TCPA Conference: A New Future for New Towns

The debate about the role of the 21st Century New Towns in tackling the nation’s housing crisis is once again high on the political agenda. Government has announced that it will deliver five ‘New Garden Towns’ using New Town Development Corporations (NTDCs); that New Towns will be used to drive growth in the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge Corridor, and has published a consultation on the use of Development Corporations and Land Value Capture to fund infrastructure and housing delivery.

The New Towns Act 1946 led to the delivery of 32 New Towns across the United Kingdom, places which today provide homes to over 2.8 million people. They were places of huge ambition and visionary thinking, but today many face renewal and growth challenges resulting from mismanagement of their assets.

This conference will explore what lessons we can learn from the original New Towns to inform a new generation of Development Corporations. Drawing on the TCPA’s latest research on the Growth and Renewal of UK New Towns, and the work of the New Towns All-Party Parliamentary Group, it will explore what needs to be done to ensure the original New Towns can regain their spirit of ambition, celebrating as it does, how many are already seizing this opportunity.