Garden Cities

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish the prospectus for the establishment of new garden cities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, very large-scale new housing developments are difficult, complex projects that involve long-term investment. This is illustrated by the fact that no developments of more than 10,000 homes have been delivered since the new towns programme. We are working with areas such as Bicester, which have expressed an interest in significant future housing growth that incorporates garden city principles such as high standards of quality and design, varied architecture, and provision of green space and gardens.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

May I encourage my noble friend to be a little more specific? The Government promised a prospectus in their housing strategy published in November 2011. Unless the Government publish their prospectus for garden cities this summer or within at least two years of promising to do so, is there not a danger that people will question the Government’s determination to tackle the past decade’s undersupply of housing and avoid the possibility of a house price boom in the next 10 years?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the Question is very apt but it relates almost entirely to big developments because garden city developments are not in their nature small. The noble Lord will know that these sites are very complicated. The garden city principles were enumerated by the Deputy Prime Minister in his speech to the National House-building Council last November. He said that we should build places which,

“draw on the best of British architecture and design, which have their own identity and character”,

and have a crucial role in keeping the countryside intact. He said that garden cities enable people to live sustainably and to move easily between work and home. Those are very large principles and demonstrate that a development needs to be large to bring all that in.