Garden Cities

A strange coaltion promoting the Garden Cities of Ebenezer Howard is taking place, bringing together the left-wing environmentalist think tank he founded, the TCPA, conservative politicians, and the right-wing think tank the Policy Exchange. New towns that people love to live in, where people walk to work, are involved in the decisions that affect them, and enjoy above average public services. A utopia that could solve Britain's housing crisis, if only someone would make it happen.

The devil, as always, is in the detail. The TCPA, in a report sponsored by developers Land Securities who'd like to build at least two garden cities, supports planning new communities from scratch to provide decent, quality homes for working people, as Howard planned. Long term prosperity should be enabled by putting assets into community ownership - as in Letchworth - with financial provision (service charges? rents?) for the management of facilities. Speculative developers should be discouraged. Land Securities argues for public authoities to release land for development - presumably at knockdown prices - in line with their proposal for 5,000 new homes on MoD land in Medway.

Much of this chimes with the government's agenda. Grant Shapps, the housing minister who represents the people of Welwyn Garden City, hailed Garden Cities in an op-ed written for The Guardian. His plans to release surplus public sector land for up to 100,000 homes by 2015 could be used for large scale planned communities of over 5,000 homes. He even said he'd try and perusade local councils make their unused land available for development. The TCPA's insistence on community-led developments chimes with the government's localism agenda - although community consultation is hardly likely to speed up the planning process (a contradiction inherent in much government policy). The TCPA says the New Homes Bonus could finance schemes in certain parts of the country (TIF, CIL and LEPS are also new instruments that could enable financing and development even in these cash-strapped times.)

However, the real reason for right-wing enthusiasm for such projects was revealed by the Policy Exchange's recent contribution to the debate. It argues that planning rules should be relaxed to allow large scale development on green belt or (more easily) on brownfield land, and should be permitted if less than half of those directly affected object.

A recent tour round Hampstead Garden suburb by a friend who has lived in the area all his life was also revealing. Henrietta Barnet's planned settlement has much to commend it: schools, churches and adult education facilities are run by the community, and a community trust manages land use decisions (in conjunction with the council). Several different architects were employed for the 243 acre scheme, meaning a variety of different architectural styles in a well planned scheme with lots of green spaces. My friend's main complaint was the lack of any local pubs. While neighbourly relations are mostly friendly, the stringent planning rules do occasionally cause friction - apparently the reason for Batman and Robin's presence on this balcony.
However, although the scheme's initial aims were to provide housing for all income groups, no poor people live there now. Some of them are filthy rich: we walked past Jonathan Ross's mansion and ambassadorial residences aplenty. The value of such properties is undoubtedly another inspiration to developers and conservative policy. Clearly there are many different ways of re-imagining the Garden City.