Plans for new towns prompt questions over funding and infrastructure

Photo: PhotoMix/Pixabay, CC0>

The government will need to provide more information on funding and powers over infrastructure if local government is to be convinced by plans for new town development corporations, it has emerged.

Measures granting powers for councils to create the corporations were announced this week by the housing minister Dominic Raab as part of Whitehall plans to tackle the housing crisis.

However, though the plans have been welcomed, there remains concern over financial support and the management of infrastructure to serve new towns.

There were also fresh calls for the government to lift the housing borrowing cap that currently restricts local authority activity in housebuilding.

Jonathan Bunt, a housing consultant and former strategic director and CFO at Barking and Dagenham council, said the announcement left out key elements for understanding how the new corporations would function.

“It doesn’t talk about how any of it is going to be funded,” said Bunt. He added: “It doesn’t make any reference to powers over transport infrastructure.” He also expressed concern over health and education infrastructure to go with new towns.

The ministry of housing’s statement this week said that councils would receive new powers to ask central government for approval to create new town development corporations.

Corporations will be expected to undertake “master planning”  and project development, as well as bring on board private investment and partner with developers.

Raab said: “We need to build the homes our communities need and I’m committed to giving councils the tools they need to deliver.

“That’s why we’re giving councils the option of applying to establish development corporations. These will be locally accountable and must listen to the views of the community to ensure that the right homes are built in the right places.”

Bunt said local authorities had for some years engaged in master planning and place making but clarity over infrastructure planning had been a bugbear.

Jill Penn, president of the Society of District Council Treasurers, echoed his views.

“We would be supportive of anything that supports growth and, with business rates changes, that’s what we are looking for,” said Penn.

“There will be a question about how much funding is available.”

Martin Tett, housing spokesman for the Local Government Association, said the LGA would work to make the most of the new corporations but suggested current borrowing curbs needed to be addressed.

He added: “However, there is no quicker way to deliver these homes than by triggering the renaissance in council housebuilding we need, by lifting the housing borrowing cap and enabling councils to borrow to build once more.”