Garden villages: Locations of first 14 announced

01-03-2017

 

From the section UK

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England's first garden villages have been proposed for 14 sites spread across the country from Devon to Cumbria, the government has announced.

Ministers have lent their support to 14 planned developments which will each deliver between 1,500 and 10,000 properties and establish new villages.

The new garden villages could provide 48,000 homes, the government says.

Larger garden towns in Buckinghamshire, Somerset and the Essex-Hertfordshire border were also approved.

Proposals include building a 1,000-home garden village on the site of a former airfield in Deenthorpe, Northamptonshire, and a garden town on green-belt land on the Essex-Hertfordshire border.

The developments will be distinct new places, with their own community facilities, rather than extensions to existing urban areas, the government said.

Scroll down for full list of proposed sites

Housing Minister Gavin Barwell said: "Locally-led garden towns and villages have enormous potential to deliver the homes that communities need.

"New communities not only deliver homes, they also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to local economies."

The new villages will receive about £6m in government funding over two years to help deliver the projects, with a further £1.4m of funding being provided for the delivery of the new towns.

The latest plans are in addition to seven garden towns and cities that have already been announced.

Homes are already being built in Aylesbury, Taunton, Bicester, Didcot, Basingstoke, Ebbsfleet, and north Northamptonshire.

Dame Kate Barker. who carried out an independent review of UK housing supply in 2004, said it was a "step in the right direction" towards easing Britain's housing shortage.

But she told the Today programme the plans would make up only one year's worth of the backlog of homes that should have been built since the financial crisis.

She added that the money on offer was not very large, "so we will certainly have to see infrastructure money, as well, going in to help make these places successful".

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said garden villages and towns could help tackle the housing crisis if "done well with genuine local consent".

Chief executive Shaun Spiers added: "Some of these proposals may meet these criteria, but others are greatly opposed by local people.

"We will look closely at these specific proposals to ensure that they really are locally led, that they respect the green belt and other planning designations, and that they meet real local housing need."

It said proposals for a garden town on green belt land on the Essex-Hertfordshire border would "swallow" the existing village of Gilston and neighbouring hamlet of Eastwick which had a parish population of 228.

Kevin FitzGerald, honorary director of CPRE Hertfordshire, said: "These plans herald the death knell of the rural character of whole swathes of Hertfordshire.

"Beautiful villages, supposedly protected by green belt, look set to be swallowed up by the urban sprawl of neighbouring towns."

One of the proposed garden villages, on greenfield land in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, is set to provide around 2,200 new homes and science park, six miles from the centre of the city of Oxford.

The leader of West Oxfordshire District Council, James Mills, said the government's approval was an exciting development and "gives us the opportunity to put in place much-needed homes."

The CPRE questioned whether the new village would be free-standing and said it would be "disappointing" if it turned out to be "just a dormitory for Oxford".

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The 14 new garden villages will be in:

The three new garden towns will be in:

• Buckinghamshire (Aylesbury area)
• Somerset (Taunton area)
• Essex-Hertfordshire border (Harlow and Gilston)

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