Member Article

Are Garden Villages a ‘Utopian concept’ or an ‘innovative part of the solution to the country’s housing crisis’?

Leading planning experts came together to discuss garden villages in Kings Chambers’ inaugural planning podcast recorded shortly before the recent Inspector’s report on the three Essex Garden settlements.

The garden villages’ government initiative proposes the creation of 14 sites spread across the country, delivering between 1,500 and 10,000 properties per site.

The podcast was hosted by Philip Robson of barristers set Kings Chambers and it featured a panel of industry experts including Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, Jeremy Hinds of Savills, Paul G Tucker QC of Kings Chambers and Josh Risso-Gill of CMS.

The panellists offered varying opinions on the policy which plans to provide 48,000 homes across the country to tackle the UK’s housing shortage.

Each of the panel gave their opinion during the frank discussion, with varying levels of support for the policy.

Paul G Tucker QC of Kings Chambers opened the discussion stating that garden villages were an ‘entirely sensible idea’, however the legislative and policy infrastructure was ‘absolutely not’ in place.

Lord Matthew Taylor, who was responsible for developing the garden villages concept, explained how garden villages will help to transform delivery as one part of the solution to the nation’s housing crisis.

He stated that the proposals were ‘absolutely not about building housing estates in the countryside’ and were instead intended to create ‘dense communities’ or ‘modern market towns’ with all the facilities people need.

Jeremy Hinds of Savills, however, stated that the concept of garden villages is an entirely ‘utopian idea which cannot work in a commercially sustainable way’.

Josh Risso-Gill observed the discussion with a ‘united nations approach’ and accepted that garden villages were intended to be ‘complimentary’ to other policies tackling the UK’s housing crisis.

To hear the full discussion, go to https://www.kingschambers.com/news/2018/05/24/the-kings-chambers-inaugural-planning-podcast-on-garden-villages-is-now-available-for-download/

The second podcast in the series will be released in August and will focus on the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ben Smith .