Gerrards Cross to be new garden city?
The national press has been reporting for some that the government
has supressed a report calling for two new garden cities. One would be in Oxfordshire,
another in Bucks. Today the Daily
Mail reports Eric Pickles is backing the scheme. The newspaper names the
locations as Yalding, Kent and Gerrards Cross in Bucks.
Bucks County Council pledged to fight any plans for a garden city at Gerrards Cross, saying it will contravene green belt policy.
Bucks County Council pledged to fight any plans for a garden city at Gerrards Cross, saying it will contravene green belt policy.
Meanwhile, in
the Telegraph, Boris Johnson says there is enough brownfield land in London
to solve the housing crisis.
This suggestion on the face of it sounds quite alarming but without knowing the background it is difficult to comment. Although this country will need thousands more homes to satisfy demand, the suggestion of building two garden cities is likely to require a great deal of debate to persuade the country that this makes sense.
ReplyDeleteFor example, the necessary infrastructure needed to support the likely size of population these cities will need to support needs to be in place before any homes are built. This of course has always been the weak link in the system.Particularly with our economy still fairly fragile and only gradually getting back to period prior to the global bank crisis, it will take some time and a great deal of effort to persuade the powers that be that building infrastructure should be the first priority. Sadly from past history, these priorities have often been reversed such that new schools, roads and hospitals come well down the pecking order once the houses have been built.
Still, let the debate begin ! This country needs to find an effective solution to the continual increase in housing requirements.
Surely garden cities should be built in areas which have good access to airports,railway stations and motorways. and where local planning authorities have identified the need for large numbers of houses.
ReplyDeleteAny Garden City in the Gerrards X area will simply result in an extension of 'Suburban' London. It will destroy the western section of the important "Green Belt" circle around the capital, which has already been breached in certain areas, and is continually under attack from development. Unless there is control on the population explosion, the need for more and more housing will never be satisfied!!
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that the original concept of garden cities was to create an environment where people could live in a small self-sufficient city with easy access to the countryside. A great deal of thought and effort went into the planning of the original garden cities and my concern is that the same care and attention would not be allocated to any potential new ones. These new ones could just become large suburbs where people would have to commute to work rather than working locally.
ReplyDelete