The government has announced a £6 million fund to help deliver England’s first ever garden villages which, it says, have the potential to deliver more than 48,000 homes.
In an expansion of the existing garden towns programme, these smaller projects will each deliver between 1,500 and 10,000 homes.
The 14 new garden villages will have access to the £6 million fund over the next two financial years provide “additional resources and expertise to accelerate development and avoid delays”.
The government has also announced support for three new garden towns in Aylesbury, Taunton and Harlow & Gilston with £1.4 million of funding to support their delivery.
Together with the seven garden towns already announced, these 17 new garden settlements have the combined potential to provide almost 200,000 new homes across the country, says the government.
Housing and planning minister Gavin Barwell said: “Locally-led garden towns and villages have enormous potential to deliver the homes that communities need. New communities not only deliver homes, they also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to local economies. These places combined could provide almost 200,000 homes.”
The 14 new garden villages are:
- Long Marston in Stratford-on-Avon
- Oxfordshire Cotswold in West Oxfordshire
- Deenethorpe in East Northants
- Culm in Mid Devon
- Welborne near Fareham in Hampshire
- West Carclaze in Cornwall
- Dunton Hills near Brentwood, Essex
- Spitalgate Heath in South Kesteven, Lincolnshire
- Halsnead in Knowsley, Merseyside
- Longcross in Runnymede and Surrey Heath
- Bailrigg in Lancaster
- Infinity Garden Village in South Derbyshire and Derby City area
- St Cuthberts near Carlisle City, Cumbria
- North Cheshire in Cheshire East.
The three new garden towns are:
- Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
- Taunton, Somerset
- Harlow & Gilston, Essex and Hertfordshire
