All of our proposed new towns make some use of existing or planned infrastructure though five would benefit from substantive new infrastructure as well that could be delivered alongside construction of the town (we suggest these for later phases, see below). We have specifically sought to create ‘mirror towns’ where Victorian stations were located to one side of a historic town, leading to the possibility of extending the town on the other side making better use of existing rail infrastructure.
The potential for ‘Mirror towns’: what, why and how
Due to patterns of land ownership or route selection, many Victorian stations were not built within a historic town centre but on its periphery. Perhaps the best-known example is Cambridge, where the railway was built to the east of the city, with little development on the other side of the line until the 1940s, a century after the railway arrived.
In some cases, the Victorian or twentieth century town naturally expanded and grew around the new station. But in many others, it has not and the train station has been left on the town’s periphery raising the potential to create a mirror town on the ‘other side’ of the tracks and making use of existing infrastructure. Examples include Winslow, Salfords, Hatfield Peverel and Iver.
A recent example of a ‘mirror town.’ A plan for 2,100 homes at a ‘gentle density’ of between 39 and 150 homes per hectare (net) at West Horndon Station, Essex. The existing town is to the north of the train line.