No New Towns this Parliament?

The Government's New Towns ambition has been broadly welcomed, with Housing Secretary Angela Rayner before the election setting out to a property conference her ambition to see housing completions at New Towns within five years.

However, the Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook has now said that he does not expect to see housing completions at New Towns this Parliament. Speaking to Radio 4 Today on 31 July he said new towns, "take time. They will be fully up and running in many instances only in a second term," while confirming, "spades in the ground" are the aim for this Parliament. This means that the New Towns programme is not expected to contribute to the 1.5 million new homes target this Parliament. New homes will have to come from the current housebuilding delivery approach.

Many in the industry consider that a baseline of around 1-1.2 million homes, while very ambitious, can be met. That would be in line with the upper end of housebuilding performance in recent years. However, this would in itself need significant interventions, particularly for first time buyers with further interest rate cuts and new 'Help To Buy' style government support interventions to boost the currently sluggish demand side. In addition, there is a need for upscaling in availability and capacity of skills and materials in order to underpin significant increases in additional housing supply.

With New Towns now out of the first Parliament equation, more support for local councils and developers to bring forward sites will surely be needed to hit those big housing targets. There's much that can be done, as HFI's 'How to Build More Homes Faster' and other publications have set out, including technical changes to support partnership investment, as set out in the HFI's A Budget for Housing paper, which was published in March 2024.

Back to all posts