Labour will commit to the construction of three new towns before the next election, the Housing Secretary Steve Reed will announce at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool. He is expected to tell members that the government will “do whatever it takes to get Britain building”, with Tempsford in Bedfordshire, Leeds South Bank, and Crews Hill in north London among the priority sites. A further nine locations across England have also been earmarked, forming part of a wider programme of 12 new towns that could deliver up to 300,000 homes.
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The plans build on recommendations from the New Towns Taskforce, published on Sunday, which called for at least 40 per cent of new properties to be affordable. Labour’s manifesto includes a target of 1.5 million new homes over the course of this Parliament, in a bid to tackle the housing shortage and expand homeownership. Mr Reed will tell delegates: “We will fight for hard-working people, locked out of a secure home for too long by the Conservative government of blockers. This Labour government will not sit back. I will do whatever it takes to get Britain building.”
Labour’s new towns initiative draws inspiration from Clement Attlee’s post-war programme, which created homes “fit for heroes”. Mr Reed is expected to say: “With the toughest economic inheritance since that war, we will once again build cutting-edge communities to provide homes fit for families of all shapes and sizes.” Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has also thrown his weight behind the scheme, stressing that Labour will remove barriers to construction and restore the dream of homeownership.
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The government intends to establish a “New Towns Unit” to oversee the projects, combining public and private investment for infrastructure such as transport links, GP surgeries, schools and green spaces. Developments will be designed to reflect the character of their local areas, with ministers keen to replicate the regeneration of Stratford ahead of the 2012 Olympics. Some of the sites will be entirely new settlements, while others will expand existing towns and cities, including Manchester, Plymouth, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. Environmental assessments will precede construction, but Mr Reed has criticised the current rate of planning approvals as “unacceptable”, underlining Labour’s determination to accelerate delivery.
