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New Towns Act 1946
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long titleAn Act to provide for the creation of new towns by means of development corporations, and for purposes connected therewith.
Citation9 & 10 Geo. 6, c.68
Introduced by[[]] (Commons)
[[]] (Lords)
Territorial extent England and Wales
Scotland
Dates
Royal assent1 August 1946[1]: 1 
Status: Current legislation
History of passage through Parliament
Text of statute as originally enacted
Revised text of statute as amended

The New Towns Act 1946

Background and passage through Parliament[edit]

The New Towns Act aimed to replenish the country's housing stock after World War II and to provide alternative settlements to London, which had begun to suffer from problematic levels of urban sprawl, overcrowding and slum housing in the 1930s.[2][3]

Many of the ideas which were included in the New Towns Act had grown from previous planning movements. The concept of alleviating city overpopulation by building housing outside of traditional urban centres had been proposed by the garden city movement, which was pioneered by Ebenezer Howard. Garden cities had been very influential on British attitudes to town planning, thanks in large part to the lobbying of Frederic Osborn,[4]: 3–4  who became a dedicated and significant supporter of the new towns movement.[5]

Decentralisation was also a notion key to the new towns concept. It had first been recommended by the Barlow report in 1940 which found that population was increasing in London and the Home Counties but stagnant or decreasing elsewhere, and suggested that industry and investment be refocused to other areas.[3][6] Decentralisation was further fuelled in 1944 by Patrick Abercrombie's Greater London Plan (which was commissioned to provide a blueprint for rebuilding London after the Blitz). It proposed reducing London's population by over a million through a combination of expanding existing towns and building entirely new satellite towns, moving away from the building of suburbs that was common through the 1920s and 1930s.[7][8]: 183  Abercrombie also supported the use of neighbourhood units which were often used as part of new town design.[9]

https://www.economist.com/britain/2013/08/03/paradise-lost https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/stories/why-the-world-needed-rebuilding-after-ww2 https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/replanning-london-after-second-world-war

The Labour Party's landslide victory in the 1945 general election meant that government policy was firmly supportive of the new towns movement; Labour had been advocating for satellite towns around London since 1918.[1]: 2 

Reith report[edit]

On 19 October 1945, Lewis Silkin, the Minister of Town and Country Planning, and Joseph Westwood, the Secretary of State for Scotland appointed an advisory committee, chaired by Lord Reith, with its terms of reference being:[10][11][12]: 32–36 

"To consider the general question of the establishment, development, organisation and administration that will arise in the promotion of new towns in furtherance of the policy of planned decentralisation from congested urban areas in accordance therewith to suggest guiding principles on which such towns should be established and developed as self-contained and balance communities for work and living"

Committee members besides Reith included Ivor Brown (editor of The Observer), Henry Bunbury (former comptroller and accountant-general of the Post Office), L. J. Cadbury (chairman of Cadbury and News Chronicle Ltd and director of the Bank of England), Monica Felton (member of the London County Council Town Planning Committee), Walter Henry Gaunt (chairman of Hertfordshire County Council Planning Committee), W. H. Morgan (Middlesex county engineer), Frederic Osborn (chairman of the executive of the Town and Country Planning Association), Percy Thomas (president of the Royal Institute of British Architects), Malcolm Stewart (chairman of the London Brick Company), and John A. F. Watson (member of the Central Housing Advisory Committee at the Ministry of Health). The Scottish members were Sinclair Shaw and J. P. Younger.[11]

As Reith knew the legislation could not be drafted until the committee had reported, work began with remarkable speed. The committee produced an interim report on 21 January 1946, just three months after being founded, and a second ten weeks after that on 9 April. The final report was published on 25 July 1946.[12]: 32–36  Some of the work had to be sped up after the government decided to introduce the New Towns Bill several months earlier than expected.[13]: 240 

The recommendations from the report included that the organisations in charge of developing new town sites should be public corporations sponsored either by the government or by local authorities (rather than private business),[13]: 240  that new towns should be located far enough from their parent city to prevent commuting,[14]: 70 [note 1]

In Parliament[edit]

The first drafts of the legislation were written on the basis of the two interim reports of the committee, and were introduced to Parliament as the New Towns Bill on 17 April 1946, while the committee was still sitting.[12]: 36  It had its second reading on 8 May.[15]

Although all parties supported the spirit of the bill,[12]: 36  the Conservatives were "unenthusiastic" about certain parts of it.[16]

The Bill received royal assent on 1 August 1946.[1]: 1 

Provisions[edit]

Designation of new towns[edit]

Section 1 of the Act allows the government minister responsible[note 2] to designate an area as the site of a proposed new town if it is in the national interest and after consulting with any relevant local authorities.[17]: §1  The designated site for a proposed new town may include existing towns or population centres.[17]: §3 

The procedure to be followed when making a designation order was set out in the first schedule to the Act[18] and was very similar to the procedure in the Town and Country Planning Act 1944 designating heavily bombed areas for redevelopment.[13]: 241 

Establishing development corporations[edit]

Section 2 allows the minister to establish a development corporation for each new town by order. A corporation consists of a chair, deputy chair and up to seven other members. The corporation is a body corporate with perpetual succession, a common seal, and powers to hold land in mortmain.[19]: §1 

The objective of each development corporation is to "secure the laying out and development of the new town" in accordance with the rest of the Act. As such, a corporation has the powers to:[19]: §2 

  • Acquire, hold, manage and dispose of land and property
  • Carry out building work and other operations
  • Provide water, electricity, gas, sewerage and other services
  • Do any business or other undertaking for the purposes of the new town
  • Do anything necessary or expedient for the purposes of the new town

Development corporations were expressly limited in their ability to borrow money, and were subject to the specific regulations around their financing by Section 12 of the Act.[19]: §2  The corporations acted like private companies except that the Ministry for Town and Country Planning was effectively their sole shareholder and the Treasury was the bank providing them loans.[14]: 70 

Planning and development[edit]

The development corporations could submit plans for development to the minister who would then, in consultation with the relevant local planning authority, approve and modify the plans if needed and then make a "special interim development order" to allow the development to go ahead.[20]: §1-2  The special order allowed certain parts of other legislation to be disapplied, including sections of the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act 1935 and the Town and Country Planning Act 1944, as well as allowing planning schemes relating to the land the special order affected to be revoked.[20]: §3-4 

Land[edit]

Development corporations could, with the consent of the minister, buy or compulsory purchase any land needed for the development of the new town. Importantly, this includes land both within the designated area of the new town and land outside of the designated area which is needed to provide services for the new town.[21]: §1  Compulsory purchases were made under the Town and Country Planning Act 1994,[21]: §2  the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act 1946,[21]: §3-4  and the Requisitioned Land and War Works Act 1945.[21]: §6 

The development corporation was also allowed to dispose of land it owned, but only with the agreement of the minister and in a way that benefited the development of the new town.[22]: §1  People whose housing or businesses had been affected by compulsory purchases were also allowed to be sold land by development corporation, with terms decided on a case-by-case basis.[22]: §2  Land was not allowed to be disposed of by way of gift, mortgage or charge.[22]: §3 

Housing[edit]

Development corporations were deemed to be housing associations under the Housing Act 1936,[23]: §1  taking on the .

First Schedule: Provisions as to Orders under Section 1[edit]

Before making a designation order under Section 1, the minister has to first make a draft order with the site of the proposed new town shown with reference to a map and a statement "indicating the size and general character" of the new town.[18]: §1 

A notice must be published in the London Gazette, at least one newspaper local to the proposed new town, and any other newspapers which are considered appropriate describing the area to be designated as a new town, stating that a draft order has been prepared, giving a place in the area where a copy of the draft order can be read "at all reasonable hours", and specifying how and until when objections can be made. The deadline for objections cannot be less than 28 days from when the notice is published in the London Gazette. The notice must also be served on the county council and district council in which the land on the draft order lies, as well as any council which would appear to be concerned with the designation order.[18]: §2 

If any objection is made and not withdrawn by the deadline, the minister must hold a public local inquiry and consider its report before making the designation order. The minister may then adopt the draft order as a designation order or amend it. An amended designation order cannot, without the agreement of all interested persons, include land which was not proposed in the original draft order.[18]: §3-4 

After making the designation order, the minister must publish in the London Gazette and at least one newspaper local to the proposed new town a notice stating that the order has been made and giving a place within the designated area where a copy of the order can be read at all reasonable hours. The same notice must also be served on any local authority which was served the draft order notice and on any person who objected to the draft order and requested in writing to be served the notice.[18]: §5 

Usage[edit]

Between 1946 and 1951, fourteen new towns were planned.[24] The first new town, Stevenage, was designated on 11 November 1946. It was followed by Crawley (January 1947), Hemel Hempstead (February 1947), Harlow (March 1947), Newton Aycliffe (April 1947) and Peterlee (1948).[25] This was the first of three phases of new town developments, with the most recent in 1970.[26]: 5 

Legacy[edit]

The 1946 Act remains in force and "appears to be robust" according to the Town and Country Planning Association.[26]: 8  It has since been amended by Acts in 1959, 1965, 1966, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985 and 1994.[26]: 8  Planned decentralisation ceased to be government policy in 1976 by which point around 660,000 Londoners had relocated to them.[14]: 18 

By the end of the 1960s, new towns had a combined population of 700,000.[14]: 17  In 2019, about 2.7 million people lived in new towns.[2]

The New Towns Act was described by Peter Richards as "one of the least controversial" of the Labour government's reconstruction measures.[13]: 240  The Economist describes the new town legacy as "mixed", pointing out the differences in development of new towns in different areas of the country.[27]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ This was established to be 40 kilometres (25 mi) from London and 20 kilometres (12 mi) from other cities.[14]: 70 
  2. ^ In England, the responsible minister was originally the Minister of Town and Country Planning, later the Minister of Housing and Local Government, and in 1970 became the Secretary of State for the Environment. In Scotland, the responsible minister was the Secretary of State for Scotland and in Wales, from 1965, it was the Secretary of State for Wales. Northern Ireland was subject to entirely seperate legislation (the New Towns Act (Northern Ireland) which was passed by the Parliament of Northern Ireland in 1965) under which the responsible minister was the Minister of Development.[12]: 335 

Reference[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ENGLISH NEW TOWNS PROGRAM". Washington University Law Quarterly. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
  2. ^ a b Steve Rose (15 May 2019). "Sterile or stirring? Britain's love-hate relationship with new towns". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  3. ^ a b Mark Clapson (2013). "Destruction and Dispersal: The Blitz and the 'Break-Up' of Working-Class London". In Clapson, Mark; Larkham, Peter (eds.). The Blitz and its Legacy: Wartime Destruction to Post-War Reconstruction. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 99–112.
  4. ^ Jane Hobson (September 1999). "NEW TOWNS, THE MODERNIST PLANNING PROJECT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE" (PDF). University College London. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
  5. ^ Rachel Parsons (5 August 2021). "Sir Frederic Osborn and the Global Urban Planning Movement". Herts Memories. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
  6. ^ Nick Gallent; Steve Robinson (2012). "Ashford and its strategic planning context". Neighbourhood planning: Communities, networks and governance. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781447300069. There has been an ebb and flow of interest in strategic regional planning in the UK, with the strategic perspective and control at the regional level enjoying notably greater support under some governments than others. Planning at this level has its origins in the 1940 Barlow Report, which gave rise to the post-war New Towns programme and broader attempts to redistribute industry and decant people away from inner-urban locations.
  7. ^ Peter Larkham. "Replanning London after the Second World War". Gresham College. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
  8. ^ Stanley Buder (1990). Visionaries and Planners: The Garden City Movement and the Modern Community. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195362888.
  9. ^ "11 - Post-War Housing, 1945-1960s - Introduction". UWE Bristol. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
  10. ^ "The Ministry of Town and Country Planning proposes to appoint a NEW TOWNS COMMITTEE under the chairmanship of Lord Reith". The Architects' Journal. 102 (2645): 235. 4 October 1945. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  11. ^ a b Winston W. Crouch; Richard Bigger (June 1950). "Metropolitan Decentralization: Britain's New Towns Program". The Western Political Quarterly. 3 (2): 244–261. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  12. ^ a b c d e Frank Schaffer (1972). The New Town Story (2nd ed.). London: Granada Publishing.
  13. ^ a b c d Peter G. Richards (July 1951). "THE NEW TOWNS". The Political Quarterly. 22 (3): 240–250. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
  14. ^ a b c d e Anthony Alexander (2009). Britain's New Towns: Garden Cities to Sustainable Communities. Routledge. ISBN 9780415475136.
  15. ^ "NEW TOWNS BILL HC Deb 08 May 1946 vol 422 cc1072-184". Parliament.uk. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  16. ^ "Land use planning: Post-war policy". The National Archives. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  17. ^ a b "1 - Designation of sites of new towns". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  18. ^ a b c d e "FIRST SCHEDULE - Provisions as to Orders under s. I." Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  19. ^ a b c "2 - Establishment and general powers of development corporations". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  20. ^ a b "3 - Planning and control of development in new towns". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  21. ^ a b c d "4 - Acquisition of land by development corporations". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  22. ^ a b c "5 - Disposal of land by development corporations". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  23. ^ "8 - Housing". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  24. ^ Kristin Skoog. "Visions of Utopia: Sweden, the BBC and the Welfare State" (PDF). Bournemouth University. p. 9.
  25. ^ Lord Greenwood (May 1973). "New Towns". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 121 (5202): 355–366. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  26. ^ a b c "New Towns Act 2015? An Act to Enable Sustainable Development through the Creation of New Towns by Means of Development Corporations, and for Purposes Connected therewith" (PDF). Town and Country Planning Association. February 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  27. ^ "Paradise lost: Britain's new towns". The Economist. 3 August 2013. Retrieved 28 August 2022.

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