The Housing Forum shared our ideas for the New Towns Draft Programme with Government. Our response built upon the ideas set out in our recent report, New Lessons for New Towns.
A broad-based approach to placemaking will help to ensure that the shared vision is credible and enduring, capable of withstanding the inevitable headwinds faced by any complex, long-term development project.
It is essential to create a range of mechanisms to enable people who live locally, or wish to live in the new town, to shape the new neighbourhood. The planning process is currently geared much too much around letting people express opposition to new developments, whilst giving them too few routes to engage constructively. The recent report from Demos, Beyond Bricks: New towns and the citizenship opportunity, sets out many examples of ways that this has been done successfully.
Long-term maintenance of the new assets, including landscape and infrastructure, needs to be considered at an early stage. Planning and design approaches should minimise barriers to future repurposing and regeneration.
It is also important to consider new towns as things that will continue to grow over time – so long-term stewardship is not just about managing the neighbourhoods after they are built, but also about creating the systems for continual growth and adapting to changing needs and opportunities in the future.
Read the full report here: Consultation on New Towns Draft Programme – response from The Housing Forum
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