Having begun as the Garden City Association and as the world's oldest charity concerned with planning, housing and the environment, it should come as no surprise that we are keen to remake the case for new communities. It is all too easy to forget the fantastic places we have delivered in our past when we have seen so much that has failed.
We are also in the midst of a severe housing crisis. We need to build around 230,000 new homes a year and our house building rates have now fallen to historically low levels of around 100,000 homes per year. The question for our nation is not whether we need to build more homes, the question is where to build them and to what quality.
When faced with such a crisis - which is further compounded by a financial crisis and an ageing population, as well as new global pressures from climate change and economic restructuring - we believe that new communities must be part of the solution. The TCPA also recognises that although garden cities, new market towns or sustainable urban extensions will not answer the housing crisis on their own, they must be part of a comprehensive approach to delivering more and better housing, offering choice, and maintaining and enhancing our existing homes and places.
As part of this solution, new communities offer a powerful opportunity to deliver much needed housing in a holistic and comprehensively planned way, rather than through piecemeal development. The exact opposite to urban sprawl and ‘bolt-on estates'. Not only can they deliver more housing with potentially less environmental impact, they also present a significant opportunity to embed community governance structures, create jobs, and promote low carbon living in high-quality, sustainable and inclusive places.
Our recent report, Re-imagining Garden Cities for the 21st Century, argues that the radical nature of the garden city movement ideals remain of critical relevance to the 21st century. Taking a collaborative and cooperative approach, they had a strong vision to create beautiful places where "the advantages of the most energetic and active town life, with all the beauty and delight of the country, may be secured in perfect combination".
A century ago, Ebenezer Howard, the founder of the garden cities movement, along with organisations such as the National Trust and the CPRE, had an understanding of the crucial connection between people and the natural environment. They believed in constructing high-quality places for working people and they recognised the need to preserve the past as a source of learning and inspiration for the future.
The TCPA is not arguing for an exact replica of the garden cities, but to learn from their successes as well as their failings. For example, while Howard envisaged the garden cities to be self-sufficient (no bad thing in terms of cultural amenities and jobs), clearly connectivity between places is just as important as within them. However, it is only through building at scale that we can support the essential infrastructure, such as transport, and the "soft" infrastructure, such as community facilities, that we can deliver communities that will stand the test of time.
We must also learn from the past experiences of funding large-scale developments and find new models which place communities at the heart of the process. Where there is local support for new housing, public-private partnerships - in which government provides the planning powers and certainty and the private sector the investment - present an opportunity to rediscover our heritage in building attractive, sustainable new settlements and extensions. The garden city model also purported leaving assets to the community in perpetuity that could generate income to be reinvested to maintain high quality places.
The environment and the promotion of social justice should not be seen in opposition. The role of planning is to reconcile as best as possible the social, environmental and economic issues and ensure the right kind of development happens in the right places. We must aim for a shared vision where those who rightly strive for the protection of the natural environment are equally active on social justice; and which makes those who push us into crude economic cost-benefit judgments confront the priceless value of the natural environment to our well-being. Consensus is vital, but it can only be reignited by re-exploring the very highest ambitions of the founders of the planning movement.
Rediscovering the garden city vision is not about being prescriptive around densities and architectural styles, but remembering the ideals and principles of the garden cities of beautiful, socially inclusive places that made the most of the natural environment.
Finally, wherever development comes forward we could all benefit from replicating the collaborative spirit of the garden cities, through a radical culture change which enables communities, local authorities, developers and central government to work together to build villages, towns and cities for the future. We must forge a new relationship between people and planning and find ways to combine the best of what we have achieved in the past with answers to the modern challenge of creating sustainable, democratic communities which truly place local people at centre stage.
Kate Henderson is chief executive of the Town and Country Planning Association
Re-imagining Garden Cities for the 21st Century
http://www.tcpa.org.uk/data/files/reimagining_garden_cities_final.pdf
