You can’t have missed that the government is trying to achieve a gear shift in the number of new homes being built across the country. The national mission to deliver 1.5 million homes and the latest announcement on New Towns signal strong ambition. What is far less clear is how these enormous numbers will be achieved in practice and what kind of places will emerge as a result. For London, where the housing crisis is acute, the stakes are especially high.
Two of the proposed seven New Towns are at Crews Hill and Chase Park in Enfield, and in Thamesmead, where a potential DLR extension could reshape one of the capital’s most significant regeneration areas. These are extensions to existing communities and are, in effect, London’s suburbs. ‘Suburbia’ still brings to mind a certain type of place: single homes rather than flats, cars on driveways instead of public transport, and quiet roads with a corner shop rather than buzzing high streets. Yet if London is to meet its housing need and support long term economic growth, this will not be enough – we need a new model for our suburbs.
This new suburbia needs to be denser, better connected and more walkable than its predecessor. Research shows that most development across the country has become more car dependent over the last 15 years, not less. This has impacts for health and wellbeing, affordability and the economic function of places. Walkable neighbourhoods enable people to spend less on transport, keep more money in the local economy by supporting shops and cafes, and improve air quality.
London already understands the power of transport-led regeneration. In Thamesmead, our work on the urban integration of the proposed DLR extension aims to ensure that transport investment becomes the backbone of an inclusive and well-connected new district. This is not just about mobility. It is also about unlocking jobs, attracting long-term investment and giving residents genuine access to opportunity.
The capital has very few examples of higher density suburban housing. Buyers expect to see single family homes in these areas and this becomes a self-fulfilling cycle where housebuilders only want to take the risk on delivering ‘proven’ typologies, so that’s all that is built. To shift this, we need to prove that car-free living in well-designed flats can be desirable and sustainable in outer London. Families in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and Germany live comfortably at higher suburban densities with generous green space around them. London can do the same. Perhaps the key will be the quality of life that can come from easy access to green spaces that are so much more abundant on London’s edges than at its centre.
There is still a strong narrative around building on the green belt, yet much of the land involved is grey belt – land that is already built on and does little to separate places and prevent sprawl. If London is going to build here, the question becomes what these places need to be in order to succeed. At Crews Hill and Chase Park, we are helping shape a new 20,000 home settlement that combines much needed housing with large-scale landscape restoration. This means treating the green and blue spaces around and within areas of growth with as much care as the homes themselves. Treated in this way, such development can be an opportunity to genuinely address the climate and biodiversity crises, alongside the housing crisis.
Of course, not everyone is happy about these proposals, but it wouldn’t be fair to dismiss the concerns of communities adjacent to areas of growth as NIMBYs. Our experience is that they are often seeking reassurance that the local infrastructure – schools, GPs, roads – won’t be overwhelmed by planned growth. However, we also need to speak to people further afield: those on local authority housing lists waiting for a secure place to live, those who would love a chance to stay in their home borough, if only there was anywhere available.
This is an exercise that we undertook in developing proposals for Crews Hill and Chase Park. The wider communities’ views on the future of suburban life are very different from the car-led suburban dream other residents still hold dear. The challenge is in navigating what existing residents want, what developers believe the market will buy and what London needs for long-term sustainability – the three are not always aligned. This is where strong and consistent policy must play a role. Land value is shaped by what developers think can be built. The draft London Plan, due this summer, will be central to this.
If London is to meet housing need while simultaneously supporting economic growth, it needs to deliver confident, well-connected edge-of-city places with schools, healthcare, high streets and green space from the outset. Crews Hill, Chase Park and Thamesmead could be test beds for a new suburban model that reflects how Londoners want to live today. If these can lead the way, others will follow.
Holly Lewis is co-founding partner at We Made That
