Pennycook insists govt has learned its new towns lesson
The latest round of new towns will be made with the ambition of their post-war predecessors, but with better thinking around sustainable transport and stewardship, according to housing minister Matthew Pennycook.
“This program is imbued with the vision, the ambition of the post war generation of new towns, but we have learned the lessons,” he said, emphasising that making sustainable, liveable communities with long-term care plans for green spaces would be baked into the new towns.
Pennycook was speaking on a panel at a Centre for Cities fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Monday. Also on the panel were Chris Curtis MP, who grew up in the new town of Milton Keynes, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, and Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook on new towns: “I think there’s a general sense in the country that everything’s broken and that we can’t do big things. These are going to be really big things. They’re going to last for decades, for generations.”
— Julia Hatmaker (@juliahatmaker.bsky.social) 30 September 2025 at 22:11
The brief
Pennycook spoke about the genesis of the decision to revive the new towns idea.
“It was very, very clear in opposition that we cannot meet housing need across the country if we are just planning for housing need on a local level,” Pennycook said. Cue new towns, which promises housing delivery at such a large scale (10,000+ homes) that it creates a whole new community – either as a standalone town or as an urban extension.
The government’s initial shortlist of 12, created by the independent New Towns Taskforce, includes three in the North: Leeds South Bank, Victoria North in Manchester, and Adlington in Cheshire East.
New towns will be “transformative”, he said, adding that of those 10,000+ homes to be built in each new town, 40% will be affordable. Of those 40%, half will be designated as social rent.
“I think there’s a general sense in the country that everything’s broken and that we can’t do big things,” Pennycook said. “These are going to be really big things. They’re going to last for decades, for generations. They’re going to be home to millions of people over the course of their lifetime.”
It is therefore crucial that these new towns are done right, the panel agreed.
Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram on North Liverpool: disappointed it didn’t make the new towns cut, but will still go through with new town principles
— Julia Hatmaker (@juliahatmaker.bsky.social) 30 September 2025 at 21:33
Lessons learned
Even without a new town in his patch, Rotheram insisted he would be plugging away with the city region’s ambition for North Liverpool – albeit on a 3,000-home scale rather than the hoped for 10,000+ one.
North Liverpool will be built to the same principles of the new towns though, with a considered approach that factors in the wider area rather than just the development itself.
“The stuff that we are doing to connect those communities is really important as well,” Rotheram said. “That’s the power of the planning process that you don’t just build something and leave these communities to fester.”
That’s not what happened in the unofficial new town of Kirkby that Rotheram grew up in.
“In the 50s and 60s, and they just built estates, huge estates, with nothing,” Rotheram said. “Well, we had a pub and a chippy. That’s how the plans went ahead in them days.
“That’s not what we’re doing now. It’s a holistic approach to consider all of those determinants that will attract people, to come to live, to set up businesses, to build families, and that’s how we’ll approach development.”
Continuing on the lessons learned theme, Curtis agreed that transport was one thing that Milton Keynes had gotten wrong. But there was one element of that new town he wanted to see exported to the others.
Curtis declared Milton Keynes’s The Parks Trust model as “perfect”. The trust was formed with a large endowment from the city and subsequently gets topped up with developer contributions. It uses the money to care for the green spaces in the city.
“It’s the best thing about the city,” Curtis said. “We should roll out exactly that model across the country.”
The new towns discussion featured, from left to right, Centre for Cities’ Andrew Carter, housing minister Matthew Pennycook, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, Chris Curtis MP, and Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram. Credit: Place North
Economic impacts
New towns will do more than just ensure an increase in the national housing stock – they are meant to rev up the skills conversation.
“I think we should see the new towns programme as almost an industrial strategy,” said Curtis. “It’s a way of kicking off Britain’s MMC industry in a way that it has struggled with before.”
Pennycook agreed, adding that he had toured an MMC factory that week in Knowsley.
“What the new towns give us is certainty of pipeline of a very large scale over a long period of time that can allow you to really integrate skills and setup up and practice more innovative methods of housebuilding,” Pennycook said.
What’s next?
The 12 proposed new towns are undergoing a strategic environment assessment, which will inform the government’s decision as to what communities will officially earn that new town designation and when they will be rolled out. Pennycook stated that he hoped to have that final list early next year.
