14 new ‘Garden Villages’ announced
Early into 2017 and the Government has announced proposals for a series of ‘garden villages’ with the potential to deliver more than 48,000 homes.
The move represents an expansion of the existing garden towns scheme and will involve smaller projects of between 1,500 and 10,000 homes.
The 14 new garden villages will have access to a £6 million fund over the next 2 financial years to support the delivery of these new projects. The money is to be used to ‘unlock the full capacity of sites, providing funding for additional resources and expertise to accelerate development and avoid delays.'
The government also announced its support for 3 new garden towns in Aylesbury, Taunton and Harlow & Gilston, with a further £1.4 million of funding to support their delivery.
Together with the 7 garden towns already announced, these 17 new garden settlements have the combined potential to provide almost 200,000 new homes across the country.
Housing and Planning Minister Gavin Barwell said: “Locally-led garden towns and villages have enormous potential to deliver the homes that communities need. New communities not only deliver homes, they also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to local economies. These places combined could provide almost 200,000 homes.”
The new garden villages proposed are: -
• Long Marston in Stratford-on-Avon • Oxfordshire Cotswold in West Oxfordshire • Deenethorpe in East Northants • Culm in Mid Devon • Welborne near Fareham in Hampshire • West Carclaze in Cornwall • Dunton Hills near Brentwood, Essex • Spitalgate Heath in South Kesteven, Lincolnshire • Halsnead in Knowsley, Merseyside • Longcross in Runnymede and Surrey Heath • Bailrigg in Lancaster • Infinity Garden Village in South Derbyshire and Derby City area • St Cuthberts near Carlisle City, Cumbria • North Cheshire in Cheshire East
It is proposed that the developments will be ‘distinct new places with their own community facilities, rather than extensions to existing urban areas.’ The new garden projects will also have access to Government infrastructure funding programmes, such as the new £2.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund announced at this year’s Autumn Statement