New Towns

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I, too, am grateful to the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing the debate, which provides a genuinely interesting opportunity to think not only about our own new towns, but about the problems faced by new towns holistically. Like her, I hope that this is the start of the conversation rather than the end.

Aside from the cult film “Gregory’s Girl”, the new town I represent was probably most famous for a simple but effective advertising slogan from the 1980s. If I were to ask, “What’s it called?”—

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Cumbernauld!

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Exactly—it is Cumbernauld. I even had a student activist at one point suggest “Who’s he called? Stuart McDonald” as a possible campaign slogan, but thankfully that was ruled out of hand. That was testament at least to the fact that that slogan had imprinted itself into public consciousness so much that someone born after it was created was still very much aware of it.

The new towns were an incredible achievement in planning and building, born of an urgent need for housing after war and a baby boom, and Cumbernauld is no exception to that. Though it was designed as part of Robert Matthew’s Clyde valley regional plan to move population out of Glasgow, it has a slightly different history, being the only one of the mark 1 new towns designated during the period of the Conservative Government of the 1950s. One consequence of that is that it has a slightly different design plan. Unlike other new towns, it does not share the concept of different neighbourhoods but aimed instead for a higher density design with a single town centre accessible by foot from all other parts of the town.

In many ways, Cumbernauld remains a great place to live. It has the same sense of civic pride that other hon. Members have described as present in their new towns. It is also an extraordinarily green town, with an amazing percentage of the town’s area comprising woods and parks. It enjoys a wonderful range of local organisations and community groups, with many taking a great interest in preserving that green space and maintaining it for all to enjoy.

However, as others have said, new towns face significant challenges as well. I could mention transport and one or two others, but in the time left I will focus on two or three at most. As has already been said, all new towns will face a huge challenge because a massive part of their housing stock and infrastructure will be exactly the same age, therefore requiring significant sums of investment in renewal over a short period of time. Some of those problems of regeneration and renewal are made even more challenging by the way in which stock was transferred first from development corporation to council, and then from council to private owners. Therefore, in some parts of Cumbernauld, it is almost impossible to get agreement between all the different owners of flats in order to take action to regenerate, which is required by the title deeds.

Another challenge is jobs. I will not go on about that for too long, but one of the key challenges we face is the possible loss of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs office in Cumbernauld—I think my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) will have something to say about that as well—which we will return to in the months ahead.

If I were to survey my constituents, I think the No. 1 new town issue they would highlight would be the town centre. It is built over the dual carriageway that goes through the town and, because the bus station is also located in the structure, for many that will be their one and only recollection of Cumbernauld. It was envisaged as a solitary megastructure designed to accommodate all the retail, municipal and leisure needs of the whole population of 50,000. Originally, it also included penthouse executive apartments. At first, it was remarkable. On completion, I think it was Britain’s first indoor shopping mall, but I do not think my constituents would disagree when I say it has not stood the test of time well; in fact, it has dated badly. The building’s concrete structure makes its exterior appear unattractive, and it has been a challenge to attract major retailers, with giant superstores locating instead on nearby sites.

There are plenty of ideas on how to improve the situation. The local council has a strategy in place after public consultation. My MSP colleague Jamie Hepburn and I also did a public consultation and arranged a roundtable of local organisations and community groups in autumn last year. There is enthusiasm for improving the town centre and making it a better fit for the town in which it is based. One key challenge is the co-ordination and co-operation required to make that happen. As well as the practical challenge of dealing with a giant monolithic structure, there are problems with the fact that bits of the town centre are owned by different private companies. Even the streets and public spaces are owned by private companies. In the past year we have been trying to kick-start some action in one part of the town centre that has changed ownership, so we almost have to start again.

What should we take from all this? The new towns were a bold and necessary experiment. When I was preparing for this debate I was interested to read that some of them ended up as a revenue-generating experiment for the Treasury. However, when they were built, there was no planning for the challenges that almost certainly lay ahead. No sinking fund was put aside for a time when renewal and regeneration would become urgent. Instead, development corporations have handed over more liabilities than assets.

Perhaps in the era of city deals we should campaign for new town deals in recognition of their unique challenges and opportunities. Perhaps we need to look at a role for a more modern and accountable version of the old development corporations that existed previously. In Cumbernauld there is a sort of successor organisation, but I am not convinced it is in the right form or has the resources and powers that it needs. Perhaps that is one thing to look at. I do not know the answer to these problems. There might be completely new solutions.

The hon. Member for Telford mentioned an APPG in her opening speech. That has to be the start of the conversation. I am absolutely up for joining an APPG and I hope we can take forward our discussions and our ideas to overcome the challenges.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to sum up the debate on behalf of the Scottish National party. As I explained in my maiden speech—it seems a long time ago now—although my constituency is called Glenrothes, slightly more than 50% of my constituents do not live in the town of Glenrothes. I think it is disrespectful for the name of the constituency to ignore that fact. As a lot of hon. Members alluded to, many new towns were planted in the middle of established communities, which are sometimes very concerned about maintaining their own identities. I will continue to ensure that officialdom recognises the identities of the many disparate communities in the Glenrothes constituency that are not in Glenrothes.

As a long-term resident of the town itself, I will make some comments on what a wonderful place it is to live. However, let me first commend the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing the debate and all hon. Members who have spoken for the clear passion they have demonstrated for the new towns they represent and their pride in the people in those towns. Although we have heard a lot about roads and roundabouts, and schools and roundabouts, and houses and roundabouts, and shopping centres and roundabouts, this is about people. All of those things were supposed to have been built for people, and with hindsight I sometimes wonder what the architects and town planners thought the people were supposed to do.

A large part of the problem, certainly in Glenrothes, is legacy; the well-intentioned people who planned the town all those years ago had no idea what kind of town they needed to produce for the 21st century. I think that one difficulty is that society was a lot more paternalistic then. Glenrothes was built on precincts with a typical population of 2,000, although some were quite a bit smaller. Those precincts would often have a primary school and what was charmingly described as a tenants’ meeting room that typically held about 50 or 60 people. There was nowhere within the precincts where the community could meet. A lot of the communities did not have a polling station big enough for everybody to go and vote at on the same day. The vast majority of amenities were to be in the town centre, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) mentioned.

Another big difficulty became relevant shortly after I was first elected as a councillor in the town in 1992, because the new town development corporation was wound up in 1995-96. We expected all of its functions to be taken over by the new unitary Fife Council, but the Government of the day—as represented by Michael Forsyth, the Scotland Office Minister for everything—were keen to sell off as much as possible in order to keep it out of the hands of the elected council.

Our town centre was sold off, as were a lot of the industrial estates, such as the Whitehill industrial estate on the western edge of the town, with disastrous results. The neighbourhood shopping centres were sold off, and the Glenwood centre in Glenrothes has been in the ownership of, I think, three different bankrupt or liquidated companies. All of those facilities, which should have been maintained for the benefit of local people, have been allowed to run down because they were sold off for short-term gain, often to people with neither the capacity nor even the will to make them succeed in the longer term. I thought it interesting that the hon. Member for Telford referred to that.

Having said that, there have been several successes in the town, a lot of which are down to the people—sometimes for taking things on board for themselves, sometimes for forcing the council, the Scottish Government, the UK Government and everybody else to deliver what was needed. During my time as a councillor, we saw a new dental centre and a new health centre built at Glenwood in west Glenrothes, a new secondary school built to replace the former Auchmuty High School, the new Michael Woods sports and leisure centre built to replace the aging and almost literally collapsing 1970s sport centre.

We are also in the process of seeing a new residential care home at South Parks to replace two older homes—I give credit to the former Labour Administration in Fife Council for delivering that. We have also seen a lot of investment in a sports hub for the community at Gilvenbank in the north of the town, and there has been an excellent community initiative at Over Stenton playing fields in the south of the town to provide a home for the Glenrothes Strollers, who have previously been awarded community club of the year by the Scottish Football Association.

What is remarkable about all of that to some Members here, but is just accepted by those of us on the Scottish National party Benches, is that the total private finance initiative liability for all of those community facilities is nil. If the political will is there, all of that can be done without mortgaging future generations to the mercies of international financial conglomerates. I hope the UK Government listen to this, because there is a better way to finance large-scale public investment.

I mentioned the people of the town I am so fortunate to represent. Since the start of the general election campaign, the people have run very successful large and small community events in Macedonia, at St Ninian’s Church in Tanshall, in Collydean, Gilvanbank, Collydean again, at Over Stenton and at Woodside. All of that happened in a town that a lot of people said did not have any community spirit. It was felt that, being a new town, people tended to live their own lives and never really interact with one another. I think a lot of the credit for that community spirit belongs particularly to our primary schools, because they tend to bring families together in a way that few institutions can.

A big fillip to the town over the past 10 or 15 years has been the influx of young families from central Europe. Because Glenrothes was designated as a new town 59 years ago, the population has tended to age with the town, and a lot of our communities were in danger of growing too old. The influx of younger families from other parts of Europe has been of huge benefit, and I hope it will be allowed to continue.

If I had one ask, what my town needs, as I suspect do a lot of towns represented here, is significant public sector investment. The private sector will simply not fix this problem on its own. If the political will is there, the money can be found, and all of the towns represented here can be turned into towns that their residents desire and deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn]

I certainly urge the Minister to consider that. When people purchase new build properties on those estates, modern facilities fit for the 21st century must be part and parcel of them.

Renewal and expansion of the housing stock are clearly issues that face new towns, as the right hon. Member for Harlow in particular highlighted. Under the Conservatives, we have seen the lowest level of house building since the 1920s and the lowest level of affordable house building for a quarter of a century. As rent and house prices have hugely outstripped rises in people’s incomes, we now have a generation of young people who cannot afford to buy a home—and not just in London, but right across the country, with the result being 200,000 fewer homeowners today than in 2010.

The hon. Member for Telford spoke of the specific problems for those who buy leasehold properties. Increases in ground rent charges are a particular issue that sees leaseholders being ripped off by developers or management companies and can make it impossible for individuals to sell their property. An APPG on the specific issue raised that in the previous Parliament, but perhaps her new all-party group will consider it as well.

[Peter Grant]

In Scotland, we have dealt with the problem of extortionate ground rents by abolishing the feudal property system lock, stock and barrel. Might that be worth examining for other parts of the UK?

[Melanie Onn]

When we are considering these issues, nothing should be off the table. It has to be something workable and reasonable that protects leaseholders. That option will not necessarily be the right solution, but it certainly should be available for consideration.

Labour has proposed capping some of the charges and, in the longer term, ending the routine use of leasehold ownership in developments of new houses entirely. That is an alternative, perhaps, to the suggestion from the hon. Member for Glenrothes. The 2017 housing White Paper pledged 17 new garden towns and villages, but it came five years after the former Prime Minister announced a consultation on new garden cities in his speech to the Institution of Civil Engineers. That delay does not exactly instil confidence that the Government recognise the scale of the housing crisis facing the country today, or the importance of new towns and garden cities to tackling the crisis.

Let us compare and contrast with the Labour Government of 1945. It took the Attlee Government just one year to enact legislation for new towns and to designate Stevenage the first. A new planning system was introduced the next year. Within five years, 10 new towns had been started, with social housing for rent making up the overwhelming majority of new homes built. That shows what Government can achieve if the desire is truly there, which is exactly what the hon. Member for Glenrothes was talking about earlier. Will the Minister update us on the progress of the new garden towns and villages?

The viability of new towns and garden cities relies on the agreement of the local population. They have to be developed in a way that genuinely improves the local area by bringing the jobs and services needed for a real community. When the latest tranche of garden towns and villages was announced in January, the former Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), said:

“What worries me about all of these announcements…is perhaps it is just a good name to tag on to more housing development rather than somewhere…you’d really want to live, bring up children, work and play.”

He went on:

“And if it is not all of those things then we will have failed to actually create new garden cities; we would have just tried to make housing sound more popular.”

Will the Minister reassure us today that these proposals are not simply spin on new housing developments but will genuinely reflect the ethos of garden cities?

We have heard today about the higher infrastructure costs faced by new towns. Labour has suggested that in future, new garden cities or towns should retain 100% of the business rates locally, to provide an income stream for those higher costs. Business rate retention was one of a large number of policies dropped in the Queen’s Speech, but perhaps the Minister will consider reviving it for new garden cities.

I also want to ask about the need to provide greater protection for those purchasing new build homes, which is of course a particular issue in new towns and villages. I spoke about the Bovis Homes scandal in my previous role as a member of the Communities and Local Government Committee. When I challenged the former housing Minister, now chief of staff to the Prime Minister, on what the Government are doing to safeguard new homeowners from this in future, he told me that a planned announcement had been put on hold when the Prime Minister called the general election. Nothing was brought forward to address the issue in the Conservative manifesto and there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech. Perhaps the Minister here today can say what this previously imminent announcement was and when we can expect it.