Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether local councils and communities will be consulted about New Towns before the final designation by the New Towns Taskforce.

As set out in its Terms of Reference, which can be found on gov.uk here, the New Towns Taskforce will work in partnership with local leaders and communities, but its selection of sites will be made in the national interest.

The Taskforce also plans to undertake a series of engagement events to understand what the public think the core components of new towns should be and to further test the design and placemaking principles published in the Building new towns for the future policy paper published on 12 February which can be found on gov.uk here.