Going for growth – the role of the 21st century Garden City movement

Charlie Hughes is a man with a mission, and, with great charm, he gave us both barrels at our lunch on17th May. Charlie is Chairman of Smart Futures and Chairman of the European Urban Regeneration Council at ULI.

Ebenezer Howard was a visionary in the development of town planning with his 20th century penchant for ‘Garden Cities;’ from that grew, perhaps in a distorted way, the British New Town movement. That has now run its course, but Charlie argues that as we are not meeting, and cannot hope to meet, our housing needs by ‘conventional’ means, it is time to re-visit and reinvent the Garden City as a socially-acceptable form for extensive development. Such thinking now appears to have a fair political wind.

Despite his missionary tendency, Charlie is clearly pragmatic about how the trick might be brought off in a world of planning authorities and ‘NIMBYs’. Your Scribe drew out seven principles from what he said.

First of all, any proposal must start from a financial framework, not a planning one. The resulting ‘City’ must, of course, manifest town planning of the highest order, but financial imperatives must rule, not planning visions. This led to an uncomfortable truth that successful projects are likely to lie in the NIMBY-rich South-East, not the more welcoming, but cash-strapped North. The financial framework will require sophisticated engineering, realistically apportioning risk to the needs of those providing the various tranches of finance. Early risk would probably have to lie with the public sector, later risk with the private sector.

Secondly, the proposal must secure cross-party support so that its delivery is politically secure over an extended period; the New Towns showed that this can be achieved. It would also be necessary to secure local business and private support; although nimbies are vocal, they are not always the majority.

Thirdly, the delivery ‘authority’ must be given the powers to deliver, without being subjected to whinging pressure groups; once the political decision is taken to build, it is built. This was, of course, the great strength of the New Town Development Corporations.

Fourthly, the delivery authority must not be politically-driven, but project-driven.

Fifthly, the financial structure of the project must be such that much of the land value created is captured and re-cycled to enhance the development and subsequent management of the City. No doubt this will require a small modicum of profit-sharing with landowners, but the principle of value-capture is important.

Sixthly, the planning and design must deliver not only excellence, but also variety in tenure, variety in price, and variety in size and quality; this principle of variety should apply to the commercial as well as the residential elements.  

Seventhly, the development framework needs to provide for long-term ‘community management’, particularly, but not exclusively of extensive ‘communal areas,’ areas that are indeed managed, via trustees, by the community with secure ongoing funding. (Did I hear praise for Milton Keynes in this?)

Despite this clear vision, Charlie was well aware of the difficulties. Providing the central drive runs counter to ‘localism’. Political and planning lobbies are strong; if a local authority takes an initiative, will it be willing to let go? The UK has a poor record in private/public co-operation. There are legal framework challenges, not least in overcoming the Leasehold Reform Act. Above all, there is the challenge of generating a critical mass of support.

My father warned me against men with visions – but he hadn’t met the persuasive Charlie.

Michael Mallinson

Post script

The government will be inviting proposals for the development of new Garden Cities from July this year. The publication ‘creating garden cities and suburbs today’ can be found on www.tcpa.org.