Polls from YouGov have found that only a quarter of the British population likes the idea of moving to a new town, with several factors contributing to this disdain
The poll sought to gauge the nation’s opinion on moving to a new town, taking respondents from 349 local authorities.
It found that the demographic of people who like the idea tends to come from areas with high housing demand or low affordability, including Manchester, Leicester, Birmingham, Oxford, and Cambridge.
New towns labelled as “soulless” and “poor quality”
The poll also found that the three top priorities for residents are quality and longevity, positive environmental impact, and community wellbeing.
Access to healthcare, shops, green spaces, and jobs and public transport are also key issues for those who would consider moving.
The poll, carried out by YouGov on behalf of Stantec, uses the results to create a report titled New Towns: Creating Communities, Building Trust, in which 12 recommendations to tackle these issues are provided, including:
Quality and longevity
- Plans must be vision-led and proactive, developed by engaging with communities and local stakeholders and bringing this together with technical specialists across all disciplines.
- The vision itself should be outcomes-focused, not output-driven, focusing on the principles we are aiming to achieve rather than prescribing the exact route to get there.
- Councils need to have a critical role in setting standards and monitoring progress, balanced with giving developers the freedom to deliver flexible masterplans that can evolve over time.
- Development corporations should be the starting point for new town delivery models, but a case by-case approach is needed to bring together the public and private sectors and give wider stakeholders a stake in success
Positive environmental impact
- Sustainability and climate resilience must be embedded in designs, and plans must be adaptable to future needs.
- Social value must be better measured and incorporated into the business cases and cost-benefit analyses that inform design choices.
- New towns should aspire to a level of self sufficiency and localised management of water and energy to become exemplars of sustainable development.
- Nature-based solutions should be the default, creating attractive facilities that serve social purposes as well as technical ones.
Community wellbeing
- The principle of delivering healthy, happy communities must be paramount, with all future decisions relating back to this objective.
- Community engagement must be meaningful, cross-demographic, and consistent throughout the development process to build trust, improve outcomes, and allow for the organic development of local identity.
- Key infrastructure must be delivered early to build confidence, attract residents, and enable communities to thrive from the early stages of occupancy.
- The sector must better communicate the objectives of new towns, and the successes of delivery, to help change the narrative and generate a supportive movement in favour of the development of new communities.
The report can be read in full here.
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