering Up Britain and beyond Sir Keir Starmer’s party conference speech in October 2023 (see 10 October 2023 BBC piece Keir Starmer promises to build new towns and 1.5m homes). Particularly intriguing that “an expert independent taskforce will be set up to help choose the right sites and a list of projects will be announced within our first 12 months of government, so we can start building the towns of the future within months, not decades.”.
The huge question will be how to avoid previous governments’ false starts and missteps. The last Labour government’s eco-towns programme was similarly ambitious, with preferred sites arrived at on the basis of criteria set out in a prospectus which became hotly contested by those whose sites were not selected and by local campaigners. A High Court challenge to the process failed but, given time slippages, the programme was ultimately overtaken by the 2010 General Election. The judgment in the case, Bard Campaign v Secretary of State (Walker J, 25 February 2009) makes for interesting reading as to the context. For a wider piece setting out subsequent proposals by the present government for “locally-led” new towns see my 11 July 2020 blog post The New Towns Question (Again) .
Full marks for ambition but how to balance speedy top-down decisions as to quantum, potential locations, scale and so on (however “independent” “expert” led) with ensuring that (1) there is a joined up plan to deliver the necessary infrastructure (2) schemes have sufficient local buy-in (3) schemes are commercially viable (4) there is a fit-for-purpose consenting process if building is to start “within months” (polite cough) and (5) all legal trip hazards in terms of, for instance adequate assessment and consultation can successfully be navigated? Those will be some of the questions.
And the “gold standard aim of 40%” affordable housing is an interesting political phrase!
Simon Ricketts, 25 May 2024
Personal views, et cetera
SIMONICITY 