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A journalist and entrepreneur called Shiv Malik has proposed building a new city southeast of Cambridge. https://www.forestcity.uk/ The concept is based on New Town Corporations such as Milton Keynes in which the corporation owns all the land and controls development. Details are very sketchy at the moment, but the plan is ultimately to have a city of million people in the area north of Haverhill.
I don't don't know whether it will come to fruition but I think it's a brilliant idea, providing affordable housing in the most economically dynamic area of the UK. It offers a blueprint for the kind of development we desperately need.
The question is, what kind of light rail would be suitable for the city? Plans have yet to be drawn up, in fact are nowhere the drawing board, but the city would quite dense, about the size of Norwich. Would a metro be necessary for commuter flows to the tech industry in Cambridge, for example, or would a tram system be better? No expert myself, so would be grateful to read informed opinions on this.
As much as I regularly make the point that we need 4 million plus homes and even a city of 1 million people doesn't cover more than 1/10 of that amount and takes decades to fill up I still think we should do something like this. Mainly just to show that we can and to prove what structures are needed to replicate it elsewhere. At least at this scale you could basically have the development corporation talking to the PM or Chancellor every 2-3 weeks and being able to use their ministerial powers to just make stuff happen.
At a national level the whole building thing could be achieved by:
Set some sensible national targets for housing based on house price vs salary metrics
Fund council and regional authorities planning departments generously (not actually that expensive to do)
Give councils more access to funding mechanisms like land value capture or even let them just buy land, grant planning permission, sell land. Use the money to build the infrastructure required to support more building, particularly transport infrastructure
If they don't hit their targets for building, call in every planning application for more than 50 houses and grant it unless egregious.
Take social care off councils, it's the biggest item in the budget and it's not a regional political issue
As for transport design I think the real question is autonomous vehicles, cars do 85% of passenger miles today, autonomous ones already work particularly in new green fields sites. As a minimum the central portions of the city need to be designed for zero personal car ownership. While we are in transition we will have to accommodate personal cars/trade vehicles but I think the way you do that is by keeping them in specific areas/routes which at a certain point will be demolished and replaced by more high density housing or parks.
In terms of hierarchy, if you are building from scratch you will have excellent cycling provision by default, your medium distance solution will be AV's running on exclusive infrastructure which will support high volumes on trunk routes due to not having any people driving on them. When those reach capacity use road charging to drive vehicle sharing, those roads would be either in tunnels, deep cuttings or wooded areas. It looks like the plan is for this new city to be built with a regional rail network that connects into Cambridge, if it is built at a "gentle density" then that would mean tens of thousands of people would be close enough to one of those lines, particularly if there is good cycling infrastructure.
Looking at their site it looks like it would be built North of Haverhill with a new railway being built to Cambridge and through Haverhill. I would assume that the logic would be to extend the E-W rail services that terminate in Cambridge to "Forrest city" and Haverhill. However with a population of 1 million there would like be greater demand on that section of the line so either Cambridge North or a new station in a development zone could be set up to turn around trains that would allow that section of the line to have metro level service (20-30 TPH).
Forrest City would be big enough that it would actually be worth building new intercity mainlines to it from London and to other regional towns and cities.
North of Haverhill is the highest part of Suffolk, mostly more than 100m above sea level, with the highest point 128m near the A143 road between Haverhill and Bury St Edmunds.
A journalist and entrepreneur called Shiv Malik has proposed building a new city southeast of Cambridge. https://www.forestcity.uk/ The concept is based on New Town Corporations such as Milton Keynes in which the corporation owns all the land and controls development. Details are very sketchy at the moment, but the plan is ultimately to have a city of million people in the area north of Haverhill.
We need to build beautiful homes in places people want to live, enhance the nature around them, and create communities where families thrive.
We build too few homes. In the wrong places. That few people like. Without planned infrastructure. Then act surprised when locals object, buyers can’t afford them, and nothing improves.
This isn’t a housing crisis—it’s a policy failure.
Britain is short over 4 million homes. You’re earning good money and can’t buy a flat. And every development becomes a planning battle that satisfies nobody.
We can keep doing this. Or we can build a city.
Not another housing estate. A real city for 1 million people where:
✓ People want to live — Beautiful architecture, walkable neighborhoods, real place-making. Communities that feel like home, not just addresses.
✓ Businesses want to be — East of Cambridge, unlocking Britain’s innovation capital.
✓ Families thrive — Community-owned, affordable forever. Built for raising children and putting down roots.
✓ Nature improves — 12,000 acres of new native forest. England is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. We can build a city and repair biodiversity at the same time.
✓ Infrastructure works — Schools, hospitals, transport, and parks designed from day one—not squeezed in as afterthoughts.
Britain’s first new city in 50 years. Proof that we can still build extraordinary things. That ambition isn’t dead. That working families aren’t permanently locked out. That we can create places worth caring about.
For this to work, government needs to back it—not with subsidy, but with permission. Development Corporation powers to build at scale without decades-long planning paralysis. The proven model that delivered Milton Keynes, Canary Wharf, and the Olympics.
I want to live in a country where I can afford a home, raise a family, and believe tomorrow will be better than today. Where we build beautiful places that strengthen communities and repair nature. Where we choose ambition over managed decline.
I support Britain building its next great city.
A city within the Cambridge and London commuting zones is more likely to need 2tph to both Cambridge and London than a light rail system. I'd look at designing a new, East-West rail style line joining up to one of the existing two track railways, and looking at what could be extended from London, Cambridge or both.
After I eventually find what and where they want to build, I see it's too few homes in a wrong place. If a source of water is found (eg a long tunnel from the north), add some lidos and boating lakes feeding into water treatment plants. There is a lot more to be said on the wishy washy thoughts put forward as a proposal.
It's hard to comment on this on the subject of rail. They're proposing something big enough to justify new build rail without any compromises. It will need heavy rail, as it will be a dormitory town for Cambridge, and direct trains to London. It's very unclear what density they're going for, light rail is for such a narrow part of the range.
We discussed the water on another thread, you could build reservoirs but ultimately desalination is the cheat code here. If you can match Israeli costs you wouldn't notice the difference on your bills.
Suggest that if anyone wants to argue this they spend some time with Gemini asking how much water a city of 1 million would use, how much desal would cost per m3 and how big the pipe would need to be etc.
I'm currently designing the RR SMR the scale/power of a desal plant is meh.
Having read the material on the website I think the principal argument is that if you grant the development corporation all the rights it wants it can buy the land pretty cheaply and then use the value uplift to pay for the infrastructure. How was Milton Keyes paid for?
The principal issues are political.
1: This is unprecedented
2: A small group of people will lose out or at least have to accept a change not of their making. The 1 million future residents don't have a voice. Concentrated interest generally wins.
3: The people moving to the city will get an excellent deal and the plan is for them to be selected by non financial means. The developers will also make money. The public don't particularly like policies with clear winners even if it costs them nothing and the "left" really don't like unequal policies.
4: Even though this will all be built on monoculture argicultural land with substantial re wilding bringing a bio diversity net gain the NIMBY/nature argument will still come up.
5: Who can claim this politically? Why would a minister back this if the founders get the credit? Why would the civil service work hard on this, it bypasses them?
Whether or not you think this will happen it should still be applauded, it is the sort of thing we need and if national government is going to remain so risk averse then what we will end up with is something properly counter productive like a Reform government.
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It's hard to comment on this on the subject of rail. They're proposing something big enough to justify new build rail without any compromises. It will need heavy rail, as it will be a dormitory town for Cambridge, and direct trains to London. It's very unclear what density they're going for, light rail is for such a narrow part of the range.
It's planned to be about 5 times the current size of Cambridge. I'd suggest it's more an argument that Cambridge is the seed for Forrest City or whatever it ends up being called.
Population density for the city as a whole is 5500/km which is more dense than any large UK city. The method of design is that they have a couple of dozen working groups who are currently volunteers.
The first stage is just to generate support and a following. At some point they expect that developers will put their hands in their pockets and pay people to create a business case.
This is why proposal is relatively light on detail, also if they get to build it in the manner that they propose as a development corporation then they will be able to do a lot of stuff in a more commercial and risk informed manner.
Ergo they won't be begging from treasury which also means if they want to buy a start up proposing high speed autonomous buses and then have their in house civil engineering company design the system organically as they understand more about system they can do.
There is an argument than when you want to do innovation and speed you vertically integrate when the market matures and you want efficiency you out source. This happens in 50 year cycles, our current government at all levels is a skinny coordination level, dependent on consultants. If we want to do something novel then what we need is a vertically integrated organisation.
Haverhill is a long way from the sea, and roughly 100 metres above sea level. If desalination was the answer it would be happening already to supply London, not somewhere a long way from the sea, and roughly 100 metres above sea level.
Except ther won't be any profits. This is a particularly utopian / bonkers idea. To quote their website.
"Instead of cramped, overpriced housing where your money disappears into speculation, imagine four-bedroom Passivhaus-standard townhouses for around £350,000. When you sell, you get the building value, but land appreciation stays with the community—keeping homes affordable for future generations. No council tax burden: ground rents fund your schools, parks, and services."
So residents are unable to take advantage of house price inflation, being tied to building value only, an asset likely to lose rather than gain value. So I buy my house (water supply allowing) and am then locked into this community for life since moving elsewhere becomes unaffordable. In other words the worst aspects of leasehold meets the wort bits of social housing.
And who is to pay for this? Not private devlopers since there's no way of turning a profit. Not the LA, since the city is exempt from Council Tax, so the state presumably. Good luck with that.
Back in the real world, the latest news on what is actually happening is launches of two consultations on establishment of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation and local government reorganisation in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. I have posted them here, where unfortunately they have been hit by the dreaded automerge:
Something of interest to this thread: Centre for British Progress had released a piece of work recommending properly going all out on the Oxford Cambridge axis by having a development corporation for the whole area which would have the powers to call in all the planning powers in the region as...
A journalist and entrepreneur called Shiv Malik has proposed building a new city southeast of Cambridge. https://www.forestcity.uk/ The concept is based on New Town Corporations such as Milton Keynes in which the corporation owns all the land and controls development. Details are very sketchy at the moment, but the plan is ultimately to have a city of million people in the area north of Haverhill.
I don't don't know whether it will come to fruition but I think it's a brilliant idea, providing affordable housing in the most economically dynamic area of the UK. It offers a blueprint for the kind of development we desperately need.
The question is, what kind of light rail would be suitable for the city? Plans have yet to be drawn up, in fact are nowhere the drawing board, but the city would quite dense, about the size of Norwich. Would a metro be necessary for commuter flows to the tech industry in Cambridge, for example, or would a tram system be better? No expert myself, so would be grateful to read informed opinions on this.
There seems to be little point building a tram system in a city being built from scratch.
You have unlimited access to the ground with noone around to complain - a cut and cover or elevated automated metro would dseem to be the obvious choice.
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Haverhill is a long way from the sea, and roughly 100 metres above sea level. If desalination was the answer it would be happening already to supply London, not somewhere a long way from the sea, and roughly 100 metres above sea level.
Lifting water 100m takes about 0.27kWh per cubic metre. Add enough drop to get an aqueduct to flow from the coast and you are looking at about 0.35kWh/cubic metre - so not much at all, especially as you can pumpa t any time of day you desire.
And desalination isn't currently being used for London because London can currently meet its needs more cheaply from other sources.
Lifting water 100m takes about 0.27kWh per cubic metre. Add enough drop to get an aqueduct to flow from the coast and you are looking at about 0.35kWh/cubic metre - so not much at all, especially as you can pumpa t any time of day you desire.
Water doesn't flow uphill, there is no flow from the coast.
It is only possible to pump, at any time of day, if there is somewhere to store the water. At this location there is nowhere to store the water, because we are talking about the highest land for miles around.
We don’t need 4 million new homes in this country. We just need better use of those we have, and to take a e realistic view on population growth and life expectancy, which I confidently predict will turn into a decline of the former and a steeper decline of the latter within a decade.
It is only possible to pump, at any time of day, if there is somewhere to store the water. At this location there is nowhere to store the water, because we are talking about the highest land for miles around.
A million people only use ~200,000m3 of water per day. Even if you had to build a structure to store it entirely above ground, it is still only a cube 60m on a side. It is well within our engineering capability.
In reality a reservoir capable of storing 200,000m3 of water is easily dug in whatever terrain is available.
EDIT: As an example, the Wraysbury Reservoir holds 35,000,000m3 of water and was largely built above ground.
The cost of water is so small as to be almost economically inconsequential, the cost of providing a persons entire domestic water use from desalination based on the Israeli contract example is about.... $40 US dollars per year. Even if it was five times that because Britain, it is still small compared to the uplift of allowing people to live in more economically productive parts of the country.
People don't want to live in the places where water is plentiful.
That's why we don't have huge cities springing up in the Scottish highlands.
EDIT #2:
If such a city is to be built, you'd probably want one of the many automated metro products on the market. Probably a combination of cut and cover tunnels. Seems little reason to go for trams because the railway can go in at the same time as the streets.
I think a better question is what the role of a public transport system in such a futuristic city will be?
Waymo (et al) is coming, a high density newbuild city, which can standardise road layouts etc, is probably ideal for automated vehicles.
And of course, the kind of people who will uproot themselves to this sort of place are probably the kind with significant work from home capability too.
North of Haverhill is the highest part of Suffolk, mostly more than 100m above sea level, with the highest point 128m near the A143 road between Haverhill and Bury St Edmunds.
Haverhill is also in the driest part of the UK.
It lacks an even more important detail, how is drinking water going to be suppled for 1 million people?
The Forest City website says this on infrastructure, note that it does not mention water at all.
Yesterday I saw an advert for a proposed application for a development consent order for the Grand Union Canal transfer. I'd not heard anything about this before so looked at the website guctransfer.co.uk.
They are proposing to take water from SevernTrent's site near Minworth and send it through pipes to the GU Canal at Athersrone where it will flow down the canal to just south of Milton Keynes and then travel by pipe again to a site near Luton. The idea is to get water to an area that doesn't have enough from an area that has excess.
The Broads are not that far north of Cambridge so might there be something similar could be done to take water from there to this new city?
A million people only use ~200,000m3 of water per day. Even if you had to build a structure to store it entirely above ground, it is still only a cube 60m on a side. It is well within our engineering capability.
In reality a reservoir capable of storing 200,000m3 of water is easily dug in whatever terrain is available.
EDIT: As an example, the Wraysbury Reservoir holds 35,000,000m3 of water and was largely built above ground.
A reservoir will need a lot more than one day of supply.
There is already a reservoir of the type that you describe, and under construction, not far from Haverhill. But it is to supply local communities, including Bury St Edmunds, not a city of 1 million people. The Reservoir in the Fens is being built entirely above ground, similar to Wraysbury.
I know that these are within engineering capability, though I also know some of the challenges that the Reservoir in the Fens is facing.
Yesterday I saw an advert for a proposed application for a development consent order for the Grand Union Canal transfer. I'd not heard anything about this before so looked at the website guctransfer.co.uk.
They are proposing to take water from SevernTrent's site near Minworth and send it through pipes to the GU Canal at Athersrone where it will flow down the canal to just south of Milton Keynes and then travel by pipe again to a site near Luton. The idea is to get water to an area that doesn't have enough from an area that has excess.
The Grand Union Canal Transfer is an important part of addressing the water shortage in the south and east of England. Its great advantage is that the water is transferred from the River Trent catchment area over the lowest point of the watershed of England at Watford Gap. It doesn't need very much pumping to get the water up from the River Trent to Watford Gap, then from Watford Gap southwards gravity does most of the work in moving the water to where it is needed.
Anglian Water are also constructing a pipeline south from Lincolnshire.
The Reservoir in the Fens, the Grand Union Canal Transfer, and the Anglian Water Lincolnshire pipeline taken together are what's needed to bring more water to areas where economic growth is already happening, and plans for more houses are already happening, especially in the Oxford Cambridge corridor.
To supply water to a new city of 1 million people is going to require the same scale of infrastructure all over again. While the marginal cost of supplying water may be small, the capital cost of building the infrastructure is big. Furthermore, the costs are up front, and has to be funded from borrowed money, or investors. Delivery isn't just about what's within engineering capability. A giant hand of god doesn't plonk down the infrastructure at no cost.
No. Firstly because the Norfolk Broads are very low lying, and secondly, because the rivers that feed them only cover a small area of Norfolk and Suffolk, none of which gets much rain.
Built during the Chinese property boom, Forest City is a stark reminder of the crisis in the sector.
www.bbc.co.uk
China's largest property developer Country Garden unveiled Forest City - a $100bn (£78.9bn) mega-project under the Belt and Road Initiative - in 2016.
At the time, the Chinese property boom was in full flow. Developers were borrowing colossal sums of money to build both home and abroad for middle-class buyers.
In Malaysia, Country Garden's plan was to build an eco-friendly metropolis featuring a golf course, waterpark, offices, bars and restaurants. The company said Forest City would eventually be home to nearly one million people.
Eight years on, it stands as a barren reminder that you do not need to be in China to feel the effects of its property crisis. Currently, only 15% of the entire project has been built and, according to recent estimates, just over 1% of the total development is occupied.
We don’t need 4 million new homes in this country. We just need better use of those we have, and to take a e realistic view on population growth and life expectancy, which I confidently predict will turn into a decline of the former and a steeper decline of the latter within a decade.
Somewhere around 750000 homes are abandoned. Apparently over 1 million homes have planning permission but weren't built. Between these 2, that is very significant and suggests only limited and strategic green belt development is needed. Also suggests, who owns the land and properties is a big part of the problem and that we really need council homes more than anything and this time don't allow them to be sold.
If the population is allowed to decline by even a couple million in the next few decades, a rebalance may well happen naturally.
Also when I saw this 'forest city', I rolled my eyes a bit. The largest planned city is Milton Keynes and it's little more than a quarter of the size of this proposal and still took decades to built out and arguably it's not finished even now. Not only is such a project not needed in England, it seems impractical. And Suffolk is one of the least good places to put such a city, drought, flooding, loss of agricultural land etc. The eastern side of the country doesn't really have any ideal land for a new city. Really it's somewhere in the south coast area that makes sense for something from scratch or just accepting Southampton/ Portsmouth or in the north Liverpool/ Manchester will eventually become vast cities with many towns becoming suburbs instead.
I prefer smaller scale walkable places with decent transport links myself, thought Poundbury did a reasonable job. And would rather see more of that than some egomaniac's dream. Even doubling the size of Cambridge seems a bit much.
It does if the reservoir's purpose is to ensure supply is maintained because there is no alternative.
In this case, the reservoirs purpose is to reduce the cost of pumping water into the water system.
In the worst case, the taps don't run dry, the water company just has to pay more than expected to run the pumps at a non-ideal time. Drawing water from the sea-level reservoir fed by the desalination complex.
Within a decade summer-midday electricity will be functionally free, after all.
There is already a reservoir of the type that you describe, and under construction, not far from Haverhill. But it is to supply local communities, including Bury St Edmunds, not a city of 1 million people. The Reservoir in the Fens is being built entirely above ground, similar to Wraysbury.
Yes, but those systems are often concerned with seasonal supply of water under normal conditions.
A desalination plant can be operated year round and will supply water with high reliability at all times of year - so you only need enough water storage to buffer the infeeding aqueduct. It is unlikely that large scale increases in storage would be required, at least on a 'regional' scale. You will need additional pipelines to interconnect things however.
Lots and lots of people do want to live in the area of Cambridge though - thats why housing has become so expensive in that area.
As for the Forest City debacle.... don't give the contract to build things to vastly overextended Chinese property companies?
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Some estimates of the shortage of suitable housing units in Britain run upwards of 3 million. I believe Shelter put the estimate at close to 5 million.
Given that the number of households-of-choice in the UK is likely to keep rising long after population eventually starts to decline (due to shrinking household sizes), I'm not sure its reasonable to expect demand for housing to decrease in a timely manner.
Major new construction will still be required, especially as forced downsizing is not going to be tenable within our socio-political context.
Even if the current reduction in immigration sticks, the current housing stock would still not be sufficient until some time beyond 2100 - by which time much of it will undoubtedly be in even poorer condition than it is now.
I prefer smaller scale walkable places with decent transport links myself, thought Poundbury did a reasonable job. And would rather see more of that than some egomaniac's dream. Even doubling the size of Cambridge seems a bit much.
Greater Cambridge, comprising Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire local authorities, is the proposed area for the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation. If we start at the 2011 census, Greater Cambridge had a population of 273k. I do expect that to almost double by 2050. They are not quite Poundbury, but we do have Trumpington, Eddington, Cambourne, Northstowe and Waterbeach. The draft local plan gives us the airport site and another new town near Granta Park, the Development Corporation is expected to add more. We will also have Tempsford New Town developed separately, and not expected to be part of Greater Cambridge.
All of this needs a lot of very expensive infrastructure. £bns are being spent on water, see above. East West Rail is costing £bns. New hospitals on the Biomedical Campus are costing £bns. All of that has to be funded by someone, public or private.
It does if the reservoir's purpose is to ensure supply is maintained because there is no alternative.
In this case, the reservoirs purpose is to reduce the cost of pumping water into the water system.
In the worst case, the taps don't run dry, the water company just has to pay more than expected to run the pumps at a non-ideal time.
Yes, but those systems are often concerned with seasonal supply of water under normal conditions.
A desalination plant can be operated year round and will supply water with high reliability at all times of year - so you only need enough water storage to buffer the infeeding aqueduct. It is unlikely that large scale increases in storage would be required.
Resilience in water has to ensure continuity of supply. If that isn't done the consequences are not good, as some residents of Kent have found only recently. Where does the water come from if the pipe bursts or the pumps fail?
Actually it won't. There will be capital costs of building the infrastructure to pay. You still seems to think that the hand of god will plonk your infrastructure down without having to pay for it.
The UK is entering a long period where deaths will exceed births. The population will shrink unless there is significant inward migration, mainly from Africa, which is the only place where the birth rate is still high.
Resilience in water has to ensure continuity of supply. If that isn't done the consequences are not good, as some residents of Kent have found only recently. Where does the water come from if the pipe bursts or the pumps fail?
Most likely through a duplicate pipeline, supplied by alternative pumping systems. Indeed it would be very unusual for a single pipe to be entrusted with supply.
The same way that high reliability of supply of critical goods is always guaranteed.
Actually it won't. There will be capital costs of building the infrastructure to pay. You still seems to think that the hand of god will plonk your infrastructure down without having to pay for it.
No, it will still be functionally free because everyone's solar installations (which are going in at several GW per year) will flood the electricity system, overwhelming even battery storage's ability to soak it up.
The grid will be screaming for people to take it off their hands in an attempt to avoid having to pay constraint payments to subsidised generators.
This has been discussed at length in various other threads and is rather off topic.
The UK is entering a long period where deaths will exceed births. The population will shrink unless there is significant inward migration, mainly from Africa, which is the only place where the birth rate is still high.
The ONS recently updated their population projections with new migration data (shifting from their primary projection to the 'migrant category' projection) in advance of releasing their new projections this year.
They still predict a UK population that won't even peak until about 2097.
I personally think it will peak earlier than that, barring an increase in migration, but I don't think its going to peak before midcentury.
I am rather leery that we are wandering rather far from the topic though.
it will still be functionally free because everyone's solar installations (which are going in at several GW per year) will flood the electricity system, overwhelming even battery storage's ability to soak it up.
You have inadvertently hit on another reason why Haverhill won't be a giant new city. It is a prime location for solar power, and it is happening already, see here:
Kingsway Solar Farm Limited is developing proposals for a new solar farm and overhead line connection to the national grid between Burwell and Balsham in Cambridgeshire (the "Scheme").
The scheme would have capacity to generate around 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity, the equivalent of powering approximately 175,000 homes annually.
It would also include associated infrastructure, including co-located battery energy storage systems (BESS) and inter-array connections to link together the land parcels where the solar panels are located.
Most likely through a duplicate pipeline, supplied by alternative pumping systems. Indeed it would be very unusual for a single pipe to be entrusted with supply.
What I meant is the older generations including baby boomers will start to die off in the coming decades and younger people can't afford to have enough children as we don't have stable jobs and can't afford houses. So even with immigration, population overall will end up flat, maybe go down a couple million. We are constantly told the population has to keep growing, so the economy can grow, but eventually there will be a limit. Naturally there has to be. If we let that just happen, the need for housing will balance out eventually. The time is right for some new towns (more likely strategic urban extensions) right now though.
I wouldn't be surprised if the world population starts peaking in 30 to 40 years from now. Even in Africa, birth rates are falling sharply these days.
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Some estimates of the shortage of suitable housing units in Britain run upwards of 3 million. I believe Shelter put the estimate at close to 5 million.
I wonder in part are they considering everyone in their 20s and 30s (sometimes even older) who can't afford to move out of their parents? What used to be a very reasonable expectation.
I think even if the creator behind 'Forest City' has noble intentions, private developers will find a way of building all those houses and flats and still make them somehow more expensive every year. Ireland has a notorious housing crisis, especially in Dublin. But housing is going up in all directions on the fringes of Dublin, something there doesn't add up. The solution is clearly not the market, they caused this problem!
Where? North of Haverhill is on the highest land for miles around, and where it doesn't rain very much.
Haverhill is a long way from the sea, and roughly 100 metres above sea level. If desalination was the answer it would be happening already to supply London, not somewhere a long way from the sea, and roughly 100 metres above sea level.
Tell me you're from Cambridgeshire without telling me you're from Cambridgeshire!
One of the towns I grew up in had a peak elevation of 270m and a maximum delta of 180m, with a population of 29,000 and was in the past dominated by heavy industry, which was actually located at the top of the hill. Nobody who lived their considered themselves to be living in a particularly hilly place, there was no notable issues with construction.
The way water supply systems work is that they are based on contours so everybody within about a 30m height range is fed off the same water main this avoid people getting 20bar water pressure at the bottom of the hill. The local reservoirs hold about a days supply and are filled based on their water levels like toilet cistern. The people living right on the top of the hill might need their local mains pressure supplemented by a water lower.
The only thing hills really impede is surface rail, if they do chose to build on the hiller areas then the rail lines will likely run along valleys and you'd probably opt for basing your short to medium transport solutions on automated buses on dedicated roads.
The key point is that the right to build in the UK is worth vastly more than the costs of building on a small hill!
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Except ther won't be any profits. This is a particularly utopian / bonkers idea. To quote their website.
"Instead of cramped, overpriced housing where your money disappears into speculation, imagine four-bedroom Passivhaus-standard townhouses for around £350,000. When you sell, you get the building value, but land appreciation stays with the community—keeping homes affordable for future generations. No council tax burden: ground rents fund your schools, parks, and services."
So residents are unable to take advantage of house price inflation, being tied to building value only, an asset likely to lose rather than gain value. So I buy my house (water supply allowing) and am then locked into this community for life since moving elsewhere becomes unaffordable. In other words the worst aspects of leasehold meets the wort bits of social housing.
And who is to pay for this? Not private devlopers since there's no way of turning a profit. Not the LA, since the city is exempt from Council Tax, so the state presumably. Good luck with that.
Houses should be depreciating assets that you need to maintain over time. The idea that land price inflation should be part of the economics of buying a house is pretty crazy.
The economics could be, 1: Build the houses at volume in a factory so you get more for your money in terms of building. 2: If you wish to hedge against land value inflation in the rest of the UK buy an investment that does that. You should have plenty of spare money to buy that product if you do want to be able to move somewhere else. Either way that asset is more liquid than a house and you can choose how much you want to invest in it and whether you want to stop.
Adjusting for inflation house prices are not in fact increasing so we may have found the top of prices anyway. Stuff like this project and more building should bring the costs down over time, provided house prices come down over a similar amount of time (20-30 years) that they took to inflate this shouldn't harm the economy or make anyone massively lose out.
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