While we are all enjoying many community events to celebrate the 70th anniversary in November of the designation of Stevenage as the first postwar UK new town, this Monday, 1 August, is the 70th anniversary of Lewis Silkin’s New Towns Act. This most significant planning act gave birth to 32 new towns in the UK, from Stevenage to Milton Keynes. Between them they provide homes for 2.7 million people, 4.5% of the UK’s households. It is fitting that Lewis Silkin is commemorated on Stevenage’s town square clock tower.
The new towns were conceived by a group of farsighted members and planning officers in the prewar London County Council (LCC), inspired by what is now the Town and Country Planning Association, founded by Ebenezer Howard. The new towns were conceived to help eradicate the slums and poor living conditions in many parts of our major cities. It was the drive of Lewis Silkin (an ex-LCC member) and his team that brought this act through parliament in the first year of the Labour government. In moving the second reading of the bill in May 1946, Silkin said: “In the long run, the new towns will be judged by the kind of citizens they produce, by whether they create this spirit of friendship, neighbourliness and comradeship. That will be the real test, and that will be my objective so long as I have any responsibility for these new towns.”
I think the majority of us fortunate enough to live in one of the new towns can say: Lewis, your hopes have been achieved many times over, thank you. Maybe we could make 1 August New Towns Day, to be celebrated in the 32 towns, from the first, Stevenage, to the largest, Milton Keynes.
John Gardner
Deputy leader, Stevenage borough council
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