The deputy prime minister has set up a New Towns Taskforce to help the government to create new, large-scale communities with at least 10,000 homes each.
Angela Rayner has appointed English Cities Fund chair Sir Michael Lyons to chair the independent New Towns Taskforce and top housing economist Dame Kate Barker as deputy chair.
The taskforce will work with mayors, local leaders and communities to find the right places for new towns and present a report and final shortlist of recommendations on appropriate locations to ministers within 12 months.
The taskforce aims to deliver the government’s vision for a new generation of new towns to help kickstart economic growth. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said today’s announcement is the first step towards delivering “the largest housebuilding programme since the post-war period”.
Housing and communities secretary Angela Rayner said: “With Sir Michael in the driving seat, I know his taskforce will work together with local people to help us decide on the right places for these new towns, delivering more homes, jobs and green spaces.
“We are getting Britain building again and our long-term vision for a new generation of new towns will enrich the lives of working people in the years to come.”
MHCLG said the towns “will help to unlock the economic potential of existing towns and cities across the country, and the government will continue to drive growth and regenerate areas that have been held back by constraints on their expansion for far too long”.
The towns will also help to meet housing need by “targeting rates of 40% affordable housing with a focus on genuinely affordable social rented homes”, the department said.
The new communities will be governed by a “New Towns Code” – a set of rules that developers will have to meet to make sure new towns are well connected, well designed, sustainable and attractive places where people want to live.
Lyons, a former BBC chair, said he is “proud to lead the New Towns Taskforce to make sure new towns deliver on the government’s vision and meet the needs of local people”.
“Our mission begins today and we will work closely with local leaders and their communities as well as the wider development and investment sectors to make sure these new towns are built in the right places,” he added.
Lyons is the non-executive chair of the English Cities Fund, a joint venture set up by three partners including Homes England, which has large-scale regeneration developments in London, Liverpool, Plymouth, Salford and Wakefield.
He also has more than 26 years of experience in local government, initially as a Labour Party councillor and then as the chief executive of three local authorities.
Lyons also has experience of working with the UK government, carrying out three reviews for Gordon Brown when he was chancellor – two on local government funding and one into relocating civil servants out of London. He also chaired a housing commission in 2014 established by Ed Miliband, which set out how the UK could boost housing supply.
Barker, who is chair of the governing council of the Productivity Institute research organisation, said she is “enthusiastic” about working with Lyons on the plans “for the new towns badly needed to enable more households to live in homes where they can flourish”.
“It will be vital to ensure the locations will also support economic growth over coming decades,” she added.
In 2004, Barker was commissioned by the government to conduct a major independent policy review of UK housing supply, followed by a review of land use planning in 2006. She was also previously a commissioner for the National Infrastructure Commission.