Response from the Town and Country
Planning Association and the New Towns Special Interest Group
6. To test the adequacy of the Government's response,
we invited both the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA)
and the New Towns Special Interest Group of local authorities
("New Towns SIG"), both of whom had contributed to our
earlier follow-up report, to comment on it. The replies from Gideon
Amos, Chief Executive of the TCPA, and Dick Tregea, Strategic
Director of Halton Borough Council's Environment Directorate and
formerly contact point for the New Towns SIG, are also printed
as Appendices to this Report, together with a response from Warrington
Borough Council which represents the only response to Mr Tregea's
invitation to New Towns colleagues to comment on the response.
As Dick Tregea's letter notes, the Special Interest Group has
now been disbanded.
7. Both replies welcome the Government's response
to the Committee's report, and the commitments it contains both
for new research and for addressing the reinvestment needs of
New Towns through programmes such as Growth Areas and Growth Points.
8. The response from the TCPA nevertheless goes on
to express some disappointment that, although the Government has
completed "stage one" of the research "identifying
specific lessons from the New Towns for the long-term planning
of current and future large-scale urban development" promised
in its response to our predecessors' report of 2002, it has never
proceeded to "stage two". Noting that "issues such
as the financing, investment and viability of this Government
programme have never been officially reported upon", the
TCPA suggests that "commissioning further research work to
look into these issues would be useful and the TCPA would be keen
to assist."[8]
9. This response may be set beside that from the
representatives of the former New Towns SIG, which suggests that
the New Towns themselves now wish to look forward rather than
back. Mr Tregea quotes the response from Warrington"We
are keen to move on from the New Town era, and look forward to
delivering our visions and plans for the future rather than considering
life as a former New Town"continuing "This view
put forward by Warrington is consistent with those previously
expressed by members of the former LGA New Towns SIG where the
hope was that their towns and communities would be 'normalised'."
He concludes, "In summary, it would seem that, in general,
the Government's response is broadly consistent with the thinking
of the former LGA New Towns SIG and is, therefore, to be broadly
welcomed."[9]
Conclusion
10. It
is to be regretted that the Government has not, as the TCPA points
out, ever proceeded to "stage two" of the research which
it promised in its response to our predecessors' report of 2002.
We consider that there is continued merit in a specific study
drawing out lessons from the New Towns programme as a whole, and
we hope that a proposal will come forward for such a study which
the Government will be able to support.
11. In the light
of the responses from those representing the New Towns themselves,
however, we see little merit in continuing to pursue the Government
on this point. The Government's approach of focussing on the current
and future needs of the New Towns, alongside those of other towns
and cities in England, is the right one. We welcome the new research
which the Government has commissioned as the result of our follow-up
work. That research will play an important role in assessing the
reinvestment needs of the ageing infrastructure of the New Towns.
There will also be important lessons to be learnt from it for
future large-scale urban development: development which will be
crucial if the Government is to ensure that the nation's housing
needs are met. We look forward both to seeing the results of that
research, and, more broadly, to seeing the Government secure the
legacy of the New Towns experiment.
1 Nineteenth Report of the Transport, Local Government
and the Regions Committee, Session 2001-02, The New Towns:
their Problems and Future, HC 603. Back
2
Ninth Report of the Communities and Local Government Committee,
Session 2007-08, New Towns: Follow-Up, HC 889. Back
3
Ev 1 Back
4
Ev 3 Back
5
Ev 3 Back
6
Ev 3 Back
7
Ev 4 Back
8
Ev 6 Back
9
Ev 7 Back