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New Towns
New towns were set-up due to the Town & Country Planning Act, 1947.
Features:
 Settlement supposed to be self-sufficient socially & economically.
 Generally have compact forms with post-industrial structures.
 Provide jobs & services in an attractive environment.
Reasons:
 Government wants to keep an area of greenbelt for farming/ recreation.
 Built as over-spill towns to accommodate new arrivals to cities & prevent urban sprawl. Also used
to accommodate people during the slum clearances of the 1960s.
 Designed to control urban growth & limit damage to rural areas.
 Take over-spills from existing cities.
 Attract new industry to areas of high unemployment.
 Create a better Quality of life.
There are 29 New Towns in the UK:
 Welwyn Garden City – An old New Town near London
 Milton Keynes.
Skelmersdale, Lancashire
Planned in the 1960s as an over-spill town for 42000 people from Merseyside. It contains “villages” or
neighbourhood units that are self-contained and linked to others by elaborate footpaths and roads. Land
use is carefully planned to segregate industry & houses. There is also lots of parkland & greenbelt for a
better environment. The planners tried to give the town a community spirit by recreating northern road
patterns.
Problems:
 The footpaths are too long so people take shortcuts.
 The roads mean that people walk past windows as it is badly designed.
 There are lots of small alleyways so vandalism is out of control.
 Houses are poorly built with damp and leaking roofs.
 Many factories and shops have closed causing the loss of many jobs – no longer self-contained.
 People are isolated so shop prices are high.