As the government sets out plans for 12 new towns, recent visits to Nansledan highlight the importance of high-quality design, placemaking, and long-term stewardship. Hugh Petter argues that the best outcomes will come from a legacy development model—where landowners retain an active role—rather than speculative land sales. To deliver genuinely sustainable communities, policies must support SME builders, invest in skills, and create a level playing field for long-term growth
Housing is high on the national agenda, and the recent visit of the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and His Majesty the King to Nansledan reflects a growing government focus on how new homes should be delivered.
The new towns taskforce’s interim update, Building New Towns for the Future, signals a clear direction of travel, with the ambition to create 12 new towns. The question now is how these developments will be delivered in practice, and whether the right lessons will be learnt from existing projects.
Nansledan, the 4,000-home extension to Newquay in Cornwall, has drawn government attention because many of its core design principles align with the taskforce’s vision. The quality of design, the integration of infrastructure, and the seamless inclusion of affordable and social housing have been recognised as key attributes.
Thirty per cent of homes at Nansledan are affordable or social housing, and the masterplan has incorporated schools, GP facilities, workspaces, transport networks and green spaces to create a genuinely mixed-use, sustainable community.
Legacy development requires incentives and changes to the current tax regime to create a level playing field: these must be considered in tandem with the top-down government drive for new homes
The prime minister and deputy prime minister’s recognition of the role of high-quality design and placemaking is welcome, but for the government’s approach to succeed, the delivery model must be right.
The best results will be achieved – and we know this from Nansledan and elsewhere – through legacy development, with the landowner retaining an active interest rather than through acquisition of the land and the right to develop sold to the highest bidding developer outright and at the outset. Legacy development requires incentives and changes to the current tax regime to create a level playing field: these must be considered in tandem with the top-down government drive for new homes.
We believe that SME local housebuilders have a vital role to play in the delivery of the government’s ambitious housing targets to strengthen and diversify the supply side and to encourage apprenticeships through secure local supply chains to grow our long-term capacity to build.
This approach ensures that development is shaped by long-term stewardship rather than short-term speculative gain. It also provides the stability needed for smaller, locally embedded developers to contribute meaningfully to housing delivery, preventing the market from being dominated by volume housebuilders with a focus on repetition rather than placemaking.
We know that local – often family-run businesses – local labour and skills are more than capable in the delivery of high-quality housing stock, and infrastructure, as evidenced at Nansledan. It is also good to see that there has been recognition of local architectural style and history in government commentary on future plans and that a new town code will dictate that development must be appropriate in character.
There is bright hope for the coming years as a period when we can celebrate both the process and practice of generating the right housing solutions and building not just houses but proper communities
Recognition that we will need more workers and training in the relevant skills is good too, and gearing up for that through both trades and professional apprenticeships for example must happen now.
If the government’s commitment to high-quality, mixed-use, walkable communities is genuine, then its policies must actively support the ecosystems that make them possible. Training and investment in the relevant skills must happen now, ensuring that a new generation of apprentices – both in the trades and in professional disciplines – can take up the challenge of delivering these places.
If the government sees Nansledan as a bellwether for development of their 1.5 million new homes, be that as new towns or extensions to existing communities, then there is bright hope for the coming years as a period when we can celebrate both the process and practice of generating the right housing solutions and building not just houses but proper communities. That indeed would be a fitting legacy.
Hugh Petter is a partner at Adam Architecture and the master-planner and co-ordinating architect at Nansledan
Postscript
Hugh Petter is a director of ADAM Architecture
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