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Making cities friendly to older people How do planners create urban environments where older people can thrive? The answer, according to Rose Gilroy, lies not in designing for older people, but in designing for inclusion that promotes healthy, activ …

Our new Practical Hope guide on overheating explored how communities can help prevent the urban heat island effect. One example was the creation of green infrastructure via community gardens, such as Dalston Eastern Curve Garden in London. While this …

As we await the findings of the New Towns Taskforce report and watch the Planning and Infrastructure Bill progress through Parliament, we should ponder the crucial role of public participation in delivering new large-scale communities.  Based on ev …

 ‘…it is not just the quantity of green space provision that is important, but its quality and purpose.’  While meandering through the city, it is always a pleasant experience to come across a green oasis, providing a much-needed respite fro …

The New Towns programme was arguably the most ambitious feat of town planning in the history of the United Kingdom and today they are home to 2.8 million people. At present, the New Town idea is at the top of the political and planning agenda.  The …

From the archive: Seen - but not yet heard  In ‘Seen – but not yet heard’ (October 1998), Alison Millward explores the experience of play for children and young people in new housing estates. These findings are based on 3,500 observations o …

The UK’s post-war New Towns are well known for their art and sculpture, from the Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee, the Hippos of Glenrothes, to the Family Group in Harlow. Today, art remains an important medium through which to tell the story of the New …

‘Participation is not about the perfectibility of human beings, but about the improvement of social institutions’   Community participation can be transformational, not just for the projects and developments they influence, but also for the ci …

With the recent press surrounding the New Towns, there has been frequent discussion of the role played by an array of men, including Sir Fredric J Osborn, Lord Silkin, and Lord Reith.  Yet, as the TCPA’s Forgotten Pioneers report highlighted, the …

From the archive: How to do health?  'How to do health?' was the big question posed in John Ashton's 1991 article in the December edition of Town and Country Planning. At the time, health was high on the political and planning agenda following the …