New Town for Wiltshire? Delivery of the government's New Towns could affect the county

A recent article has reported that the delivery of the government’s proposed 10,000 home new towns could suffer from construction workforce and planning constraints, as new research reveals each site could cost up to £4bn

New towns are part of the government’s push to build new housing around the country, although these are above and beyond the 1.5M promised this Parliament. The plan is to establish 12 new conurbations with at least 10,000 residences in new settlements or attached to existing ones. There have been over 100 applications from local authorities for sites to become new towns and a task force is now whittling them down to the 12 selected to take forward.

A new report authored by specialist researcher WPI Strategy, New Towns for England Where should they be and how can they be funded and delivered?, discusses how the plan can be implemented and what barriers stand in the way. It has also named the best locations for the planned 12 new towns, based on its analysis, which can be seen below.

The 12 preferred locations for the proposed new towns according to WPI Strategy:

• Milton Keynes
• Leeds
• South Gloucestershire
• Central Bedfordshire
• Wiltshire
• Huntingdonshire
• West Northamptonshire
• Mid Devon
• South Cambridgeshire
• Winchester
• East Hertfordshire
• Northumberland

More news to follow…