New towns are built on a “flawed blueprint” and many buildings in the communities, such as schools, may have come to the end of their natural lives, a Labour MP claimed today.
Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead) said successive governments had failed to address the needs of the communities of new towns. Some elderly residents in new towns, particularly those in the South East like Hemel Hempstead and Stevenage, have outgrown facilities designed for families with children, he said.
Young people are forced to hang around shopping centres and there is a lack of parking facilities, McWalter argued, opening a debate in Westminster Hall. He also said the pace of change in developing many buildings was “much too slow”.
“New towns needed scope to be able to grow organically. Successive governments have constrained the capacity of residents to address these problems,” he argued. “The problems inherent in the flawed blueprint have been exacerbated by a deficiency in land and financial resources.”
McWalter claimed the old Commission for New Towns (CNT), which was replaced by English Partnerships, was required to “take resources away” from new towns because some thought “they owed a buck back” to the rest of the country. Some new towns were “fragmented” because it was in the CNT’s best financial interest to maximise financial return, he said.
McWalter said it was vital practices change and welcomed the fact that English Partnerships had broken with CNT traditions in his constituency and now made decisions in terms of both the community and the Treasury.
But he said “ringfencing” housing in new towns could hurt their future development. “The concept of a housing resource is deeply invidious for new towns as it is currently defined by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
“New towns will be left with nothing because that was their only resource base. They do not have the same kind of asset base as other communities. This denies new towns the capacity to have an effective resource to address the deficiencies of the new-town blueprint.”
He asked the Government not to ringfence resources until “it is clear that is based on best-value assessment”.
Labour’s Bill Rammell (Harlow) said the role of English Partnerships was considered by new town communities as “remote, unaccountable. There is a real feeling that the organisation acts effectively as an asset stripper.” Rammell said he had come into contact with many community organisations which are trying to develop facilities, particularly in the sporting field, and which have been given “a whole series of conflicting advice and information and deadlines and timescales” from English Partnerships, which was “unacceptable”.
Liberal Democrat Michael Hancock (Portsmouth S) said it was as if the people who set up new towns did not trust the inhabitants to make their own decisions. He called for more control to be given to local communities in new towns.
Damian Green, for the Tories, asked whether the agenda for decline hitting the new towns was due to human error or was systematic. He warned that not enough flexibility had been built into the system to enable new towns to develop in their own way. The infrastructure had to be in place before towns were allowed to expand, he warned.
He criticised the Government for setting up Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) which he described as “distant, remote, relatively unaccountable bodies”. The RDAs would take power away from local councils and give it to unaccountable public bodies which were distant from the people and may not share their agenda.
The CNT had been set up in the same way as the RDAs, he said, criticising the “unfairness and arbitrary nature” of decisions taken by the commission.
Beverley Hughes, the junior environment minister, hit back at Green’s remarks. “The nature of the problems facing new towns undoubtedly stems from 20 years of complete neglect of infrastructure and development and opportunity and of local government’s capacity to have an impact on those issues,” she said.
“It’s a little bit rich for him to criticise the Government for establishing RDAs when of course the record of establishing the worst kind of quango is a hallmark of the previous government’s record on this,” she added.
She said the Government was considering a number of options over the area cost adjustment issue and would announce a decision shortly. The latest spending review had resulted in a very generous settlement and many areas would receive increases in subsidy, she said.
EGi News 08/11/00
