We build these cities… we build these cities on rock and knolls.
Well, that’s the plan, at least. Earlier this year, the coalition government announced that up to three garden cities would be constructed in a bid to halt Britain’s housing shortage.
A garden city is an attempt to combine housing and green areas in one. Although the basic idea is an old one – the garden city movement was founded at the end of the 19th century – urban planners, politicians and economists believe it could shape the nation’s future.
The government has set aside funding from a pot of £2.4bn to potentially build three garden cities and chancellor George Osborne has earmarked Ebbsfleet in Kent as the first of those sites, which will see the construction of 15,000 new homes.
The garden city movement was founded in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard on the principle of providing a mix of the urban and the natural in a riposte to the poor conditions and overcrowding of the time.
MORE: George Osborne announces plans for new 15,000-home garden city in Ebbsfleet, Kent
The world’s first garden city was established in Letchworth in Hertfordshire – and was home to Britain’s first roundabout. Almost 70 years later, Milton Keynes, which became notorious for its roundabouts, was formed as a ‘new town’, taking inspiration from the garden city template. Howard’s ideas led to the formation of Welwyn Garden City, also in Hertfordshire, which became Britain’s second garden city in 1920. Ebbsfleet will be the nation’s third proper garden city.
In yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, there was a government pledge to reform the planning system to pave the way for new garden cities.
The concept’s current standing has been emphasised by this year’s Wolfson Economics Prize. The second most lucrative economics award after the Nobel Prize, it has asked its entrants to design a new garden city ‘which is visionary, economically viable and popular’.
Five entrants were shortlisted yesterday for the overall prize – worth £250,000 – out of almost 300 applicants. The winner will be announced in early autumn. Applications came from architects, planners, surveyors, economists, students and children from all over the world.
The five shortlisted designs, which were judged anonymously, are made up of entries from planning consultants Barton Willmore; housing development expert Chris Blundell; urban design specialists URBED; housing charity Shelter and planning company Wei Yang Partners.
The Wolfson Economics Prize was founded in 2011 by Conservative Party peer Lord Simon Wolfson and is run by the Policy Exchange think tank. In a survey published this week to coincide with the shortlist announcement, it emerged that three out of four Britons are behind new garden cities as a means of tackling housing shortages.
Miles Gibson, director of the Wolfson Economics Prize, said that if all five of the proposed garden cities were built, they would provide homes for 400,000 people and construction jobs for 400,000 workers.
‘There are opportunities to improve the quality of people’s lives by building garden cities, rather than tacking 50 odd houses here and 100 houses there on to the end of an existing settlement,’ he said.
‘We can’t continue shutting people up in what are the smallest homes in Europe at just 76 square metres. People are entitled to aspire to better quality housing for themselves and that does include a reasonable amount of outdoor space.’
Gibson said a garden city must be green and have plenty of open space. ‘It has to be a mixed use place with jobs and offices and retail facilities to create a community,’ he added. ‘It needs to be well connected to the existing transport network but not necessarily so well connected that it becomes a commuter town. It’s got to have a life and an identity and a community of its own.’
But can these spaces become a reality?
‘We haven’t done garden cities in the UK for 100 years and we haven’t done new towns in the UK for 40 years, so there’s no doubt there’s a skill and collective memory issue that would have to be addressed if any of these were actually to be built,’ said Gibson.
‘Nobody is expecting anything overnight – this takes careful planning. We hope that what the prize has done is make people feel it is possible. Our entrants all argue that this can be done and what it needs is a national political consensus that it should be done and then it will happen.’
Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, whose shortlisted design proposes a development at Stoke Harbour that could eventually accommodate 150,000 people, said: ‘Creating new garden cities is an essential step towards building the homes we need. From families struggling to keep up with their housing costs to young couples seeing the dream of a home of their own slip away, we’re all feeling the effects of our housing shortage.’
Rising property prices are caused by a shortfall in new builds, according to Shelter, who say 250,000 homes need to be completed each year to meet demand. It said Britain is short of that target by about 100,000 houses a year.
‘New garden cities can’t solve the housing shortage on their own,’ said Robb. ‘They must be combined with other measures that will get us building the homes we need right now, from helping small and medium sized builders access the finance they need, to ensuring that land is made available for building new affordable homes.
‘Soaring prices and years of rock-bottom house building have pushed the housing market to crisis point. We need to see urgent action to give hope to all those watching their dreams of a home of their own slip further out of reach.’
For more information on the shortlisted designs go to WolfsonPrize.org.uk
Speak Your Mind