Ten new towns and garden cities should be developed in the UK by 2025 to ease the country’s housing shortage, the Confederation of British Industry has said. But fears have been expressed that the timescale target may be too ambitious and there are calls for good quality public transportation infrastructure to be considered fully from the outset in future plans.

In a report published on Monday the CBI claims that 240,000 new homes are needed to be built each year – double the current level – and that politicians have got into the habit of putting off big decisions until they are overdue.

CBI’s deputy director general Katja Hall said: “A perfect storm is brewing in the housing market. With demographic changes and demand currently outstripping supply, now is the time for action.”

Independent consultant Lynda Addison said: “There is definitely a need for new garden developments in the South East and beyond, as we cannot just expand existing places. But it is not necessarily helpful to put a specific number on how many garden cities are needed or how many houses we provide. How many and how large are very dependent on what else takes place and where.

“We need to create places that work from a social point of view and developing garden cities takes a very long time – you cannot create one in the timescale being talked about but can start the process. Sustainable transportation also has to be planned as an integral part of new settlements.”

Masterplanning firm Wei Yang & Partners suggested the most suitable location for a new wave of garden cities in the South East is on an arc stretching from Southampton to Oxford, Cambridge and Felixstowe.

“Transport connections are good into this area but more funding would be needed for inner city public transport, such as light rail, and for garden cities to become properly connected to elsewhere,” Wei Yang said. “It’s important for the new towns and garden cities to be designed and implemented property and for them to be part of national policy with consistent cross party support.”

Last week urban designer David Rudlin won the Wolfson Economics Prize for arguing that a Garden Cities Act should be introduced by the next Government to allow existing towns and cities to bid for garden city status, allowing them to double in size.

Up to 40 cities in England could be doubled in size, he said, including Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Rugby, Reading and Stafford. He suggested that trams or bus rapid transit schemes could connect city centres with outlying extensions.

Photo: Milton Keynes by Mike Belch, Geograph.co.uk  

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