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Think piece: Planning for new towns – have we got the right tools?


We’re getting close now to the New Towns Taskforce revealing it’s findings and identifying potential locations for a new wave of large scale settlements. Many are eager to see what is going to proposed and where, but the issue that’s taxing me most is how these projects are going to get through the planning system in an effective and efficient way.


There’s been the ‘call for evidence’ which resulted in over 100 responses. The Taskforce issued an interim update[i] in February but didn’t give much away. The update indicated that the next stage of work was to understand “the approach to land acquisition and placemaking” and the “powers, structures and financial models need to achieve delivery”.  It’s conspicuous that the update made no mention of exploring ‘planning’ or how new sites can actually come forward through our current or an evolved system.

So here are my thoughts to try to set out some practical options and opportunities, drawing mainly from what already exists or can be modified.  


The role for Local Plans & the emerging approach to strategic planning


The obvious place to start would be to establish and allocate sites via the current system of Local Plans.


Many will know the lengthy timescales, uncertainty and pain experienced by everyone as strategic sites and new settlements are considered through Local Plans. A ‘new town’ will go way beyond a Local Plan time horizon and serve a much bigger purpose.

It feels totally unrealistic to expect Local Plans to be able to grapple with ‘new’ new towns of the size being envisaged (if they are 20,000+ homes, with 50+ year timescales of delivery). Including new towns in Local Plans would totally overwhelm them, and distract from their broader role and purpose to deliver a localised strategy and distributions of site allocations. The timescale for preparation and adoption would be too long, and uncertainty would prevail throughout. Examples appear all the time where large sites such as Garden Villages are causing Local Plans to stumble.


There’s also the ominous question as to whether housing supply from new towns would be counted as part of addressing local needs. If as has been communicated[ii] supply from new towns won’t be counted, then you can forget local Councils putting them into Local Plans. This also won’t work in places where a proposed new town may at least in part already be emerging in a Local Plan and where a Council already needs those numbers.


So what about the role of the new style Spatial Development Strategies. At face value this looks like a sensible larger than local scale to think about new towns, but it’s clear that Government wants to put these in place pretty quickly, and they aren’t permitted to allocate sites[iii]. Maybe they could start to direct strategic broad areas where new towns could be acceptable (without allocating specific sites) but that is likely to introduce a whole heap of challenge/evidence gathering and debate and no doubt would add a couple years to their timescales.


A National approach


So if doing it locally or regionally is going to be too long and too difficult then something different will be needed.


I’d expect something at a national level to provide sufficient ‘air cover’ and general support and enabling for new town sites to be proposed, irrespective of the position at a local or regional level. It seems like this is on the cards anyway, with some kind of ‘golden rules’ type of approach that would set expectations of what potential new towns should include to make them acceptable.  Perhaps this can be expanded to provide some additional useful spatial content – such as broad areas within which new towns would be considered appropriate.


But lessons would need to be learned from the previous Eco Towns approach which set out a ‘Planning Policy Statement’ to set policy as well as locations[iv]. I’m doubtful that actual sites or allocations should or could be set out within a national policy, without getting into a whole load of evidence gathering and justification behind any locations identified. And how would stakeholders and local voices have any say in this process – it feels like any attempt to namecheck locations will quickly unravel and get stuck in debate and acrimony for years.


Perhaps there could be a bigger ‘national plan’ that integrates strategic land uses (including the sites of new town), nationally significant infrastructure and other things – but that sounds like too tall an order and not be simple/quick enough.


Maybe Government are thinking of rekindling the approach similar to what was being proposed via the preparation of the ‘Ox-Cams Spatial Framework’ a few years back[v]. This was coming forward as a sub-area plan created by Government and to have the same status as the NPPF. I’m not sure that kind of approach is credible anymore, especially as sub-regional planning is back and you’d imagine the Government is trying to let local places crack on without another tier being added.


So what do we have at a local level?


If there’s air cover set at a national level, maybe this can be framed in such a way to set out how planning for new towns should then come forward via local processes.


I’d be interested in exploring whether the new ‘Supplementary Plan’[vi] route might be suitable to allocate and set a policy framework. This new concept is not to be mistaken as the same previous ‘Supplementary Planning Document’ approach – which needed to be consistent with a Local Plan, could not be used to allocate land and could not bring forward new policy requirements. My reading is that Supplementary Plans can be very different, and can be used to pick up something new/additional to an existing/proposed Local Plan. They are quicker to bring forward and include an element of scrutiny by PINS, albeit a streamlined version to that facing a full blown Local Plan. This could be a suitable approach to turn strategic masterplanning and design coding work for a new town into a policy document, with suitable engagement, consultation, scrutiny and democratic input. 


I’d anticipate an ongoing interest in whether a ‘Local Development Order’ is the ultimate solution as the best consenting mechanism, linking back to the previous post-war New Towns approach which used a similar ‘Special Development Order’ (as per the New Town Act) to give general permission, and a simplified process for detailed scheme to be rubber stamped if they were compliant with the SDO.  SDO’s are currently used for other things, such as via the Home Office to establish asylum accommodation at Wethersfield[vii] and Scampton[viii].


An LDO may well be relevant, but I’d suggest that a Supplementary Plan may still be useful as the higher level and more flexible framework within which the more detailed parameter based approach of an LDO can give consent. I’d also suggest that given the scale of new town sites and their timescales, it’d be best to evolve more than 1 LDO to cover specific elements, phases or parts of a new town, and avoid doing everything in detail too early in the process, with the inevitable changes and problems that will occur down the line.


It's important to also learn from current practice on LDOs[ix] before jumping to thinking they are the right solution. The only real example of an LDO for a new town type of development is Nansledan, Cornwall[x].  This has only been done due to it being on Duchy of Cornwall land, where there is strong confidence behind the vision of place being created and the long term legacy interest of the landowner and developer. You also need to look beyond the LDO itself to understand how everything is being managed and controlled, for example at Nansledan there is a Design and Community Code[xi], which includes the Estate Stipulations, that each homeowner and business has signed up to and sets out what can and can’t be done.


It’s fascinating to see how the LDO at Nansledan has stripped out a whole load of process – just check out the planning register[xii] which is very sparse and has none of the hundreds of entries around discharging conditions and reserved matters you’d normally see through the traditional approach. But this also poses challenges too – for example about democratic understanding and inputs as the development progresses and new bits come forward into delivery. I’m also aware that even the Nansledan LDO at it’s scale (far smaller than the proposed new towns) is already creaking a bit and is likely to need some kind of review and updating process to pick up things that need changing already.


With that experience I’d imagine that an LDO may only really be suitable in situations where there  is sufficient control over the land. This could sit well with new towns being taken forward via a Development Corporation which has deployed it’s land powers to gain a suitable level of control to ensure that a well designed and comprehensive scheme can come forward.


It seems likely that Development Corporations will inevitably be the mechanism needed to deliver, taking responsibility as the master developer and generally overseeing implementation to achieve an established vision. It may be that the powers and functions available to the Corporation will fit with establishing a suitable policy and consenting approach via it’s approach to establishing a masterplan for a new town. The Government have gone some way to ensure that the different types of Development Corporation (Locally Led, Urban, Mayoral, New Town) have similar planning powers. I’ll leave it to others to comment on if the powers and regulations are all fit for purpose or require further change.


An aspect that will need addressing though is ensuring any published guidance is appropriate and not setting hurdles that are just too high. For example the published “Guidance on the New Towns Act 1981 (Local Authority Oversight) Regulations 2018”[xiii] sets out an expectation that new town sites should be allocated in a Local Plan prior to the establishment of a Development Corporation, and/or that any new town masterplan should become a formal development plan document (DPD). As set out in this piece I just don’t think that’s going to possible for new towns.


It’s also possible for new town proposals to go down a traditional planning application route. Perhaps that is better suited in locations where the whole site for a new town has a comprehensive land ownership & where the landowners/developers involved are capable and willing to work in a positive and collaborative manner with Government to deliver on any ‘golden rules’ set nationally. That may still be possible with or without a Development Corporation.


It would be remiss not to also put on the table the potential for new towns to come into the ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project’ (NSIP) regime, This has come up now and again over the years with some feeling that new towns are big enough and nationally significant enough to qualify, and hence justifying taken them into a national rather than local regime. I’m not so sure on that, and feel it’d be better to make the current tools work better, leaving things local, but sharpening it all up so that progress can be made efficiently, with sufficient safeguards around ensuring outcomes are still at the level expected, and that local communities still can have a role in shaping the future of their areas.


Interesting times ahead for sure!


Think piece by Rob Smith

Contact Rob:

07497 848217



 

[ii] See statement by Matthew Pennycook 3rd Marsh 2025 “the Government have been clear that they will deliver over and above the targets produced by the standard method”. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-03-03/debates/CBB391C7-4C66-4B0E-AB55-5886C29D4281/HousingTargetsNewTownsTaskforce

 

[iii] Planning & Infrastructure Bill Part 2 Planning Chapter 2 Spatial development Strategies Clause (12) “A spatial development strategy must not (b) specify particular sites where development should take place,”  https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0196/240196.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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