Two sensible pieces written by thoughtful journalists in the The I Paper yesterday (Friday, 26 September 2025) by Richard Vaughan and Richard Palmer (Poundbury homes built by King inspire Labour’s new towns); and BBC News online today by Sean Coughlan (How the King’s vision is shaping the next wave of new towns) contain encouraging insights about design thinking looking into the future. These ideas, neatly summed up as turning ‘housing into homes and sites into communities ‘ relate to the design foundations of New Towns.. And they are, I am glad to add IMO as a non- architect on but ex-creator of added-value, ie value maximisation, on the right design lines to release premium values. . Actually the thinking is ahead of what I had expected, But neither article says much about the two enemies of enlightened change: one is local residents and the other is local land owners. And both opponents matter, big time. Because new communities, ie. new towns/new urban extensions, (and even new at scale tricky, tacky little boxes built by trader builders not delivered by long term investors) can only happen with the support of these two powerful, deeply entrenched and locally based vested interests.
Although both opposition groups are locally based, each has a very different agenda. Land owners want to direct local land use change through the call for sites system onto their land. Which is perfectly fair from their commercially driven perspective. Local residents, well the vociferous ones we hear about at any rate, want to stop local land use change at all, for all sorts of reasons: some are sincere and others are dressed up to be part of a politically correct agenda. Whether we believe their arguments or not is beside the point. They too are a powerful local lobby group and their legitimate concerns, like the land owners, must be met for new towns to be built amongst willing hosts.
What is not yet clear is how advanced is official and party political thinking when it comes to tackling these two hot potatoes! Take landowners concerns. They have two. One, will sites they have ear-marked for the cfs form of monopoly of sites to be included at full open market value, which includes hope value? Second, will other long term’ ie. 10+ land potential building sites also be in the 10+ race at full OMV? Because it is around this time marker that time uncertainty and location uncertainty kills off hope value. Present value remember depends upon prevailing interest rates.
Now take local residents fears. They too have financial worries which are legitimate. Will a lot of new-building near them reduce the value of their homes? And will years of building construction near them destroy their quality of life. Both fears are legitimate as they will live, every day with the disturbance of construction. . Is this a burden that should in some way be shared? Their civic concerns: is significant local land use change good or bad for their community will feed into these personal financial fears, but remain matters for local democratic debate.
There is another, very immediate, little understood by the public issue, which gets a brief mention by Vaughan and Palmer. It is the fear that when the actual locations are revealed speculators in land will rush to the locations to acquire options to buy the land. Is this a proper concerns for the authorities? Yes, it is? Is there an answer? Yes there is. It needs a credible spatial policy response from local councils that is endorsed by local opposition parties too. To head off unhelpful land speculation it must be made plain that all land subject to purchase by compulsory powers will be bought at full OMV for the next 10 years, and after that point all compulsory purchase land purchases will switch to using a National Land Service registration system ( see earlier blogs).
The objective is to strike a fair and equitable balance between the interests of local communities, the nations taxpayers and local land owners. In the short term local land owners must receive 100% of full OMV which as usual includes hope value if it exists. The short term will be about 10 years. After that uncertainties will have blocked the growth of hope value.
In the long term there is no equitable, market based or other reason why land owners should continue to receive hope value if their land is compulsorily.purchased. The additional value, or hope value is a dividend created by the public sector investment overtime and is not owned by the land owner. Neither of these end points are open to challenge. All that must be decided is the switch over point. I say the general principle, based on market evidence is 10 years. In fact each purchase will be unique. And if building work will start within 10 years then the owner ought, in equity, to receive the OMV with hope value. The onus is therefore on the acquiring body to buy sooner, not later, ie. more than 10 years before the land is needed.
If a land buying policy is put in place based in these principles, which has cross-party endorsement locally and nationally. using a National Land Service register system, there will be no land speculators. Step one, ideally find a political consensus. which supports the new town proposals in each location. Is this possible? If it is not done, local opponents masquerading as angels will play havoc with the government’s hopes for growth, the next generations hopes for affordable homes and local communities hopes for their towns’ futures.
Ian Campbell
27 September 2025
