From the archive: The geography of the post-war New Towns – where were they built and why?
Posted on 19th Dec 2024 by Charlotte Llewellyn
During the mid-20th century, 32 New Towns were built across the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. The post-war New Towns arose from a confluence of factors: a housing shortage caused in part by bomb damage during the war, the need for higher quality housing and a brighter future, and demographic changes such as the baby boom.
The locations of the New Towns were primarily driven by regional and sub-regional studies and plans, including Abercrombie’s London Plan. These studies reviewed the growth needs of the area alongside the constraints and opportunities to indicate areas capable of providing a New Town, as well as areas that should be protected as Greenbelt. Additionally, key individuals working within Local Authorities, such as C.W. Clarke in Peterlee and Fred Pooley in Milton Keynes, promoted the idea of a New Town in their areas and helped set the vision for these settlements.
The TCPA archives detail the involvement of these key people:
'The South East Regional Study identified the area around Bletchley for major growth, not just a satellite town round London but a new magnet, and this was partly because Pooley had been pressing for it as County Planning Officer for Buckinghamshire.'1
C.W. Clarke’s report 'Farewell Squalor' set’s out Easington Council’s proposals for Peterlee and explains the drivers behind the project. The report poetically describes the living conditions of the colliery workers in the area; 'They have been bound to live and work amidst this architectural excrescence in an unplanned age; indeed, not only must they live there, but strive to eke out such limited pleasures as the sordid grouping and lack of social amenities permit.'
From the Archive: the geography of the New Towns
The reasoning behind each New Town can help to shed light on their specific locations. One of the main reasons for New Town designations was to accommodate overspill populations from London (11 New Towns) or other major urban hubs including the West Midlands, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Tyne and Wear, Glasgow, and Belfast (14 New Towns). Another justification for the designation of New Towns was to aid the regional regeneration of industrial areas including coalfields and other heavy industries (4 New Towns)2.
‘As well as being important national growth points, they [Scottish New Towns] are key elements in the overspill programme which is aiming at the dispersal of people and employment from the congested cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh.’3
However, three of the new towns were designated for more unique reasons. Corby was designated to create a New Town around a nationalised steel plant. Glenrothes was designated to support a new coalfield. Finally, Newtown was designated as an attempt to limit the rural depopulation in mid-Wales through attracting industry and migrants from the midlands.4
The post-war New Towns demonstrate the need for strategic thinking when determining the location of new large-scale developments, as well as the importance of considering the local context into which these new towns will be placed. For more on the lessons of location of the New Towns and Eco-towns, please read the TCPA blog, Location, location, location: lessons from the past.
1. M. Percy: ‘The best laid plans’. Town and Country Planning, 1996, Vol.65, March.,75-82 https://archive.tcpa.org.uk/archive/journals/1990-1999/1996/january-march-79/1615572
2. TCPA: ‘New towns and garden cities- lessons for tomorrow. Stage 1: An Introduction to the UK’s New Towns and Garden Cities’. TCPA. Dec. 2014. https://tcpa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NTsGCs_P1_LR.pdf
3. P.D. McGovern: ‘The Scottish New Towns’. Town and Country Planning, 1967, Vol.35, June, 287-292. https://archive.tcpa.org.uk/archive/journals/1960-1969/1967/april-june-50/1604823
4. Ibid