If you watched Peaky Blinders on Netflix, you might remember the charming Victorian village where Aunt Polly’s house was set. Those scenes were filmed in Port Sunlight, an iconic community near Liverpool inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. Built by Lever Brothers, the precursor to Unilever, it offered vernacular-style housing to soap factory workers. During the Industrial Revolution, business magnates, driven by a blend of financial and philanthropic motives, pioneered bold urban experiments, establishing all-inclusive model communities near their mills and factories.
Colonel Edward Akroyd enlisted architect George Gilbert Scott to design Akroydon, a Gothic-style mill village, while Sir Titus Salt rehoused thousands of Bradford’s slum dwellers in Saltaire’s meticulously crafted stone houses, complete with free education and healthcare. George Cadbury followed suit by founding Bournville near Birmingham for his chocolate factory workers. These historic urban experiments offer a compelling foundation for reimagining the creation of new towns today.
In Britain, the demand for new towns has endured, but their development methods have varied widely. Private initiatives often infused creativity and purpose, while government-led efforts tended towards rigid, standardised solutions that frequently failed to address community needs. The ‘new towns’ policy, championed by the post-war Labour government, aimed to curb urban sprawl, reduce congestion and deliver hundreds of thousands of affordable homes. A dedicated New Towns Commission meticulously planned every detail – from size and location to housing styles and density. Over 20 such towns were built across the UK, with most ultimately becoming dormitory towns, sending daily waves of commuters to larger economic centres. Yet the current Labour Government celebrates this as a ‘proud legacy’ and seeks to replicate it.
Bureaucrats often tackle today’s challenges with yesterday’s solutions. The previous Conservative government introduced a new wave of ‘freeports’, but these lacked the necessary deregulatory framework and failed to address critical issues like the housing crisis. Decisions surrounding freeports – from choosing locations that have ‘historically missed out’ to emphasising ‘proud industrial heritage’ – appeared driven more by political considerations than economic pragmatism. Now, the Labour government is reviving the post-war ‘new towns’ model, proposing developments governed by a New Towns Code and strategically located in ‘high-productivity areas’ selected by the New Towns Taskforce. How is this approach fundamentally any different?
Freeports were touted as ‘delivering the promise of Brexit’, while new towns are promoted as ‘delivering affordable homes’. But fundamentally, they are two sides of the same coin: government-driven initiatives where locations are handpicked, rigid standards imposed and participants cherry-picked, all while market dynamics are sidelined. These policies rely on outdated methods from a bygone era and reflect a disappointing lack of trust in the innovative spirit and ingenuity that have defined Britain’s successes.
The next-generation ‘new towns’ have the potential to make a real difference if they position themselves as laboratories for innovation, experimentation and growth. To succeed, they must embrace self-governance.
Britain has a rich history of urban self-governance, from the City of London to Canary Wharf. British-derived institutions have also played a pivotal role abroad, helping to turn Hong Kong from a humble fishing village into a thriving global trading hub. So why not bring this spirit of innovation home? Why not create our own Hong Kong-style regions across the UK, each with broad autonomy to experiment with diverse planning regimes, governance models and investment strategies?
What we need is a regulatory framework that empowers bottom-up innovators to experiment and compete, enabling successful models to scale and be replicated. The new self-governing cities should avoid repeating post-war policies, which delivered mixed results, and instead draw on the best practices from around the world – many of which are explored in my paper, ‘Beyond Freeports: Revitalising Britain with Self-Governing Cities’. The next-generation new cities must be defined by greater autonomy, a stronger role for the private sector and a mixed-use approach that transcends the outdated single-industry model.
Around the world, a silent revolution is reshaping the urban landscape. Africa, the fastest urbanising continent, is seeing the rise of over 15 entirely private cities, many of which operate under Special Economic Zone (SEZ) frameworks, signalling a transformative shift in how cities are built and managed. Some of the most daring urban experiments are unfolding in emerging economies seeking to overcome flawed institutions, often by borrowing elements of British legacy to ensure stability. Honduras’ charter cities – arguably the most innovative governance model in existence – are grounded in the common law tradition.
Similarly, India’s private, planned city Lavasa was made possible by a ‘Hill Station Act,’ drawing inspiration from British-era hill stations. With its self-governing status, Lavasa emerged as India’s greenest, most walkable city, privately managed to provide housing, jobs, as well as free healthcare and education to former villagers, all while establishing itself as a thriving tourist destination. If countries around the world are leveraging British-inspired models to build forward-thinking, self-sustaining urban hubs, why can’t the UK bring this transformative vision home?
Read ‘Beyond Freeports: Revitalising Britain with self-governing cities’ here.
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