New Towns: Follow-Up-Government Response to the Ninth Report of the Committee, Session 2007-08 - Communities and Local Government Committee Contents


New Towns: Follow-up—Government Response



Introduction: our follow-up report

1. On 29 July 2002, our predecessor Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee published its Report The New Towns: Their Problems and Future.[1] In January 2007, we decided to follow up our predecessors' work by pursuing a number of their recommendations. That resulted in our Report New Towns: Follow-up, which was published on 11 July 2008.[2]

2. New Towns: Follow-up concluded thus:

25. Like our predecessor Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee, the Town and Country Planning Association and the New Towns Special Interest Group, we are critical of the Government for continuing to neglect the particular regeneration requirements of the New Towns. There remain two urgent and pressing needs. First, we must identify the steps which are needed to maintain the post-war New Towns as successful communities and good places to live. They were social experiments. By their nature they have special and particular needs. If those needs are not recognised, there is a danger that they will fall into social decay and physical dereliction. The Government cannot pretend that they are just like any other urban area of England. They are not. We recommend that the Government commission a detailed examination of the reinvestment needs of the New Towns. This is an essential first step towards ensuring that the significant investment in the New Towns programme, and the social and economic benefits which have been gained from it, are not wasted.

26. Second, we need to learn lessons for the future. The Government has embarked on a massive regeneration programme, aiming to deliver 3 million new homes by 2020. It would be an act of folly not to spend a small sum on trying to learn the lessons of history in order to prevent past mistakes being repeated. Building on the desk-based research which has already been done, we recommend that further original work be undertaken identifying specific lessons for the long-term planning of current and future large-scale urban development such as the "eco-town" programme and the Growth Areas.

The Government's response

3. We received the Government's response to this latest report, in the form of a memorandum to the Committee, on 21 January 2009. That response—which is published as an Appendix to this Report—argues that the Government is already undertaking work which addresses our recommendations, noting that:

4. Nevertheless, the response accepts the Committee's case for further research on the New Towns. It says

The Government will commission further work to evaluate the successes and benefits that Britain's biggest planning experiment brought. It will be important to ensure that the wider lessons are evaluated in moving forward with the Eco-towns, Growth Areas and Growth Points programmes which form the basis for the Government's housing growth programme.[5]

It goes on to explain and justify the focus of this new research as follows:

Whilst the infrastructure and assets of the New Towns are showing signs of ageing, the focus of research will be targeted towards social and retail infrastructure. By focussing on these two areas, and in commissioning further research, lessons and examples can be distilled for current growth programmes, including the Eco-towns and Growth Points programmes.[6]

5. The Government's response, then, suggests that this new research will address both the reinvestment needs of the New Towns and the identification of specific lessons for the long-term planning of current and future large-scale urban development which we called for in our follow-up report. However, the limited scope of the research means that it falls at least some way short of both. Indeed, the conclusion to the Government's response hints that the Government itself recognises that this research will not fully meet our desire for further work evaluating the lessons of the New Towns programme as a whole, arguing as it does that

There is now a wealth of guidance, good practice and legislation that has been issued since the establishment of the New Towns which is being used to inform decisions about how we build the new settlements of the future. This information is defining high-quality of places being built and more importantly impacting and improving on quality of life.[7]

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


 
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