Memorandum by The Core Cities Group (NT
35)
THE CORE
CITIES GROUP
In parallel with the heightened focus on regions
in both the UK and Europe, a strong consensus is rapidly emerging
on the crucial role cities play in the development of competitive
regional economies. The success of regions is, in turn, critical
to national economic success. The Core Cities Group, comprising
the eight major cities outside London, has been at the forefront
of this debate for a number of years and is now actively working
with Government and other partners in developing, applying and
monitoring the impact of new and innovative policy and practice
geared to delivering the national agenda for urban renewal and
regional competitiveness. New Towns is an issue in which the Core
Cities have an interest and we are pleased to be able to contribute
to the debate on future policy in this area via the Urban Affairs
Sub-Committee's New Inquiry.
OVERVIEW
It is important to understand that, as a concept,
New Towns are not particularly new and that their original purpose
was in fact primarily to provide decent housing in the form of
"commuter villages" for their large neighbouring cities.
This was driven by a shortage of housing after the Second World
War, slum clearance and growing demand from smaller households
as a consequence of life style/social changes and the growing
affluence of some sections of the community.
Some of those policies, particularly the large-scale
depopulation of major cities as part of the slum clearance programmes
in the 1960's are now rightly viewed as misguided. Current urban
policy is firmly geared towards achieving an "urban renaissance",
a key strand of which is the repopulation of our major cities
by creating vibrant, sustainable, "liveable" communities,
particularly within inner city areas.
Over the same period some New Towns, characterised
by Milton Keynes, have expanded on a scale never originally envisaged.
The relative success of such New Towns in attracting inward investment,
particularly as a location for knowledge based industries, has
in turn led to increased demand for housing in close proximity.
This is perhaps one of the most damaging legacies of the New Town
concept and there is no doubt that further expansion of existing
and/or the creation of more satellite locations will critically
undermine the new agenda on urban renewal.
POLICY CONTEXT
The success of the New Towns in attracting investment
has largely been due to the policy context and legal framework
in which they have been allowed to operate. For example, Development
Corporations were created in some areas and granted powers over
and above those of adjacent Local Authorities including, for example,
the ability to buy up private land easily and speedily and to
exert greater control over the public utilities. This inevitably
created more favourable conditions for business and investors
that could not be matched by adjacent urban areas operating within
the more rigid, inflexible framework. If an urban renaissance
is to be achieved in the heart of the Core Cities within our major
conurbations, this policy needs to be reversed and relevant policy
incentives to direct investment away from the periphery and into
the cores introduced.
IMPACT OF
NEW TOWNS
ON THE
CORE CITIES
The level of inward investment achieved by some
of the New Towns has had a detrimental impact on our major cities.
Within the Core Cities, existing employment sites and opportunities
are cheek by jowl with sustainable urban neighbourhoods. However,
in the case of Manchester for example, the quantum of allocated/committed
greenfield land for employment/housing uses within Warrington
BC is now competing with priority regeneration-based initiatives
in the established urban centres.
Furthermore, if New Towns are expanded and large
greenfield employment sites are released, the argument may follow
that, to ensure sustainable patterns of development, land for
housing should be released in close proximity to these employment
sites. This would severely undermine the ongoing work of Core
Cities to renew and restructure their housing markets in order
to reposition themselves as high quality, high value housing and
employment locations. There is no doubt that the inner cities,
already located in close proximity to vibrant, economically successful
city centres that contain the critical mass of commercial, educational,
retail, public transport and leisure facilities required to support
densely populated areas, are best placed to achieve sustainable
patterns of growth and development. The expansion of existing
New Towns and/or the creation of additional New Towns rests entirely
on the release of further greenfield land. Not only does this
fail to meet the sustainability test, it contradicts and undermines
current Government policy on achieving an urban renaissance. This
reinforces the need for a national spatial strategy, a point which
is expanded upon in the Core Cities response to the current Planning
Green Paper.
PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED
LAND
Within many conurbations there is a supply of
previously developed land that can accommodate a significant proportion
of a region's housing provision. Whilst acknowledging that there
are issues in developing previously used sites in terms of contamination,
infrastructure, multiple ownership, existing uses etc., an urban
potential study of Greater Manchester identified that Manchester
could accommodate 70,000 new dwellings by 2021 on previously developed
land. This would depend on a focused regeneration strategy incorporating
innovative solutions in sustainable locations, policy changes
at local, regional and national level and changes to implementation
mechanisms. The RPG figure for Manchester was 38,000. Clearly,
there is a wide difference between these figures.
HOUSING MARKET
RENEWAL
A newly identified challenge for housing provision
and achieving regeneration goals within urban areas is the collapse
of the housing market within the inner city cores of our major
cities. This has occurred due to a number of factors:
— The predominance of one tenure (social
and private rented sector)
— Monolithic provision (eg 1000s of
2/3 bed houses in one locality)
— Concentrations of a particular dwelling
type (high rise flats or back of pavement terraces)
— Shifts in economic activity and consequential
unemployment concentrations of elderly people dependent on benefits.
Without measures to improve housing choice and
quality in areas which have had historically high levels of low
income housing economic regeneration will merely exacerbate the
problem, as economically active people choose to leave the most
marginal neighbourhoods. (Changing Housing Markets and Urban Regeneration
in the M62 Corridor, Brendan Nevin 2001).
The combination of housing market collapse alongside
huge amounts of previously developed land places a simultaneous
burden and opportunity upon Core Cities to deliver housing provision
in sustainable locations. With considerable policy support and
funding at the european, national, regional and local level the
urban renaissance of these areas could, however, be achieved with
sustainable patterns of development, building upon existing infrastructure,
facilities, public transport etc., (PPG3 paragraph 31).
A considerable proportion of the population
of the Core Cities has already been lost to New Towns the priority
for the future must be to ensure that this trend does not continue
and, indeed, is reversed. Further loss of the population from
the inner cores to New Towns will undoubtedly undermine the regeneration
of the inner cities. The restructuring of the housing market will
require the clearance of obsolete housing and its replacement
with a greater mix of housing sizes, types and tenures, including
owner occupied housing, to create new housing markets and more
balanced communities. A fully informed, joined-up approach to
the role of Core Cities in regional economies and housing markets
should be agreed before any further widespread release of housing
provision in New Towns.
SUSTAINABILITY OF
NEW TOWNS
The creation and expansion of New Towns typically
requires the release of greenfield sites, these sites being recognised
by developers as "easier" to develop than previously
used (brownfield) land. In addition, New Towns have been developed
to low densities and designed around the use of the car. Such
patterns of development have encouraged a culture of commuting
and car-dependency, which has played a significant role in creating
and reinforcing social exclusion in our inner cities. Government
has now acknowledged that such policies are ultimately unsustainable
and the current drive to deliver the urban renaissance explicitly
recognises that cities and other urban areas offer the best opportunity
to create sustainable communities in the long-term.
CONCLUSION
It is of crucial importance that this Inquiry,
and any policies, initiatives or interventions proposed for New
Towns take into account wider Government objectives for urban
renaissance, and fundamental issues of economic disparities within
and between the regions of this country, which can only be effectively
addressed by sustainable approaches to housing provision, planning
and investment.
The conurbation cores, with their concentration
of commercial and employment opportunities, retail, transport
and leisure assets, all of which connect, sustainably, with densely
populated areas, hold the key to enhanced economic competitiveness
and performance of the regions, and in turn the country as a whole.
Further policy interventions to expand or favour investment in
New Towns, without acknowledging the greater priorities and opportunities
present in Core Cities, will merely exacerbate trends in the loss
of greenfield land and the depopulation of cities, which we are
now actively seeking to reverse. Such an approach will undoubtedly
severely undermine Government objectives to secure an urban renaissance.
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