Suffolk garden city could become UK’s first new city in half a century
Plans to develop a new garden with almost half a million homes and a forest could become “Britain’s first new city in half a century”.
Businessmen Shiv Malik and Joseph Reeve are proposing to build ‘Forest City 1’ on farmland east of Cambridge, Suffolk, between Newmarket and Haverhill.
They claim that the new metropolis could provide affordable housing for almost a million people and even provide a potential solution to the housing crisis.
They hope to build 400,000 homes on 45,000 acres, as well as 12,000 acres of forest, about the size of York, but have not yet formalized the plans.
The idea was praised as “ridiculous” by West Suffolk Conservative MP Nick Timothy, who told the BBC that new housing was needed but proposals had to be “sensible”.
But Mr. Malik said Independent : “Britain needs growth, truly affordable housing, as well as a major restructuring of infrastructure. My millennials and younger generation have been completely fed up with all these problems for over a decade.
He added: “Our forest city project is a clear way to unlock £55bn in GDP, while also providing premium, four-bedroom homes for £350,000, regenerating nature with 12,000 acres of new forest and providing tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure for East Anglia and beyond.
“Putting most of the development in one place means we can move quickly and avoid having to anger millions of other Britons who are fed up with private developers and the characterless box houses they create.”
The project still needs parliamentary approval before a development company can start building it, similar to the way Canary Wharf and the 2012 London Olympic venues were built.
Mr Malik said: “We will be lobbying the government to ensure it starts planning for this with the same urgency with which it delivered the Olympics. If their new slogan is ‘build a baby’, it’s time to roll out Britain’s biggest and most ambitious project to date – our first new city in over 50 years.”
The criterion for a new city is to accommodate 200,000 people. The last city built from scratch was Milton Keynes 57 years ago; It was officially made a city along with seven other towns in 2022 to celebrate its Platinum Jubilee.
The plans have sparked interest from residents not only in Suffolk but also in London and Cambridge.
Mr Timothy said: “It’s really not credible; it hasn’t been proposed by any political party. My job is to give the government a hard time, but the government hasn’t proposed this… If it had been proposed by anyone credible, then of course I would be strongly opposed to it.”
In its election manifesto, Labor promised a target of 1.5 million homes by the end of the decade, aiming to extend homeownership to more Britons and provide a much-needed boost to economic growth.
But Neil Jefferson, chief executive of the Federation of Home Builders, warned: “The Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts for housing supply were ambitious. Figures can only be achieved in the right policy environment.”
Chris Curtis MP, chair of Labour’s Growth Group, said his party was “at risk of not achieving our ambitions because reform is too slow”.
