The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), a housing and planning charity that began as the Garden Cities Association in 1899, will under take the research at a time when the UK government has suggested that a new generation of garden cities could be part of the solution to the nation's housing crisis.
While the TCPA has been leading a re-invigorated campaign for a new generation of beautiful, inclusive and sustainable garden cities, there has never been a thorough study of the post war new towns programme.
‘Garden cities, such as Letchworth and Welwyn, are held up internationally as some of the best examples of how to get planning right, however many of the new towns they inspired have had more mixed success and face serious challenges over their ageing infrastructure,’ said Kate Henderson, TCPA chief executive.
‘Today they home over two million people in Britain and if we are to embark on a new generation of garden cities and suburbs, it is vital that we learn the lessons from the past as we plan for the future,’ she added.
Following on from a series of publications and events over the last two years on how to deliver garden cities and suburbs, the TCPA has three further initiatives due for publication in the coming months.
It will be launching a Garden Cities guide for communities on 26November 2013 aimed at communities that want to grasp the garden city agenda. It will highlight the opportunities that incorporating Garden City principles at the local level can bring. These include opportunities for self build, allotments, community land trusts, management of local parks and community facilities and community planning.
Then in January 2014 it will be publishing a good practice guide to long term stewardship models being applied to new communities in the UK. This will include the legal mechanisms available for establishing stewardship models and maintaining them in perpetuity, as well as understanding the options for meaningful community engagement and governance.
Then a month later it will publish an amendment to the New Towns Act which will allow a greater for role for local authority influence in development corporations, which were so phenomenally successful in the delivery of over two million homes in the UK, but now require greater democratic accountability.
‘The TCPA is tremendously excited to be leading a growing campaign and momentum towards a new generation of garden cities and suburbs, but these communities will require long term planning and transcend electoral cycles,’ explained Henderson.
‘This is why in the run up to the 2015 election the TCPA will be calling for all three major political parties to make a manifesto commitment to delivering beautiful, well designed and inclusive new communities; with affordable homes and new jobs in places people wish to live and work,’ she said.
‘Local government and private sector partnerships will be crucial to the success of new garden cities, but they both need political certainty and backing from central government to see them through the long road to delivery,’ she added.
