For the first time in 50 years, there is a national commitment to building a new generation of new towns. With the severity of Britain’s housing crisis, this is exciting news. But as history shows us, the location and design of new towns is critical to them growing into prosperous and liveable communities. They can fail.

This paper lays out principles for selecting the location and design of new towns, along with policy changes that will make it easier to build new towns quickly, well and with the maximum boost to British economic growth and productivity. We then use these principles to produce a shortlist of twelve new towns from a long list of 50 options 
that were identified through a combination of internal workshops, spatial analysis, and desk-based research.

New towns should be located in:

  • Places that are in an area with acute housing need;
  • Places with strong links to existing cities or towns, especially those which have a large housing shortage;
  • Places with room for at least 10,000 homes today and future expansion opportunities;
  • Places where new homes can be popular and successful by using existing or planned infrastructure rather than spending extra money and time developing major new projects.
  • Places that make use of existing plans or proposals that can be developed at pace, rather than creating completely new plans;
  • Places that do not need to expand into National Landscapes, flood plains or Sites of Special Scientific Interest in order to grow (though these places can be ones that need to use green belt land to grow); and
  • Places with good public transport links to encourage sustainable lifestyles, not just collections of poorly-connected sustainable buildings.

To speed up delivery of new towns, we suggest the Government should:

  • Use its mandate to draft Acts of Parliament to supply infrastructure and speed up planning;
  • Amend the National Planning Policy Framework to designate new towns as critical national priorities to reduce uncertainty and speed up approvals when Acts of Parliament are inappropriate;
  • Revert the duty under section 85 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to requirements made before 2023 as the change could damage the viability of new towns by requiring developments to pay millions if they are near national landscapes;
  • Commission an independent review of the scientific evidence base that underpins habitats regulations to help remove any restrictions that are not robust, reasonable, and effective;
  • Make a Written Ministerial Statement to exempt the towns from nutrient neutrality regulations that can hold up delivery;
  • Empower elected mayors and unitary authorities to develop aligned approaches to transport, housing, and place-making;
  • Extend the power of development corporations to include transport in addition to planning and let more homes be jointly consented with nationally significant infrastructure projects;
  • Create a pattern book of pre-approved street and building types to empower small and medium builders; and
  • Adopt a strategic, low-risk approach to environmental assessment for the entire development.

Our design principles to ensure new towns are popular, productive and attractive places, while requiring less land are:

  • Take a town first, not a field-led approach, to site selection;
  • Build healthy places in which it is easy and safe to move about by foot or cycle in addition to cars;
  • Create communities, not just homes by focusing on different tenure types;
  • Create green places lined with gardens, garden squares, street trees and parks;
  • Make sustainable places, not just sustainable buildings;
  • Create new towns, not just collections of spread out homes, by building gentle density development of three to eight storeys; and
  • Make mixed-use places by building offices, commercial and residential in the same neighbourhoods.

We have used our location and design principles to shortlist twelve new towns, which can be prosperous, liveable, and well-connected communities. The twelve proposals are:

  • Greater Cambridge: an expansion to the city to unlock more homes, laboratory space and innovation.
  • Tempsford, Bedfordshire: a well-connected new town making the most of new infrastructure with excellent access to Cambridge, Oxford, and Central London.
  • Winslow, Buckinghamshire: an opportunity to ‘mirror’ the town across the newly restored East West Rail that runs to Oxford and Milton Keynes.
  • Cheddington, Buckinghamshire: a new town built along the West Coast Main Line, which will greatly benefit from increased capacity once HS2 opens. 
  • Salfords, Surrey: this new town could relieve the housing crisis in Brighton and London while helping fund upgrades to the nearby Brighton Main Line and the M23.
  • Greater Oxford: an expansion to the city to unlock more homes, laboratory space and innovation.
  • Iver, Buckinghamshire: plenty of land right next to two Elizabeth line stations.
  • Hatfield Peverel, Essex: a new town ‘mirrored’ across the railway line, which is well served by the A12 and the Great Eastern Main Line.
  • Bristol Extension: help to alleviate the worst housing crisis outside the greater south east by building on one of the most restrictive green belts in the UK.
  • Chippenham, Wiltshire: organically extend the market town to its east with a new gentle density expansion.
  • York: extend the beautiful city to its ring road, helping to ease the worst housing shortage in the North.
  • Arden Cross (Birmingham Interchange): build a new town adjacent to the new HS2 station, Birmingham airport, the M42, A45, and a potential tram extension to Birmingham centre.

We anticipate that these new towns, when fully completed, will add £13-28bn per annum to the UK’s GDP and over 550,000 new homes.