In its pre-election 2024 manifesto, the Labour government promised to “get Britain building again”. The manifesto was emphatic in its gestures toward the prioritisation of releasing “lower-quality grey belt land” and the introduction of “golden rules” to ensure developments benefit communities and nature concurrently. Attention was not only paid to making claims for new new towns, but also to plans for urban extensions and regeneration projects as a part of a large-scale new communities drive across the country.
The government has now begun to publicise its strategy on a new generation of new towns through its New Towns Taskforce, an independent expert advisory panel that has been asked to make recommendations to ministers on the location and delivery of new towns. The task force has announced that it is focused on location selection for new towns being “strategically rational” and “supported wherever possible by existing infrastructure”, as well as being supported at the local level to “ensure successful development”. It has also claimed it will undertake extensive analysis to bring together understandings of the varying impacts of different delivery and funding models. Crucially, its statement includes reference to careful consideration of approaches to land acquisition and placemaking. But what does the emphasis on placemaking mean here?
The basics of placemaking
Key principles to have front of mind when undertaking placemaking development include:
- Taking a long-term view at the outset of a project
- Accepting a deferred return on investment, which can lead to greater long-term revenues
- Measuring the success of developments through a social and environmental lens (in addition to return on capital or profit)
- Prioritising the design and community building of a scheme through a long-term masterplan and design codes
Defining placemaking
The government’s new homes fact sheet describes placemaking as “the process of involving communities in establishing what good design means to them through consultation and engagement”.
It has been noted that Britain is notoriously bad at planning cities, even with the presence of masterplans and design codes. Great development and design can be found in the UK, from the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, the creation of Canary Wharf and creative greenfield developments such as Poundbury in Dorset. However, these can often be seen as an exception rather than the norm.
When discussing placemaking, criticisms of “ghost towns” or sterile environments require serious consideration. These issues were discussed in the Living With Beauty report prepared by the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission in 2020. The report showcased The Piece Hall, a Grade I listed building in Yorkshire that has been repurposed as a cultural hub, with a theatre, art gallery, live music and cafés and bars.
The chief executive of The Piece Hall Trust, Nicky Chance-Thompson DL, observed that “great placemaking takes a real mix of important ingredients – a vision, a plan, commitment, passion and a lot of hard work but, above all, the ability to harness the power of people, because ultimately people make places”. As a prime example of placemaking done right, this message stands as good advice for any future developers with placemaking plans, that creative and living uses of space needs to be centred in a development.
Placemaking as a premium
Developers may note practically that, for a new town with high-class masterplanned design, achieving this while remaining profitable can be a challenge. Developers are already grappling with community infrastructure levy implications, biodiversity net gain costs and building costs of more than £250,000 per new home in many local authority areas.
However, industry research has assessed placemaking developments such as Nansledan in Cornwall and found some cheering results. Savills found placemaking developments retained significantly higher residential development values compared with the local towns, with buyers prepared to continue paying premium prices when homes are resold, and house price growth between first and second sales keeping pace with that in the prevailing local market.
This research indicates that placemaking can be paired with private sector development aimed at a healthy margin for developers and investors. However, it would be important to get the detail right and take developer’s concerns seriously in discussing the financial viability of projects such as the government’s new towns.
Planning reforms
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill 2025 proposes to enable placemaking in a number of ways:
- Unlock land and secure public value for large-scale investment through reforms to the compulsory purchase order process and compensation rules, including removal of “hope value”;
- Strengthening development corporation powers for infrastructure delivery, creating maximum application and flexibility for corporations, and clarifying development corporation duties to have good design at the heart of delivery; and
- Providing for the introduction of a strategic spatial planning system for England.
The government is clearly empowering development corporations and private developers to have maximum flexibility and power to deliver quality, well-designed communities. However, it is difficult to replicate the specific circumstances that allow for masterplanned developments, where there may be a single landowner with a clear vision, supported by award-winning architects with a patience for long-term returns.
First, if the government does not already own the land in question (watch this space for any pairing of Network Rail’s plans for housebuilding with the government’s new towns), then land will need to be compulsorily purchased. If the intention is for the government to use compulsory purchase orders to acquire green belt land near existing transport networks that has previously been locked up for development, then it will need to ensure it can acquire this land without considering hope value – that is, the government needs to acquire land at a cheap price to allow for value capture from any later development.
Second, the government will need to ensure that any masterplanning of its new towns retains an appropriate level of control. Rising costs may mean the government becomes attracted to proposals for “slot-in applications”, wherein a developer takes over a phase of a development with a revised planning permission. This could easily lead to a mishmash of design and quality. Chapter 12 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides for design codes within local plans, and the Bill provides for good design to be a duty of development corporations. However, in practice, there is a design skills deficit within many local planning authorities.
The solution may be a return to strategic spatial planning in England, allowing larger authorities more pooled resources to undertake quality planning work. Regional spatial plans can give coherence and allow for long-term planning in the region, including where housing should best be allocated in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.
Ensuring good design at the heart of delivery
A further solution may be in the previous government’s 2020 Planning White Paper, which recommended appointing a chief officer for design and placemaking in each local authority.
Offices such as this may be seen as a return to the role of “city architects” in post-war Britain, a role that has since disappeared, with the last city architect, John Thorp of Leeds, retiring in 2010. A reintroduction of these roles may go some way to correcting the design skills deficits within local authorities and allow for masterplanning control when there is a mix of public and private sector development. The mayor of London has done just that, assigning 10 architects within Greater London under a pilot scheme to improve public spaces and design. The Greater London Authority says the architects will directly support chief planning officers and design champions to “review project proposals and help develop a strategic vision for the local area”. This may be a vision that other devolved combined authorities can aim for in the near future to assist in placemaking new developments.
Effective placemaking is difficult to get right but when done correctly it can yield extraordinary dividends, both in creating premium real estate and creating a valuable living community. The government would do well to reflect on the entire picture with its planning reforms – a New Town may be constructed as a “utopia”, but utopia is not always a place that one can live.
Next time: Key considerations for landowners in delivering good placemaking
Jesse Cowie is an associate at Farrer & Co
Image © Adobe Stock
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