Sites for Labour's New Towns that already have rail connections

[Bletchleyite]

Theirs also the delivery bays , usually at the rear.

That can be worked around in lots of different ways.

Additionally you'll need fire escape routes that don't evacuate children into public areas.

No, you won't. Evacuations are supervised by staff.

If you really want to plop a compact urban school in Bedfordshire it would just be easier to build a 5 story school and a supermarket + flats next door, rather than awkwardly trying to merge the two.

This misses the point. We're talking about ways to maximise land use.

 

[HSTEd]

It would make it hard to have any outside facilities without making access for the supermarket akward, either for the customers or for deliveries. Their is inner London schools with everything in one building and a playground on the roof but that's going to be a hard sell anywhere else in the country

If we just take a modern supermarket like the Tesco extra at Hattersley (just off the M67 east of Manchester) it and its largely multi-story car park has a land area of close to 2 hectares.
That's enough to put a fair sized school and grass playing field on the roof!

Although personally I would prefer to just do something resembling this thing in Jakarta, albeit at lower height!.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If we just take a modern supermarket like the Tesco extra at Hattersley (just off the M67 east of Manchester) it and its largely multi-story car park has a land area of close to 2 hectares.
That's enough to put a fair sized school and grass playing field on the roof!

Although personally I would prefer to just do something resembling this thing in Jakarta, albeit at lower height!.

That's remarkably similar to the not-very-well-known Council housing estate that used to be on top of the Manchester Arndale (though it was removed post-bomb due to damage caused and security concerns).

 

[renegademaster]

If we just take a modern supermarket like the Tesco extra at Hattersley (just off the M67 east of Manchester) it and its largely multi-story car park has a land area of close to 2 hectares.
That's enough to put a fair sized school and grass playing field on the roof!

Although personally I would prefer to just do something resembling this thing in Jakarta, albeit at lower height!.

Or just put the carpark underneath the supermarket like already have in numerous places, and use the space you have freed to have a self contained plot for the school.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or just put the carpark underneath the supermarket like already have in numerous places, and use the space you have freed to have a self contained plot for the school.

Or do both and you've saved even more land.

 

[renegademaster]

Or do both and you've saved even more land.

Or just build a entire new town that is a skyscraper in a field in Kent and you would save even more land. Just as likely to get planning permission as a 10 story school/supermarket/car park combination

 

[Meerkat]

I'm extremely skeptical of this.
The number of people with children who are close to wanting to move out but at the same time have not already long moved to a major city or other urban area will be quite small.
The population of NIMBYs, however, is directly related to the number of owner-occupiers.

I am skeptical that the former will ever outnumber the latter in any significant settlement - which is how we got here in the first place.

There are a vast number of kids living at home well into their 20’s because they can’t afford to move out, and some of those who moved out their home settlement will have done it because they couldn’t afford to live there. Plus add in all the renters who want to buy.
You give locals control they build units. They don’t want developers building what is most advantageous to the developers, and building in lumps, rather than scattered around.

I disagree. The future of the high street to me is of a mixed-tenure area (residential and business) prioritising small, boutique type business, hospitality and generally making it a nice place to live and spend time.

That isnt either/or with concentrating the high street in a smaller area.

Unless people in the Tesco are going to try and dig through the concrete slab that would be above the ceiling of the supermarket, they may as well be two separate buildings.

I was thinking of the school Buildings being above the car park, and the playground above the store.
And more for the medium sized supermarkets that are in town rather than the huge ones in the retail parks.

 

[HSTEd]

You give locals control they build units. They don’t want developers building what is most advantageous to the developers, and building in lumps, rather than scattered around.

Locals already have control of planning through local government, indeed that is how we got here.

 

[Meerkat]

Locals already have control of planning through local government, indeed that is how we got here.

Not really.
A minority of locals vote for local councillors based on all sorts of things they do, and in fact usually more in line with national political issues.
I’m thinking more on the lines of Neighbourhood plans, based on local consultations at a more granular level than councils (which can be very remote in unitary areas).
I bet you could free up more ‘grey’ green belt if locals were asked, rather than the man from the ministry dictating or councillors listening to the noisy minority who influence councillor votes more.

 

[Magdalia]

Why would forcing retail into small zones help revive it when the main reasons it is dieing is that Amazon and food delivery offers zero travel times?

A smaller area with most shops occupied is better than a larger area with lots of empty premises. It also keeps shops within walking distance of each other.

I disagree. The future of the high street to me is of a mixed-tenure area (residential and business) prioritising small, boutique type business, hospitality and generally making it a nice place to live and spend time. This more reflects the much more successful town centres of places in mainland Europe where les hypermarches and the likes took most of the big business a long time before the same thing happened in the UK.

If we see kids playing daily in our town centres (rather than scallies trying to scare people out of them) we've succeeded. It's the norm in most of Europe.

Interesting perspective, I don't have much experience of small towns outside the UK, I was thinking more of the small towns that encircle Cambridge.

isn't that almost like how Cambridge (which feels thriving) is? Though the residents are mostly students, there's also the residential by the station, which if I had the money I'd love to live in?

The area around Cambridge station has become an important business hub in its own right since it was redeveloped, and that's why it is thriving.

The residential accommodation around the station is predominantly apartments/flats not houses.

A significant part of that is for students, notably the two blocks either side of where the buses stop.

 

[renegademaster]

smaller area with most shops occupied is better than a larger area with lots of empty premises. It also keeps shops within walking distance of each other

Theirs decreasing demand for that kind of shopping when you have got infinite selection on Amazon or Tesco Extra , banning neighbourhood shops isn't going to fix that

 

[Bletchleyite]

Theirs decreasing demand for that kind of shopping when you have got infinite selection on Amazon or Tesco Extra , banning neighbourhood shops isn't going to fix that

There is demand for a nice small-business boutique type shopping experience. Quite a lot of people enjoy to shop in that sort of context - it's more of a leisure activity in itself than an efficient means of acquiring stuff. Plus people like to shop for clothing and shoes in person so they can try it on (which for many is again part of what is more a leisure experience than simple procurement).

Think one step up from an indoor market, and add cafes, bars and the likes to provide somewhere for a rest and add a night-time economy.

 

[renegademaster]

There is demand for a nice small-business boutique type shopping experience. Quite a lot of people enjoy to shop in that sort of context - it's more of a leisure activity in itself than an efficient means of acquiring stuff. Plus people like to shop for clothing and shoes in person so they can try it on (which for many is again part of what is more a leisure experience than simple procurement).

Think one step up from an indoor market, and add cafes, bars and the likes to provide somewhere for a rest and add a night-time economy.

How much room is their actually left for that market ? It's only really an affordable lifestyle to the upper middle class, not everywhere is going to be Notting Hill.

 

[Magdalia]

There is demand for a nice small-business boutique type shopping experience. Quite a lot of people enjoy to shop in that sort of context - it's more of a leisure activity in itself than an efficient means of acquiring stuff. Plus people like to shop for clothing and shoes in person so they can try it on (which for many is again part of what is more a leisure experience than simple procurement).

Think one step up from an indoor market, and add cafes, bars and the likes to provide somewhere for a rest and add a night-time economy.

Some places do this very well. Near here Saffron Walden is a good example. Having a good outdoor market is part of the experience.

 

[Gareth]

Mixed communities are best. Zoning has its place but it can be enforced way too strictly.

City centres should, for the most part, have a mix of office, retail and residential. Too much of just one thing can mean the area in question is dead at certain times of day. Take Church Street in Liverpool: a wide pedestrianised street that is almost entirely shops. It's busy in the day but very quiet in the evening when all the shops are shut. Liverpool 1 is not too bad because it has an upper terrace with restaurants on it which remains lively until late, but the lower floor is dead at that time.

It's the same out in the districts and suburbs but in a socio-economic sense. British people tend to think it's fitting that we have posh areas and poor areas. I'm originally from the West Derby area of Liverpool and I remember someone I was with commenting how weird West Derby was because it's quite a nice area but has things like this block of council flats that we were driving past at the time. West Derby is a great area precisely because it's fairly mixed. Areas that are just made for those of a lower socio-economic status tend to be scruffy holes, awash with litter, dogs barking well into the night, that sort of thing. Posh areas tend to be immaculate but not very lively. I think it's more beneficial to grow up in a mixed area, go to school and play out with people of different backgrounds.

 

[HSTEd]

There is demand for a nice small-business boutique type shopping experience. Quite a lot of people enjoy to shop in that sort of context - it's more of a leisure activity in itself than an efficient means of acquiring stuff. Plus people like to shop for clothing and shoes in person so they can try it on (which for many is again part of what is more a leisure experience than simple procurement).

Think one step up from an indoor market, and add cafes, bars and the likes to provide somewhere for a rest and add a night-time economy.

There is some demand for this, but I'm very skeptical it can consume more than a small fraction of the shopping space we currently have lying around in the UK.

The staff costs from these sorts of places will render them into a very niche part of the retail system, in my view.
It will only be sustainable in settlements with enough people, and small towns seem unlikely to have enough.

Sure it can save some high streets, but will it be more than a few percent of them?
Even in major cities the nighttime economy and shopping experience places are far from what they used to be before coronavirus.

 

[Gareth]

Even in major cities the nighttime economy and shopping experience places are far from what they used to be before coronavirus.

That's largely because of the measures that were put in place at the time and the wrecking of the economy that resulted. Lots of small businesses, particularly pubs and small breweries, simply went out of business. The exponential rise of working from home hasn't helped either.

 

[HSTEd]

That's largely because of the measures that were put in place at the time and the wrecking of the economy that resulted. Lots of small businesses, particularly pubs and small breweries, simply went out of business. The exponential rise of working from home hasn't helped either.

This is true, but it did primarily accelerate trends that already existed.

I don't think we can expect a return to the previous norms on working from home or socialisation.
We have to live in the new world that was created.

 

[Topological]

Or just build a entire new town that is a skyscraper in a field in Kent and you would save even more land. Just as likely to get planning permission as a 10 story school/supermarket/car park combination

To be fair, I suspect Tesco might go for that.

Change the planning laws to allow it and loads of homes created within reach of London.

The problem with most UK developments is that they do not consider multiple uses of the same land, we have a lot of areas where everything just sprawls out for no obvious reason.

On a fully blank canvas the supermarket tower can be next to the station, with more residential towers around it. Compact and delivers many houses without destroying the green belt.

 

[HSTEd]

On a somewhat related note, what features could be fitted to new towns and new housing stock to ease aid e-commerce in efficiently distributing goods?

That could have major impacts on the design of towns, from climate controlled drop boxes attached to housing units to more esoteric solutions.

EDIT:
Edited because it was probably a little off topic, so rephrased.

 

[The Ham]

12,000 may struggle to maintain a wide range of amenities.
It will be on the lower end of settlements that can sustain a full service leisure centre (in 2019 there were only ~3170 swimming pool equipped sites in the UK, with just over 4000 total pools).
It probably won't have a truly "active" high street and will not have a wide range of entertainment and food establishments.

In comparison there's about 1,250 towns and cities in the UK (population of 5,000 or more or a city):

Understanding towns in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

The first in a series of articles that provide new data and analysis on towns in England and Wales, to help inform policy.

www.ons.gov.uk

City status in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Also, assuming 4 form entry for the schools would mean that if half the kids in primary education had swimming lessons of half an hour a time the pool would be busy for 2 hours every evening and 4 hours at the weekends.

That's before any swim club or lifesaving club or any teen/toddler groups.

It also doesn't account for any nearby (existing) population which could also add to that.

 

[renegademaster]

Their isn't really much a reason to be building many new schools outside a few areas. Outside a very few areas the school age population is shrinking . The DfE however for quite a while now has been pushing schools to consolidate and have been shutting down quite a few schools. Consolidating schools does have its advantages but they are stuck in the same buildings they where 20 years ago when their where many more schools to share the load. Teachers also are a big bottleneck.

 

[Nottingham59]

On a somewhat related note, what features could be fitted to new towns and new housing stock to ease aid e-commerce in efficiently distributing goods?

That could have major impacts on the design of towns, from climate controlled drop boxes attached to housing units to more esoteric solutions.
.

I can see scope to include a network of, let's call them "trundleways", to allow delivery robots to trundle about the town delivering goods without getting in the way of cars, cyclists or pedestrians. I'm thinking things like culverts under main roads, or tight spiral ramps up to lightweight bridges across train lines etc. Or covered channels along busy pavements, where you look down through the grating and see trundlebots below you, going about their business.

 

[JonathanH]

I can see scope to include a network of, let's call them "trundleways", to allow delivery robots to trundle about the town delivering goods without getting in the way of cars, cyclists or pedestrians. I'm thinking things like culverts under main roads, or tight spiral ramps up to lightweight bridges across train lines etc. Or covered channels along busy pavements, where you look down through the grating and see trundlebots below you, going about their business.

How about one of those pressurised delivery systems they used to have in shops many years ago to get the receipts back to the cash office, but on a much bigger scale?

Unfortunately, I think we will have to rely on the locker system that seems to be the current answer.

 

[Nottingham59]

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian has an article about new towns and building next to East Midlands Parkway

A whole new community on the site of a defunct power station near Erewash? Yes, please | Polly Toynbee

Labour can unlock £70bn from the planning system and build new homes, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

www.theguardian.com

we look at Ratcliffe-on-Soar’s defunct coal-fired power station, with its eightgigantic cooling towers. “Ideal!” he says, for a Labour new town, on a main road, beside a mainline station and near East Midlands airport. Technically green belt, it’s as “grey” as it gets.

 

[Falcon1200]

Or just build a entire new town that is a skyscraper

As per the 1981 Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle novel 'Oath of Fealty' - Has anyone else read it? This is about a complete city contained in one huge building, in LA, which caused issues between the 'ins' and the 'outs'.....

 

[Snow1964]

There have been some local rumours that Hullavington (Wiltshire) is being looked at. There is a massive (disused) airfield which still has military barracks to the south (nowadays used by army). The airfield was bought by Dyson few years back and couple of modern buildings were added on south west of site. This was for his now abandoned electric car project. The junction with A429 road was also improved in anticipation.

What seems to have fuelled rumours is Dyson recently laying off 1000+ at Malmesbury so probably no longer needs the outpost at Hullavington. Mr Dyson also owns big estate near Doddington (just south of Chipping Sodbury), but that is within Cotswold AONB

Hullavington station was closed and dismantled years ago (along with all other local stations between Swindon and Bristol Parkway), and although no local trains pass through, does have an electrified line.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can see scope to include a network of, let's call them "trundleways", to allow delivery robots to trundle about the town delivering goods without getting in the way of cars, cyclists or pedestrians. I'm thinking things like culverts under main roads, or tight spiral ramps up to lightweight bridges across train lines etc. Or covered channels along busy pavements, where you look down through the grating and see trundlebots below you, going about their business.

You don't need dedicated infrastructure for delivery bots to work, they work just fine on MK's Redways.

 

[Nottingham59]

You don't need dedicated infrastructure for delivery bots to work, they work just fine on MK's Redways.

Sure. But we're talking about new towns with many times the population density of MK, and much less car ownership, so presumably many more deliveries to the home. How full would the Redways be if everyone used delivery bots for their shopping?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sure. But we're talking about new towns with many times the population density of MK, and much less car ownership, so presumably many more deliveries to the home. How full would the Redways be if everyone used delivery bots for their shopping?

Probably not as full as you think they would be, given that people would be having maybe one delivery a day at most.