Don’t old towns need saving?

Last autumn, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government welcomed the publication of an independent report that recommended the locations of 12 new towns across the country. The relevant statement went on to promise that development would begin on ‘at least three new towns in this Parliament’, as well as ‘a far larger range of locations if it proves possible’. In the meantime, a determined initiative to clear a way for as much development as possible through our creaking planning system is under way.

Despite such efforts, whether this target of three new towns is any more plausible than the Government’s overarching pledge to build 1.5 million new houses in the same period remains to be seen. New towns have an irresistible appeal for policymakers and proposals for them have been a regular feature of national planning initiatives in recent years. At a fundamental level, they promise to create large numbers of houses rapidly. In addition, for politicians, there is the grandeur of the gesture that attracts (although, in reality, several of the proposed sites in the recent report are ‘densifications’ of existing settlements). For developers, meanwhile, there is the promise of working at scale on unencumbered sites.

Athena is no fixed enemy of new towns, but she is cautious about them. Planning regulations may be tiresome and make it hard to build properties at speed, but simply setting them aside comes with serious long-term risks. These include creating the wrong kind of settlements with the wrong facilities in the wrong places, not to mention the challenge of ensuring that commercial developers with a short-term interest in the property they build work to a high standard. Added to which, there remains remarkably little consensus as to what form new towns should take; love or hate Poundbury in Dorset, it certainly challenges received orthodoxies.

There is also the reality of the unwelcome impact that new towns can have on existing landscape and heritage. Such is the case, for example, with the redevelopment of the former airbase at RAF Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, one of the 12 proposed locations, next to Rousham. Yet what most frustrates Athena about the Government’s focus on new towns is that, for the sake of speed and bold headlines, it risks overlooking the ones that we have already. Far too many towns across Britain have been ruthlessly hollowed out and stand in urgent need of renewal. Such revival is complex to manage, but our existing urban centres have vast potential — through the redevelopment of derelict retail units and the conversion of empty property, notably floors over shops and disused office space — to provide new housing at scale. These places already possess infrastructure, transport and character. A new town, by contrast, leaves our inherited problems intact.

Yes, build new towns properly if we need them, but aren’t the ones we have already worth saving first?