This paper is drafted to help inform the work of the New Towns Taskforce by suggesting principles for site selection and delivery at pace, and by sketching out how ‘gentle density’ could enhance the value of the new towns created. We come up with a list of twelve locations we suggest for new towns plus one reserve, drawn from a long list of 50 possible options (see appendix 1 for full list). Building in these twelve locations could start tomorrow because they are in areas with high housing demand so they don’t need subsidies and are well-connected with existing and planned infrastructure.
These recommendations have emerged from a series of internal workshops and desk analysis led by Britain Remade and Create Streets in October and November 2024 with further material taken from previous research and projects. We have also reviewed our findings with a range of transport, legal and planning experts.
The proposed new towns are listed below.
Table 1: proposed new towns
| Town | County | Potential Homes | Existing (in bold) or planned infrastructure |
| Greater Cambridge | Cambridgeshire | 150,000 - 200,000 | East West Rail, New tramway, A14, M1 |
| Tempsford | Bedfordshire | 150,000 - 200,000 | East West Rail, East Coast Main Line, A428, A1(M) |
| Winslow | Buckinghamshire | 15,000 - 25,000 | East West Rail (opening next year) |
| Cheddington | Buckinghamshire | 25,000 - 50,000 | West Coast Main Line (extra capacity post- HS2) |
| Salfords | Surrey | 37,500 - 75,000 | Brighton Main Line (upgrade planned), M23 |
| Greater Oxford | Oxfordshire | 50,000 - 75,000 | New Tramway, New station at Begbroke, Cherwell Valley Line, Oxford-Bicester Line, A34, A40 |
| Iver | Buckinghamshire | 20,000 - 30,000 | Elizabeth Line, M25, M4 |
| Hatfield Peverel | Essex | 15,000 - 20,000 | Great Eastern Main Line, A12 (upgrade planed) |
| Bristol Extension | Bristol, North Somerset, Glocestershire | 30,000 - 50,000 | Portishead Branch Line, M4, A4174, Potential Mass Transit |
| Chippenham | Wiltshire | 10,000 | TransWilts rail (new passing loop at Melksham) |
| Greater York | North Yorkshire | 25,000 - 50,000 | Harrogate Line, York Outer Ring Road (upgrade planned), New tramway |
| Arden Cross (Birmingham Interchange) | West Midlands, Warwickshire | 30,000 - 50,000 | HS2, West Midlands Metro Extension, M42, A45 |
| Reserve: South East Sheffield | South Yorkshire | 15,000 - 30,000 | Sheffield Metroland Supertram |
Taking the lower estimate of the potential number of new homes we expect that these twelve new towns would boost the UK’s GDP by between £13 and 28 billion per year.
This comes through one main channel: workers who move to one of these new towns can expect access to higher paying jobs because the new towns are well-connected to the UK’s productive cities. This calculation takes the median non-London UK wage and models the expected uplift to a combination of the median wage in the local authority in which the new town would be built and the median wage of the nearest shortage city. It also includes a calculation of the boost to GDP that will come from constructing the estimated 557,500 homes over the course of 10 years.