60 years New Towns in the UK

There are 21 New Towns in England, established by statute and designated between 1946 and 1970.

In 1946 Great Britain faced a legacy of damaged homes and disrupted industrial infrastructure. The restoration of the nation's war-torn cities provided an opportunity for improving urban conditions on a grand scale. New Towns were an important element in this strategy: they aimed to improve living and working conditions both in damaged areas and in wholly new settlements.

The father of the British New Town movement was the Victorian Ebenezer Howard, whose writing in the book Garden Cities of Tomorrow and the creation of his garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn were a source of inspiration for planners, legislators and politicians involved in the New Town initiative. The green and open quality of the New Towns and their successful balance between living and working owe much to Howard's philosophy and practice.

In October 1945 Lord Reith was appointed chairman of a New Towns Committee. This committee concluded that New Towns were best created by government-sponsored corporations financed by the exchequer. The ?'resulting bodies' were known as development corporations and they were able to acquire land within a defined area, ?'the designated area'.

The committee's conclusions were embodied in the New Towns Act 1946 and immediately put into use with the designation of Stevenage, the first New Town. Of the 11 New Towns designated in Britain between 1946 and 1955, eight were London ?'overspill' or satellite towns and were welcomed by the London County Council.

A number of New Towns were built for reasons other than city overspill. Aycliffe (1947) and Corby (1950) were designated to provide better quality housing for existing employment areas. Peterlee (1948) was intended to provide an urban centre and alternative employment options for a mining area.

Declining industries in these towns meant a switch of emphasis to attract new employment. Corby, for example, faced the decline of the steel industry in the 1970s and the closure of its steelworks in 1980. Today the town is a major distribution centre and has attracted companies such as Golden Wonder Ltd, R S Components and Oxford University Press. An Urban Regeneration Company has been established in Corby.

Harlow

Harlow was designated as a New Town on 25 March 1947 and covers an area of 2,588 ha (6,395 acres).

Travel and transport. Harlow is 27m north-east of London, 10 minutes from the M25 London Orbital motorway and 25 minutes by train from London's Liverpool Street Station. It is also very close to the growing third London airport at Stansted and provides easy access to channel ports.

Employment. Industry in Harlow covers a broad spectrum from electronics, warehousing, electronic engineering, research and development, publishing and general distribution. Harlow is one of the leading towns for research and development in the country, and these activities are on a par with both Oxford and Cambridge. Major employers include GlaxoSmithKline and Nortel Works.

Population. Harlow has a population of 80,600.