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According to a report on the construction of new Conurbations at the best locations, government plans for the twelve new towns in England could cost £48 billion in the coming years.
Research by WPI Strategic Consulting firm determined that Milton Keynes is the most favorable of 12 potential “trailblazers” locations for new homes for 10,000 or more homes.
The study has been presented to the government’s New Town Task Force to examine spatial and economic testing and potential public acceptability to determine which locations may be the easiest place to offer large new housing projects.
Other areas with high scores in standards include Leeds, South Gloucestershire, Central Bedfordshire, Wiltshire and Huntingtonshire.
The government will release its initial list of locations that will receive public investment this summer. It will include Bedford Village, which sits at the intersection of the existing East Coast main line, and the intersection of the planned East-West Line between Oxford and Cambridge, officials said.
The WPI report said the average cost of each development could be “about £3.5 billion to £4 billion per town”, which totals about £48 billion, even if in the long run, most of that will be recovered.
It recommends adopting a “cooperative funding and community development model” to bring together investments in the public and private sectors.
“Governments can borrow funds for infrastructure and public sectors using their new fiscal rules to repay over time,” WPI said. “This reduces risks and attracts long-term private patient capital investment in housing and further infrastructure delivery to ensure adequate funding.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer set an ambitious goal to get private-sector home builders to provide 1.5 million new homes during the current parliament, but the plans for the New Town Wave are a long-term initiative.
More than 100 locations across England have proposed their own candidates to become new towns, including an expansion of existing Conurbations, whose ministers aim to begin construction at the end of this parliament.
Starmer hopes to replicate the wave of successes built after World War II after World War II, such as Welwyn Garden City, Crawley and Stevenage in England, CWMBRAN in Wales and East Kilbride in Scotland.
However, recent attempts to “ecotowns” (such as “ecotowns”) under the conservative leadership of Gordon Brown’s Labor government or David Cameron’s New Town rule under the 2010-15 Annual Coalition failed to stand out.
Experts who created the Environment Committee in the House of Lords will be interviewed on Tuesday about the challenges involved in getting new towns off the ground.
Ministers hope that changes to mandatory purchase orders (CPOs) can help reduce upfront costs of pieced together appropriate development sites.
Last fall, the government proposed a new measure that allows the council to seek CPOs based on its existing value rather than the higher “hope value” that is often used when granting program permissions.
The other six locations WPI identified as the new town are Northwest Amputonshire, Central Devonshire, South Cambridgeshire, Winchester, East Hertfordshire and Northumberlandshire.
