The case for delivering genuinely sustainable new towns in Britain

Almost 800 years ago, King Edward I of England ordered a new town to be built to replace the port town of Winchelsea on the East Sussex coast that had been wiped away by a devastating storm. The monarch was motivated not just by care for his citizens but because of its strategic importance.

He took a top-down decision in 1288 to build a new town to replace the old and took a role in planning its design, whose grid-like format imitated existing models in neighbouring France. It fits what scholars now see as the generally accepted definition of a new town as a settlement built from scratch in an undeveloped area that is created by a government. Edward I followed up in 1296, with an edict for 24 new towns to be built.

Source: Archaeology Data Services

New Winchelsea, as it began life, was not the first in England (the Romans had gotten there first) nor in Europe and certainly not globally. The concept of creating a new town has been recorded in historical literature for centuries. Examples include new cities in ancient Phoenicia where they were called Kart-hadasht or “new city”. The names of both Carthage, in modern day Tunisia and Cartagena, in southern Spain, are a transliteration of the Phoenician word.

Now, some 737 years after Edward I set out his plans in Sussex, Charles III’s Labour Government is about to embark on a new town building programme as part of its mission to see 1.5 million homes built this parliament. Its New Towns Taskforce is expected to come back with a full report in July.

It issued an interim report in February 2025 following a nationwide evidence-gathering initiative, which was launched to help identify suitable locations, requesting submissions for areas capable of accommodating at least 10,000 homes.

This led to over 100 responses with the majority of suggestions coming from London, the south east, south west, and east of England, although each English region provided multiple proposals. Most of the suggested sites were extensions to existing urban areas such as towns or cities, while a smaller proportion consisted of proposals for entirely new, independent settlements.

This is not the first time Britain has been down this road. The determination of Ebenezer Howard to deliver a new type of city to avoid the social and health failures of the Industrial Revolution in major cities of London and Manchester led to the design and building of two garden cities — Letchworth and Welwyn in the first decade of the 20th century. Some 40 years later the post-war Labour government started the New Town programme that led to the creation of 32 towns housing 2.8 million people.

Their ultimate success will undoubtedly depend on the clarity of the vision that the taskforce will set out (although, of course, their development will be impacted by Harold Macmillan’s “events, dear boy”). The good news is that some concepts have been clearly laid out. Unsurprisingly, accelerating the delivery of new homes and especially affordable ones is near the top of the list. They must also unlock economic growth (in line with another key government pledge) by focusing on areas where job creation is held back by high housing costs.

The most encouraging element of the plan is the decision to learn from the successes and setbacks in those previous new town developments including the post-1945 new towns and also the more recent Eco-towns and Garden Communities. It sets out 120 principles that will be crucial to ensure that these urban developments are sustainable over the long term. This includes targeting environmental sustainability and ensuring there is the social infrastructure that was often missed out in some post-war development.

But it also includes perhaps less obvious, but even more important, ingredients for sustainability. One is ensuring that funding will be long term to deliver housing that can built but also maintained. There must also be a sustainable model of stewardship established at the outset, including well-defined leadership frameworks to ensure ongoing infrastructure maintenance. This sits alongside a need to set up robust ways for involving local residents in the shared vision and goals.

There is a clear need for new, well-planned towns with a large amount of high-density affordable homes to meet the demands of a growing population. The garden cities responded to the appalling conditions of industrial cities 125 years ago and the post-war New Town programme was a bipartisan response to the bomb-destruction of large areas of urban Britain.

Today’s crisis does not arise from a one-off shock event, but is the result of a failure to build enough homes to meet the demands of a growing population, spiralling costs of renting and buying the homes that are available, which has led to inequal outcomes for different groups of people, classes, regions and generations.

As the New Towns Taskforce has said, this interlocking crisis restricts workforce movement, damages health outcomes, interrupts learning, and postpones household creation, each bringing economic repercussions. New towns can help solve these issues by releasing economic opportunities in congested regions while advancing environmental responsibility through creative planning and speeding up good-quality construction of homes that will be valued for future generations.

City sustainability ranking must be treated with caution, but act as a fillip for reform

Spring means many things for urban geographers, but one is a slew of rankings of the world’s cities, whether for growth, liveability, smartness or even sustainability. As urban environments continuously evolve, it is of course essential to regularly examine whether and how they work, focusing on the effectiveness of public services and how local insights can address emerging urban challenges.

Photo by Pawel Nolbert on Unsplash

City performance evaluations have become a global trend, with both public and private organizations developing comprehensive ranking systems. These measurement tools claim to provide guidance for local policymaking, with a particular focus on sustainability initiatives. The rankings reflect an underlying competitive dynamic where cities strive to demonstrate their economic potential and attractiveness.

Each index is supported and funded by an organisation that will have its own agenda and priorities and therefore must be viewed through that lens. The Happy City Index from the Institute of Quality of Life, a new think tank devoted to understanding and enhancing the quality of life in urban areas. It takes its inspiration from Plato’s comment in The Republic that “this City is what it is because our citizens are what they are”. It places Copenhagen first, followed by Zurich and Singapore.

The World’s Best Cities by Ipsos and a consultancy called Resonance, has ranked cities according to which is, err, the best. Using a combination of core statistics and user-generated data from online sources such as Google, Tripadvisor and Instagram to measure liveability, lovability, and prosperity, it puts London first, followed by New York and Paris.

Then there is IESE Business School's 2025 Cities in Motion Index which assesses urban centres globally, examining their sustainability and citizen well-being across nine critical dimensions. For the third consecutive year, London has been crowned the world's most intelligent city, with New York and Paris secured the second and third places, respectively

But as this blog looks at sustainability, what might world cities look like when ranked on that measure? The proliferation of urban ranking systems has been significant in recent years. One of the best known as The Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index that has been running for a decade. Developed in collaboration with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), it uses the widely accepted three core pillars of sustainability of the environment, society and economy that it calls Planet, People and Profit.

The assessment for this year is not out yet but 2024’s gives the top five places to western Europe. Amsterdam tops the table, followed by Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Munich. The next one is expected in June.

One academic research team examined 21 different urban sustainability rankings, focusing on their methodological approaches and underlying mechanisms. The study revealed several critical limitations in these evaluation tools. Specifically, the rankings often oversimplified complex urban dynamics, lacked transparency in their data collection and scoring processes, and demonstrated inherent biases.

As the authors state, city rankings, benchmarks and indexes have become a central instrument for assessing and monitoring cities, with the implication that planners, investors and potential residents will take decisions based on the rank placings. The primary issue is that public presentations of results tend to emphasize the final numerical score while largely overlooking the critical methodological foundations. In other words, there is not enough focus on the methodology — or the black box as they call it — that is used to produce the rankings.

They find that the publicly available information is insufficiently detailed to enable a comprehensive assessment of the scientific integrity of these measurement and monitoring tools. Moreover, the complex analytical mechanisms make it extremely challenging — if not entirely impossible— to critically examine how a city's specific score is actually derived.

These methodological shortcomings have notable consequences. The rankings tend to marginalise poorly performing cities and inadvertently reinforce existing urban stereotypes. The findings highlight the need for more nuanced and comprehensive approaches to understanding urban performance and sustainability.

However, ranking can play a role if they act as an incentive for city leaders to raise their game and take steps that will raise their ranking by improving conditions for residents on the ground. Of course, the “black box” concerns apply here, but if the reforms are focused then an uplift in the ranking can be a sign for business, investors and potential residents to come to that city in pursuit of greater sustainability.

Photo by Kelly Kiernan on Unsplash

Sitting uncomfortably: public health goes down the drain as toilet access dries up

When people think about what is needed to make a city sustainable, a public toilet will probably be low on that list — if it’s there at all. But this most convenient of conveniences is vanishing from cities like London, making us all — but certain groups particularly — much worse off.

Some time back, my late mother was visiting London and needed, as she would say, to spend a penny. She went into an Italian café, ordered a coffee, paid the money and asked if they had a toilet. Returning to the counter, the owner asked what coffee she wanted. “No, don’t worry about that. I just needed to use your lavatory. Please give a coffee to the next customer.”

The owner might have been happy to let her use the facilities without buying a coffee but many cafes either have signs reading “For paying customers only” or a lock on the door, for which the combination is available only on a till receipt for a drink.

My mum, with her old school values, was disappointed by the lack of public toilets but also aware of what bargain she needed to strike. But for many people and especially lower income mothers in cities with overpriced coffee, that is not an option.

Public toilets are essential for everyone, regardless of age, class, ethnicity, gender or physical and mental abilities. They are particularly crucial for the elderly, people with disabilities, menstruating and pregnant women, families with young children and visitors. Although the Public Health Act 1936 allows local governments to provide public toilets, it does not require them to do so. This lack of obligation, combined with concerns about potential problems these facilities might cause, has likely contributed to fewer public toilets being available in recent years.

Public toilet availability in London has significantly decreased over the past decade, according to recent findings from Age UK London. The data show that between the 2013/14 financial year and now, public toilet closures have outpaced openings by a ratio of 3:1. In concrete numbers, 97 public toilets have been permanently shut down during this period, while only 32 new facilities have been established. In February, the British Toilet Association initiated a campaign advocating for legislation to require local councils to increase the number of public facilities available.

My own borough, Camden in northwest London, may have as few as three public toilets still open (of which one is closed for an upgrade). Of the others, one became a cocktail bar (now shut), another a coffee bar, a third is a music studio and a fourth is, pardon the pun, “to let”. The gap is filled to some extent by what academics have called “away from home toilets” — for example in restaurants, shopping malls and department stores.

To let, London NW1

Music studio, London NW5

Shopping centres have certainly supplemented provision, but they are few and far between, while department stores tend to be in traditional town and city centres such as Oxford Street and Croydon. This leaves the unspoken deal whereby staff and managers at big pubs and large counter-service hamburger joints turn a blind eye to people coming in just to use the facilities. Some railway stations woefully installed turnstiles that required payment although some — such as Victoria — have now correctly reverted to free provision.

The reason to reverse this trend is that inadequate public toilet facilities interfere with effective health initiatives, economic growth, social integration and environmental conservation efforts. For governments aiming to develop sustainable urban centres and encourage use of public transport, bicycles, and pedestrian travel, sufficient public restrooms are crucial as they represent a critical but often overlooked component. Limited toilet availability restricts people's freedom of movement and ability to navigate cities effectively.

Of course, what I am writing about could be seen as a “first world problem”. While the United Kingdom faces serious deficiencies in public toilet provision, global conditions are substantially worse: of the world's 7 billion inhabitants, over 2 billion lack access to basic necessities including water, sanitation, electricity and toilets. Mobile phones now outnumber toilets worldwide. In our increasingly urbanised world where half of people live in cities, one-third reside in informal settlements.

Both situations are imperfect, and the gravity of the global situation should not be an obstacle to rich countries pulling their belt up a bit. The outstanding example is Tokyo. A groundbreaking initiative in Japan is highlighting this typically overlooked infrastructure to showcase the significance of toilet design globally.

THE TOKYO TOILET Project engaged renowned architects and artists to transform public restrooms across the city into spaces fostering creativity, community, and inclusion. The initiative has already developed 17 new facilities designed by 16 different creators throughout the Shibuya area, each featuring unique designs and characteristics that have turned the project into both an internet phenomenon and a popular attraction for visitors.

The results received international attention thanks to the Wim Wenders film Perfect Day that centres around the daily routine of a public toilet cleaner. If that is what it takes to flush some excitement into this overlooked infrastructure, so be it.

Derelict, London NW5

Working toilet, London NW3