37Issue 91 October-December 2014

GARDEN CITIES | ANDY VON BRADSKY

After considerable efforts by all who participated, great organi-sation from Lord Wolfson and his team, the winners of theWolfson Economics Prize for Garden Cities were announced togreat fanfare. There is a wealth of learning in the 274 submis-sions from which political and financial leaders can draw so itwas a great disappointment for the Housing Minister to haveslammed the winner so soon afterwards.

Shelter’s submission, to which PRP and KPMG contributed,was formally declared runner up to the winning submission byUrbed. It received plaudits from the industry, independentcommentators and the media, including BBC’s Countryfile pro-gramme as it focusses on a real place and the practical issuesaround deliverability, finance and community support.

The exam question was ‘How would you deliver a new gar-den city which is visionary, economically viable and popular?’.All finalists agree that ‘garden cities’ are an essential compo-nent to address the undersupply of housing for all tenures inthe UK and that without pro-active planning for large scalehousing development, the crisis will worsen. The principles offunding infrastructure through land value capture models – alocally-led approach, funding with private equity rather thangovernment subsidy and a long term community trust model,are a feature of the URBED and Shelter proposals. There areclear differences in each of the finalists’ entries, but we allagree that a 21st century model for garden cities is necessaryand deliverable.

Shelter’s vision was for supply across all tenures, with quali-ty and affordability achieved with zero public subsidy and localconsent. We chose a real site in order to show that their modelwas deliverable in practice, not just in theory. It enabled us toanalyse real data, including the economic, environmental andsocial constraints for developing to scale.

The determinants for the ideal location for ‘garden cities’were set out to assess the suitability of sites. We concludedthat the model works when the following criteria areaddressed:• Future demand: identifying the areas of the highest level ofnew demand for homes, that is close to London• Environmental protection: avoiding areas where there are sig-nificant environmental impacts• Connectivity: ease of access through existing or proposedtransport infrastructure• Proximity to employment: reduced travel times to major cen-tres of employment• Viability: the model depends on land value uplift so sites withlowest land values are most suitable

The Hoo Peninsular, central to Terry Farrell’s vision forThames Gateway is ideally located and ticks all the boxes. It isthe site for the Mayor’s proposed London Hub airport and wechose to challenge whether the site is better suited for housinginfrastructure rather than an airport. Medway recently grantedconsent for a large scale development of ex-MOD land atLodge Hill for 5000 homes as a foundation for a larger settle-ment. The available data enabled us to model the design, finan-cial, environmental and practical issues for delivering a newgarden city.

Our proposal is for a polycentric city made up of a necklaceof housing settlements, similar in concept to EbenezerHoward’s original model. joined by an existing re-used railwayline. We focussed on its centre, Stoke Harbour, a fictitious townwith a population of 36000 people and 15000 new homes. It isa landscape led proposal with 40% open space in the form ofparks and green spaces along transport corridors to integrate itinto its surrounding countryside. There are a series of walkableneighbourhoods to an average density of 60 dwellings perhectare, with a mix of homes for all tenures, from market sale,market rent, shared ownership and social rent. It includes a 15per cent allocation for self-build, 37.5per cent affordable hous-ing and specific proposals for housing for the elderly, integratedwith a community based health care model. Homes are built tohigh environmental performance standards and a district ener-gy and power network is sourced from the nearby existingpower station.

Our proposal sets out a growth plan and shows that withappropriate mechanisms to front fund social infrastructure andparcel land, it is possible to build out 4 to 5 times the currentUK average as is often achieved in North European deliverymodels.

Skills and materials are in short supply even under currentmodest market conditions so our plans include a new offsitemanufacturing facility that can produce over 2000 homes perannum to achieve accelerated build out rates. Creating other

Garden Cities: a perspectivefrom the Shelter/PRP team

Andy vonBradsky and hisshortlisted teamapplaud LordWolfson forsetting theexam question;it is now forGovernment,the GLA andLocal Authoritiesto absorb thelearning and notreject theintellectualoutcomes of atruly valuableprocess out ofhand, they say

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BELOW:

PRP’s Viking Park

38 Planning in London

local employment opportunities in green technologies and theenergy industry through tax incentives ensure that the settle-ment will not be a dormitory town. It is anticipated that 3000jobs will be created locally.

A major strength of the proposal was the extent of testingShelter undertook to determine public perception of gardencities. A series of surveys of residents were conducted in thearea to test the popularity of the concept.

The outcomes offer real insights for local and national poli-cy makers. Whilst there are inevitably some polarised for andagainst, the polling demonstrated that a local referendumwould be winnable by focussing on the benefits for the majori-ty who are undecided. It dispels the theory that financialinducements are an answer and rather that local communitieswould support new settlements if schools, hospitals, othercommunity services and infrastructure are improved for localpeople and the housing is targeted at local residents and theirfamilies. Involving the local community and stakeholders in allaspects of the process from conception to delivery and futuremanagement will be essential.  

None of these concepts are ground breaking and much of ithas been achieved before using similar approaches whether inthe UK’s historic Garden Cities and New Towns or more recent-ly in the many new settlements in Northern Europe. What we

need is political leadership at a national level and local levelwho are prepared to sponsor and support big ideas despite thepolitical and financial challenges. This was outlined in PRP’sBeyond EcoTowns: Applying the lessons from Europe: and theHousing Forum’s report The ABC of Housing Growth andInfrastructure which URBED and PRP edited.

The proposals have a relevance to London as it seeks toincrease supply of homes to 50,000pa without compromisingaffordability and quality. London’s housing shortfall must beconsidered in a regional context and inevitably other settle-ments outside the M25 will be required and existing settle-ments such as Harlow and Crawley should be completed if weare to make in-roads. Providing there is good infrastructure,short journey times and the right balance of local facilities, set-tlements based on garden city principles must surely be a valu-able contribution to London’s housing shortfall.

We hope that by pooling their experience, the winner andthe short-listed Wolfson entries will create a head of steam forthe delivery of a pilot garden city, whether on the HooPeninsular or other sites with similar characteristics. Weapplaud Lord Wolfson for setting the exam question: it is nowfor Government, the GLA and Local Authorities to absorb thelearning and not reject the intellectual outcomes of a trulyvaluable process out of hand. n

GARDEN CITIES | ANDY VON BRADSKY

Wolfson winners: grow your own garden city

David Rudlinand NicholasFalk, winners ofthe WolfsonEconomics Prize2014, outlinetheir ideas

URBED were announcedas winners of the 2014Wolfson Economics Prize– the second most valu-able economics prize afterthe Nobel. Their submis-sion, developed with JonRowland and PeteRedman, illustrated howto double the size of thehistoric, if fictional, city ofUxcester, and then appliedthe ideas to the very realissues being faced inOxford. Their Garden City is onegrown from the strongrootstock of an existingplace rather than a free-standing new town. Theyidentified 40 towns andcities where the modelcould be applied and theyare in discussion with anumber of places interest-ed in applying the ideas.Their full essay isavailable atwww.urbed.com. DavidRudlin outlines the eco-nomic case made in theessay for improving thequality of housebuildingwhile the following articleby Nicholas Falk describesthe implications forOxford and responds tocriticism

GARDEN CITIES | DAVID RUDLIN

39Issue 91 October-December 2014

David Rudlin outlines the economic casefor developing a city like UxcesterThe country that gave the world the Garden City is now build-ing around 100,000 fewer homes each year than it needs to.What is more, the quality of the housing that is built, whilebetter than it used to be, is still poor compared to otherNorthern European countries in terms of space standards, envi-ronmental performance, layout and infrastructure. For manyyears URBED’s Nicholas Falk has led study tours to cities likeFreiburg, a German city near Basel of a little over 200,000 peo-ple that has built two large urban extensions at Vauban andRieselfeld in the last twenty years. Walking through these newneighbourhoods with UK politicians, professionals and commu-nity activists, past the shining trams, high-quality housing andgenerous green space, the question asked is always; why can’twe do this?’ The answer is not that we in the UK lack the talentor commitment, but rather that our system makes it if notimpossible then at least very difficult.

So in our submission for the 2014 Wolfson Economics Prizewe showed how this system might be reformed. The econom-ics of the original Garden City was based on what its creatorEbenezer Howard called the ‘unearned increment’ – the upliftin the value of land that happens when development takesplace. Howard was writing before the planning system was cre-ated and today the ‘unearned increment’ is created by themere allocation of land for development. An average piece offarmland in the UK is worth around £15,000 per hectare. If it isgranted consent for housing then its value rises to more than£2m per hectare. That value uplift goes to the farmer and to allthe agents, housebuilders, lawyers and consultants who prisedthe consent out of the local planning authority. In Freiburg andindeed much of Northern Europe, the money and effort isspent not on the land but on the neighbourhood, it builds thetrams, creates the parks and schools and is spent on the qualityof the housing.

In our Wolfson submission we propose a set of reforms toallow the same economics to be applied to the development ofa new round of Garden Cities  in the UK. Land would beacquired with fair compensation for owners but otherwise atexisting use value. This will require legislation; a new GardenCity Act that creates the powers to allow towns and cities andtheir partners to acquire land and plan positively in the waythat their peers are able to do elsewhere in Europe. Rather thanplan Garden Cities from Whitehall, we propose to invite citiesto bid for Garden City status and the powers that go with it.Our discussions in cities like Oxford, where house prices arenow eleven times average incomes, suggest that GardenCity designation could be a solution to the problems of accom-modating growth that many of these cities currently face.

We based our calculations on the purchase of 6000 hectaresof land, half of which would be allocated for open space withthe balance being used to build just under 70,000 new homes,employment space for 70,000 jobs along with shops, schoolsand other facilities. Once developed the land would be worthjust over £6bn. Factoring in acquisition, financing and othercosts, the ‘unearned increment’ is just over £4bn. What can youget for that nowadays?

Well, you can build the schools and the health facilities youwill need, construct quite a lot of roads, build a tram systemand lay out all the open space. In short you can do whatFreiburg has done. But can you build a Garden City? Well thatdepends what you mean by a Garden City and particularlywhat you mean by a ‘city’. The assumption has tended to bethat Garden Cities are freestanding new towns of up to 30,000homes. This of course is not a city, indeed even EbenezerHoward recognised that to be sustainable his GardenCities needed to be part of a wider network that he called the‘Social City’. This is important because in the modern world,cities are the centre of our economy. Places that cannot offerthe attractions of city life struggle to attract graduates andemployers. To build a Garden City we therefore need to extendour shopping list; we are going to need a city centre; a properone with shops, bars, theatres and galleries. We need a mainline >>>

BELOW:

Garden Cities masterplan

41Issue 91 October-December 201440 Planning in London

URBED’s Wolfson submission iswritten by David Rudlin withNicholas Falk, Jon Rowland(JRUD) and Pete Redman(Traderisks). It also benefittedfrom contributions from JoeRavetz (Manchester University),Jeff Austin (JVM) and GerardDericks (University of Oxford).The draft also benefitted from theexpert advice of our soundingboard who are listed on the insidecover of the submission.   

railway station (and of course a mainline railway to serve it), alarge hospital, a university or two (preferably Russell Group)and a cathedral would be nice. The £4bn is not going to beenough, not by a long way. Even if it were, most of this stuffcannot be bought off-the-shelf, it needs to be cultivated for afew centuries.

We therefore concluded that rather than grow a GardenCity from a seedling that will be vulnerable for years weshould graft it onto the rootstock of an existing city. We tar-geted historic cities with populations of 1-200,000 andexplored the implications of doubling their size through aseries of urban extensions. To do this we invented the city ofUxcester (pronounced uss-ter), to avoid becoming mired inthe complexities of a particular place. Uxcester was modelledon York, leavened with a little bit of Chester and seasonedwith Gloucester and Worcester. It is a city of 200,000 peoplein 85,000 homes currently growing at one per cent a year.Our plan is to double the size of the city in 35 years by build-ing three substantial urban extensions within 10km (or a 20minute tram ride) of the centre. Uxcester may be fictional butthe pressures that it faces are very real to many UK cities ofthis size. Cambridge is already planning expansion on this

scale and as part of our submission we explored the implica-tions for Oxfordshire, where 100,000 new homes are neededto cope with demand.

Our Garden City is therefore grown from an existing cityand the new housing is built within reach of all its existingfacilities. Doubling the size of the city will take up only 15 percent of the land within this 10km ring, much of which will befarm land with little ecological value and no public access.Our Garden City needs to rediscover the spirit that builtEdinburgh New Town or Bath or, for that matter London’sBloomsbury. None of these were built on brownfield land,they were built confidently on the fields that surrounded thecity and in doing so enhanced its beauty and setting. Thesefields of course are today in the green belt and are the mostclosely guarded of all our green fields.

However if we are serious about building more homes andenabling our cities to compete with those in Northern Europe,we need to have the confidence to reallocate some of thissacred land. In doing so we should use the Garden City toexpand and enhance the city rather than building an alterna-tive to it in places that no one can object to, because no onewants to live there! n

GARDEN CITIES | DAVID RUDLIN

RIGHT:

Uxcester’s urban

structure

42 Planning in London 43Issue 91 October-December 2014

Visit the Wolfson Prize projectblog at http://goo.gl/GQz2AC formore information.

GARDEN CITIES | NICHOLAS FALK

The idea of a new crop of Garden Cities is receiving a lot ofattention nationally, thanks in part to the 2014 WolfsonEconomics Prize and the efforts of organisations like the Townand Country Planning Association and Shelter.

Ebenezer Howard’s original idea, which he started to applyin Letchworth and Welwyn Garden Cities, was to use the‘unearned increment’ from the uplift in land values as a resultof development to fund high-quality infrastructure, includingelectric tramways to connect new communities into what hecalled ‘the Social City’. In the past it was seen as a means ofenabling city dwellers to escape from cramped and pollutedconditions to places that combined the best of both the townand the country.

However in a city like Oxford, with its congested roads, ris-ing energy costs, and potential for economic growth, a ‘GardenCity for the 21st century’ offers the chance of attractinginvestment to make the city as a whole much more sustain-able, as well as widening housing choice.

Over the last year Jon Rowland and I have been supportingthe Oxford Civic Society and others in looking at the biggerpicture, and over a longer time-span, in the light of experienceelsewhere. The results were published as Oxford Futures:Achieving smarter growth in Central Oxfordshire. At the launchOxford’s new Professor of Geography and housing expertDanny Dorling warned that if Oxford does not grow it will findits position as a leading university lost to others.

Our research showed that it was practically impossible tobuild a new Garden City from scratch; it needed to be graftedon to ‘strong root stock’, because the costs of infrastructure aregreater than the value released by building the new homes.Having been shortlisted for the 2014 Wolfson Economics EssayPrize for a new Garden City in the fictitious town of Uxcester,we decided to testing out our ideas in Oxfordshire as part of

the second stage. We wanted to see if it were possible toachieve an ambitious and long-term aim of doubling the popu-lation of Central Oxfordshire without any loss to the quality oflife that residents already prize.

In particular, could Oxford grow in a similar way to its twincity of Grenoble, France’s ‘high tech capital’, or to Freiburg inGermany, near Basel, whose Director of Development spoke atone of our events in Oxford Town Hall?

Land for development within the City boundaries isinevitably very limited. But on the borders in places likeKidlington, there are opportunities to ‘piggyback’ on the invest-ment going into the new Oxford Parkway station at WaterEaton, and the new road links that the government is funding.Of course it is vital to avoid flood plains or pressures on over-loaded junctions.

Pete Redman who advised us on finance demonstrated thatthere would be enough funding available to fund a new tramsystem and to create a series of country parks so that peoplecould cycle or use public transport as they do in comparablecities on the Continent. This would take up a relatively smallpart of the green belt, and could be part of a ‘deal’ that pre-served the many villages that are now under pressure fromdevelopers within Oxfordshire.

So what are the obstacles? There will always be resistanceto development and fear of a leap into unknown territory. Overthe last few decades confidence in planning and developmenthas declined to an all-time low. However a 21st CenturyGarden City for Oxford could offer a range of benefits to theexisting community, as a meeting that we organised as part ofour Wolfson work at Cutteslowe Community Centre demon-strated.

The key is ensuring that there is an organisation in place toprovide the necessary leadership and to ensure that the prom-ised benefits are delivered, through a Garden City LandCompany which serves a Trust that brings the stakeholderstogether. With the promise of planning permission, a Bondwould be issued to raise private finance to open up sites to awide range of house builders, including many who want tocommission their own homes but cannot find a plot. TheLeader of the County Council has already gone on record say-ing that doing nothing is not an option, that 100,000 newhomes need to be built somewhere, and that a Continentalstyle transport system is needed to stop Oxford grinding to ahalt.

The Uxcester proposals are a modest first step in showinghow the ambition could be realised; perhaps the Wolfson Prizeprovides some neutral ground for people with very differentconcerns to come together to see that Oxford remains in theforefront of European cities, and not a museum piece for theChinese to look at on their way to shop at Bicester Village!n

A 21st Century garden city for Oxford?

An essay byNicholas Falk

The arguments prompted by our winningsubmission for the Wolfson 2014 Economics Prizerevealed the arid state of thinking over the futureof our town and country. On the one handdefenders of the Green Belt forget the pressureson thousands of villages in counties likeOxfordshire or Gloucestershire, where almostevery field is optioned for development.

On the other hand, proponents of an urbanrenaissance, like Richard Rogers, disregard theinconvenient truth that not every family wants tolive in an apartment block and that cities likeOxford or York have very little brownfield land leftto build on.

URBED’s proposal for Uxcester Garden Cityargue that you cannot build a real city from

scratch; you need to graft an urban extension ontostrong rootstock.

The economics of development make itunviable to build the infrastructure that wedemand in new locations, so we should startwhere there is already adequate infrastructure, orwhere new capacity is planned.

By taking a carefully considered ‘bite’ out of theGreenbelt, and not nibbling at the edges, we coulduse the ‘housing crisis’ to build  sustainable urbanneighbourhoods. We could use what EbenezerHoward called the ‘unearned increment’ to fundthe local infrastructure – transport, energy andeducation – that we so badly need before the newhomes are built.

In a recent event in Oxford Danny Dorling, the

new Professor of Geography, argued that while ingeneral we could only solve the housing crisis bymaking better use of the existing housing stock, inboth London and Oxford we urgently need morehomes to be built.

So instead of wasting time and resources onimpossible quests, like making people want to livein the Thames Estuary when their jobs areelsewhere, why not spend a little time thinkingabout how and where we should be living in, say2050?

Then we would see that the best way ofconserving the character of our Englishcountryside is helped by building a new cropof 21st century garden cities, and not housingestates everywhere. n

Green belt or grey corset Nicholas Falk responds to criticism of the Prize announcement