More planning professionals, and local leaders want to see planning done differently. There is a growing realisation that tinkering with the existing system has failed. More radical change in the housing delivery process is needed if welcomed supply is to be delivered. . So this blog explores some of the visionary changes needed to do housing delivery things differently, using the two examples mentioned in earlier blogs. One, in the Thames Valley-building a new city for up to one million new residents with few or no cars, , (actually more likely a series of linked urban communities in a mainly rural setting) to be built over 30/60 years. Two, how in an existing mature urban area, (London Borough of Richmond upon Thames) the steps needed to go about building several thousand new homes, also without cars above or very close to a major transport interchange, (for which I have used Richmond station); to be built over two or even three decades sufficient to offer new homes and urban amenities for 10-15,000+ new residents, is the urban example.
It is necessary to select named and identifiable examples, alongside the evolution of a new delivery process to make the scale of change illustration process spatially clear at all levels. Every development and regeneration project is a one-off. Because of the unique characteristic of new building projects the objective is that each project will be to achieve gently, smoothly and eventually naturally fit into the existing historic fabric like a tailored solution. . In each and ever case the scope for the new homes to fit into the existing urban context will demand unique synchronisation at several levels , and therefore mould breaking high place sensitivity on design, massing and materials for existing residents to become supporters. It can be done. Look at Poundbury as an example of a new urban extension, ie a new suburb, which is widely liked. Because winning local residents support as welcoming hosts is fundamental to the success or failure of the house building revolution needed in the decades ahead. The importance of their support cannot be over-stressed. Without their support nothing much will happen. In the early 1990’s bad spatial policy decisions were made. It is not yet clear if the failures of that time are recognised and will be acted upon today.
Doing things differently means above all, that local councils and local new town development corporations understand, and take on, and learn to deliver in the role of being a developer. This is a fundamental reversal of their traditional remit. Instead of finding ways to stop development, local councils will be seeking ways to deliver development knowing that otherwise their town will decline. How can this change in mind-set in the leadership happen? Or will councillors simply continue to say no? The incentives to say yes, and the dangers of saying no, have to become clear. These drivers of change will be a mix of carrot and stick. Within a new exciting landscape of the future.
Because before individual sites are chosen, , a community wide long term spatial debate (think 2084) will have to take place. Pause and think. The demand exists. The locations exist. The finance will be found, because the demand exists. A debate which recognises and accepts that the housing needed must be provided within their area and within a certain time frame. This debate step too has massive spatial process based consequences. So does the council role of being the provider of the building land. But this new provider role does not mean local councils also take on the role of builder. Although in rural areas like the Thames Valley which offer a menu of possible locations, (unlike urban areas where alternative spatial options will be fewer), it means writing the brief needed to select and interview masterplanners. In existing fully built up urban areas with densification potential the reality is that residents within or living close to prospective locations who are asked to give their support will need a clear understanding of the project, and clear reasoning why major regeneration is needed close to, or where they live.
Let us start with the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Where I now live. Does it have a spatial plan which identifies where the homes needed by 2050:and 2080 will go? Has it led a debate about why they are needed and where they will go? And has it taken steps to ensure these sites will be ready to provide the building land needed by the time they are needed? If these steps have not happened is the council acting negligently? Is it forgetting its responsibility to future generations? In other words has it stopped acting according to civic principles? The benchmark is affordability. Can its citizens afford to live in Richmond? If the answer is no, the council is failing and must rake steps to make homes affordable. These steps are their responsibility, no one else’s.
Richmond upon Thames station and east of. The starting point and therefore the spatial opportunity centres on the station, the airspace above it, both east and west of Church Road bridge mainly above the rail tracks and platforms, and with the exception of the church (St John the Divine) plus. the marginal residential areas facing Lower Mortlake Road, a main arterial road in and out of central London which by-passes Richmond centre. But residents living inside these locations and those living very close by will have special, often unique reasons to feel their future life-style expectations are being messed around. And it is true. So they must be treated with extra care and compensation that ensures these fears are allayed. This is not naive. It is the standard local governance must time seek and deliver. No more petty political point scoring.
Other local residents too, whose quality of life, and daily lives will be adversely impacted by intermittent traffic delays, additional noise or smell due to, in some cases, year of construction work must be fully compensated. Once again this is mature governance. This is the standard expected. These steps will be in addition to the more normal forms of compensation and related blight payments where house values are diminished. These impacts must be remedied.
Likewise , land owners and property owners who are subject to compulsory purchase orders must receive open market including hope value where it exists based on market value before the impact of the project has an effect. The principle will that such owners receive for their land of property the full value without regard to the scheme where the value is based on nil knowledge of the project. In other words they must treated with absolute fairness, but are not entitled to share in the additional value the scheme may generate.
Thames Valley town/city. Looking to provide the housing needed in a prosperous and fast growth sub-region like the Thames Valley requires an entirely different approach to the approach needed in Richmond upon Thames. Because the spatial context offers many more built place solutions. Currently each local authority in the Thames Valley is responsible for finding places to put the new homes they are told to build by Whitehall. Many local leaders do not like the system, and what is more feel their towns are already full up. Physically this is rarely the case in actual fact.But their own protection policies and the government’s mandatory protection policies often mean there is very little white land, ie. unprotected land, available for building . Hence the protestation that we are already full up. What is the next step?
Like Richmond, each local council must accept respoyfor providing homes for its citizens at prices or rents that are affordable. Unlike Richmond, they can look at exporting their overspill demand if they the spatial choices are so unpopuwith their residents their residents are prepared to pay to export their housing problem.what this means is working with other Thames Valley local councils to create a new Milton Keynes, somewhere else in the Thames Valley which us not too far away that family relationships are severed. There is lots of unprotected land in the Thames Valley to west of the green belt surrounding London. Aome of it is subject to specific local protection policies. If these are government imposed they may be fixed. If they are locally imposed, these are within the gift of the local council with the local jurisdiction. And therefore open to negotiation!
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Once the barriers to progress are seen as the tools of a broken process, which must not be allowed to stand in the way of new homes with local support, these barriers will melt away.
Ian Campbell
26 September 2026
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