Landscape professionals have the expertise to achieve the New Towns Taskforce principles, ensuring new developments deliver cost effectively for people, place and nature.
The government has announced plans to build a ‘new generation’ of new towns across England.
One hundred potential locations have been identified for consideration, with up to 12 new settlements could be in the pipeline, each containing a minimum of 10,000 new homes.
A policy paper by the New Towns Taskforce has set out its principles for the new towns, which include density, stewardship, growth, health, communities, climate and biodiversity, amongst others.
The next steps for the Taskforce will be to explore locations for the new towns, which will be assessed according to existing infrastructure and local support, and to explore the best approach for land acquisition and placemaking.
The Taskforce is scheduled to submit a final report to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government by summer 2025.
Belinda Gordon, Director, Policy & Public Affairs, Landscape Institute, said: “Following the government’s announcement to build new towns across England, the Landscape Institute welcomes the update and principles for their development set out by the New Towns Taskforce.
“The successful delivery of high-quality new towns, that benefit people and the environment for the long-term, will require a joined-up approach. Landscape professionals have the expertise to achieve the Taskforce principles, ensuring new developments deliver cost effectively for people, place and nature. The Landscape Institute is engaging with the New Towns Taskforce to ensure that landscape considerations are factored into their report to the government.
“This is a vital opportunity for the government to deliver on its goals for growth and development while also meeting their climate, nature and public health targets. For people today and tomorrow, we must get these major new developments right.”
Richard Beresford, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said New Towns are key to solving the housing crisis as they can set affordable price points for homes, attract businesses with the promise of strategic employment land, and build all things a community needs to ensure housing and infrastructure are not competing for limited land availability.
“The Government should be commended for taking on the NIMBYs to deliver new towns, and it will greatly help them toward their 1.5m home target and delivery of sustainable and strategic growth,” he added.
The Government also highlighted that the Homes Accelerator programme unblocked 20,000 homes, £1m extra funding for government agencies, £2m for the Building Safety Regulator and £3m in grants for local councils to bolster planning.
Rico Wojtulewicz, Head of Policy at the NFB, said: “New Towns are an opportunity to support SMEs by allocating sites specifically for them, which is important for housing diversification and because 73% of construction apprentices are trained by SMEs, who typically employ within 20 miles of their head offices. This makes SMEs key to reducing a reliance on immigrant labour and ensuring people have good careers.
“Supporting SMEs through new town planning would also rectify some of the criticisms made by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) about the planning system being anti-competitive and so reducing the quality and variety of new homes, while also being the reason SME market share continues to drop.”
