Even if delivered at pace, it is unclear whether these New Towns alone can make a sufficient contribution to the 1.5 million homes target, suggesting the Government will need to do more to tackle viability challenges and bring forward a wider pipeline of deliverable sites.
Key challenge will be delivering New Towns at pace
According to Sarah, housing delivery at this scale cannot be achieved through policy and funding alone.
“It requires genuine, sustained collaboration between the public and private sectors – not only to navigate planning complexity, but to proactively resolve the structural barriers that have historically constrained large-scale development,” she explains.
Infrastructure remains the most significant of these barriers. Transport, utilities and social infrastructure must be planned and delivered in parallel, not retrospectively, if sites are to come forward at pace.
This demands a solution-led, partnership-driven approach, bringing together landowners, developers, local authorities and investors with aligned objectives and a shared appetite for risk.
Sarah added: “There is also a broader opportunity here. New Towns should not simply be a vehicle for meeting housing targets, they should set a new benchmark for placemaking. Well-connected, sustainable communities that support economic growth and reflect how people live and work today.
“At Vail Williams, we see first-hand the role that clear strategy and early-stage planning and residential development viability advice plays in bridging the gap between housing ambition and delivery.
“The Government’s commitment to “use every lever” is encouraging, but success will depend on how effectively those levers are coordinated and deployed if we are to see New Towns contribute meaningfully towards housing delivery before the end of 2029,” concluded Sarah.
