Written by Jo Dancy, Director of Regions and chair of Kanda’s New Towns breakfast panel
The question: “what role can partnerships play in delivering sustainable New Towns and overcoming the many challenges faced” is by no means an easy ask. But Kanda’s illustrious panel at our UKREiiF New Towns Breakfast yesterday morning did a sterling job at debating the complexities of the task ahead.
The lively event saw a packed pavilion quiz representatives Peter Freeman (Cambridge Growth Company), Cllr Richard Henry and Cllr Dan Swords (Leaders of Stevenage and Harlow Councils), Ingrid Hooley (Peterborough City Council) and Dr Wei Yang (New Towns Taskforce) – on their key ‘must haves’ for effective partnership working.
Much of the discussion echoed the sentiments of Sir Michael Lyon’s UKREiiF New Towns keynote speech the day before, in particular, around the need for an infrastructure-first approach, protecting vital placemaking benefits from being diluted by later market pressures.
Unsurprisingly, funding was also a big-ticket item with an optimistic view that the predictable longer-term pipeline of New Towns development may prove more attractive to % return-focussed investors who have, of late, been shaken by both local market and global instability. However, it was also felt that the public sector could do more to share risk/reward with the private sector and have financial ‘skin in the game’ to incentivise and encourage more balanced partnership working. Nobody disagreed that “the Government has to do some heavy lifting” to catalyse robust funding solutions, with local authorities supporting this through bold and robust political decision-making.
Whilst voicing the need to tackle the power and water challenges as a priority for New Towns, panellists felt that huge progress had been made over the last few years with the implementation of ‘early-seed’ infrastructure to support power-hungry life science and data centres development; hopefully this will stand local authorities in good stead for the task ahead! Though the issue of speed of delivery and alignment of public sector vs energy operators’ language and processes was still felt to be a significant hurdle to overcome.
Naturally issues such as innovation and the future-proofing of New Towns as a model/ exemplar for ongoing housing delivery, plus the importance of mixed use development to stimulate economic growth, were understandably ranked as key to partnership discussions and delivery; alongside this, youth engagement and collaboration with STEM and educational institutions were also seen as vital to the integration of New Towns with surrounding towns/ villages and, no doubt, the effectiveness of placemaking strategies.
As community engagement specialists, Kanda is all too aware of the challenges around promoting the benefits narrative around housing development to often sceptical communities. However, it’s clear from yesterday’s panel event and wider market discussions, that the palpable political excitement and industry ambition around the New Towns agenda provides a real opportunity to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits on a staggering scale. This next generation of New Towns could be transformational – if evolved in the right way, in collaboration with the existing and new communities they are set to benefit – and with Kanda’s extensive experience and success in this field, we’re poised to drive and lead dialogue to unlock the housing our English regions so desperately need.
Kanda would like to thank the panel and audience for such an insightful discussion. We now look forward in excited anticipation to September when the New Towns Taskforce will be publishing its full recommendations report and deliberation makes way for delivery – the tricky bit!
