Labor to Announce Plan for 12 New Towns Across England
At its annual conference in Liverpool this weekend, the Labour Party is set to unveil a plan to construct 12 new towns throughout England, aiming to address the nation’s ongoing housing crisis. Housing Secretary Steve Reed will present the initiative, which builds upon recommendations from the new towns taskforce established in September of last year.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the proposals as “national renewal in action.” labour is positioning the plan as a departure from what it considers the short-term solutions offered by other parties.
The project draws inspiration from the post-war housing boom under Clement Attlee’s Labour goverment (1945-1951), which delivered over one million homes. While the total cost remains undefined,the new towns are collectively projected to deliver “up to 300,000” homes over the “coming decades” through a combination of public and private funding.
Speaking ahead of the conference, Reed stated his commitment to increasing housing availability, saying, “We will fight for hard-working people, locked out of a secure home for too long… I will do whatever it takes to get Britain building. We’ve got to ‘build,baby,build’.” He further emphasized the goal of providing not just houses, but ”communities, and not just communities but entire towns.”
Reed continued, “This party built new towns after the war… Now, with the worst economic inheritance since that war, we will once again build cutting-edge communities to provide homes fit for families of all shapes and sizes.” He announced he is “launching the next generation of new towns taking the lessons from the postwar Labour government housing boom, mobilising the full power of the state.”
Potential locations currently under consideration include Tempsford in Bedfordshire, Crews Hill in north London, and Leeds South Bank, tho final site selections are pending.
Each new town is envisioned to include a minimum of 10,000 properties,alongside essential amenities such as GP surgeries,schools,green spaces,and transport infrastructure. The taskforce is recommending that 40% of the dwellings be designated as affordable housing, with 20% specifically allocated for social housing.
The declaration comes amid a reported housing shortage of approximately 4.3 million homes in Britain, and a record number of individuals currently living in temporary accommodation. Labour has previously pledged to build 1.5 million new properties before the next general election, a target some analysts believe might potentially be challenging to achieve.
