Building of three new towns will start before election, Labour pledges

The construction of three new towns will begin before the next general election, Labour has pledged.

A taskforce has recommended 12 locations in England for development, with three areas – Tempsford in Bedfordshire, Leeds South Bank, and Crews Hill in north London – identified as the most promising sites.

Housing Secretary Steve Reed announced the plans in a speech on the opening day of Labour’s annual party conference.

Labour has put housebuilding at the centre of its vision of how to get the economy growing, promising to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029.

The announcement comes as Labour members gather in Liverpool for the annual conference.

A cabinet reshuffle, prompted by the resignation of Angela Rayner after she resigned for failing to pay enough tax on a flat purchase, saw Reed moved into the role of housing secretary.

Reed paid tribute to her work towards the government’s flagship target of building 1.5 million homes and the audience gave her a standing ovation.

Just as his predecessor often did, Reed shared his own family’s experience with the conference hall, recounting how he felt when an employer in the area where he grew up closed down.

“I still remember the silence around the dinner table the day the factory closed,” he said, saying that his dad and wider family lost jobs, and “our whole community saw its heart ripped out. People were powerless as their lives were thrown on the scrapheap.”

Reed said this event was behind his “driving mission” to rebuild the country’s towns and communities and said he would be taking lessons from “the post-war Labour government housing boom”.

“This party built new towns after the war to meet our promise of homes fit for heroes,” he said.

“I will do whatever it takes to get Britain building again, and we won’t just build homes, we’ll build communities, and not just communities but entire towns.”

Supporters had filled the front row of the hall wearing red MAGA-style hats reading “build baby build” during his speech, and Reed put on his own baseball cap with a smile as he made the same pledge at the end of his speech.

However, the industry has warned the government faces huge challenges to reach the government’s proposed target, with housebuilders facing pressures including rising costs and taxes.

Meanwhile, recent figures showed the number of planning approvals for new homes in England fell to a record low during Labour’s first year in office.

The promise of a “new generation of new towns” was included in Labour’s election manifesto last year.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to “sweep aside the blockers to get homes built” and prevent home ownership being “a distant dream”.

He is emulating the Labour government of Clement Attlee, who planned the first wave of new towns after World War Two to relocate people from poor or bombed-out housing to developments including in Stevenage and Crawley.

In one of the three areas which were earmarked for development, local people appeared not to know details including how many new homes could be built.

David Sutton, the parish council chair of Tempsford, which is currently home to 600 people living in about 300 houses, said residents had been kept in the dark about the potential plans.

“The biggest problem we’ve got at the moment is that even today, as an announcement’s being made, we’ve been given no idea whatsoever of the scale of what we’re being asked to live amongst,” he told the PA news agency.

“Nobody’s come to talk to us at all.”

Sir Keir is keen to use the party conference to highlight his Labour government’s achievements in its first year in Downing Street, including progress on housebuilding.

The 12 proposed developments range from large-scale standalone new communities, to expansions of existing towns and regeneration schemes within cities.

Sites in Cheshire, South Gloucestershire, East Devon, Plymouth and Manchester are among those which have been recommended for development.

The chosen sites will be subject to environmental assessments and consultation, with the government confirming the final locations and funding next spring.

Labour said each new town would have at least 10,000 homes and they could collectively result in 300,000 homes being built across England over the coming decades.

The government has welcomed a recommendation from the New Towns Taskforce that at least 40% of these new homes should be classed as affordable housing.

A New Towns Unit will be tasked with bringing in millions of pounds of public and private sector funding to invest in GP surgeries, schools, green spaces, libraries and transport for the new developments.

The taskforce has recommended new towns are delivered by development corporations, which could have special planning powers to compulsory purchase land, invest in local services, and grant planning permission.

This follows the model of the regeneration of Stratford in east London during and after the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The New Towns Taskforce has recommended 12 locations are taken forward by the government:

• A standalone settlement in Adlington, Cheshire East
• A corridor of development in South Gloucestershire, across Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc
• A development bringing together Chase Park and Crews Hill in Enfield, north London
• Redevelopment of the former airbase at Heyford Park in Cherwell, Oxfordshire
• An urban development in the South Bank area of Leeds
• New homes in Victoria North, on the edge of Manchester city centre
• A standalone settlement in Marlcombe, East Devon
• A renewal of Milton Keynes city centre and an expansion of its periphery, alongside a new mass transit system
• Densified development in Plymouth
• A new settlement in Tempsford, Bedfordshire
• A riverside settlement in Thamesmead, south-east London
• Expanded development around Worcestershire Parkway train station