Text 3. Some Special Aspects of New Towns in Britain

According to the new town programme of Britain there are now – fifteen new towns – twelve in England and three in Scotland. In most of the new towns the new centres are taking shape as the hub round which the life of the community will revolve – several of them already house office blocks and civic buildings as well as the larger shops and multiple stores.

Essential public services – the telephone and postal services, the health services, the bus services, the fire servi­ce have been extended to deal with the increased numbers of people who use them.

Sites. The finding of sites for the new towns, originally planned for populations of between 50,000 and 60,000 was not easy. The ideal-site for a town of this size is said to be about 6,000 acres of stable land, with good drainage and plentiful supplies of water, near main roads and railways, and well situated for the needs of industry. Sometimes, when the site chosen had as its nucleus an existing town, village or group of villages, there was considerable local opposition to be overcome; sometimes the nature of the ground created serious engineering problems; sometimes the absence of a previous population meant that there was no local building force available so that labour had to be imported at considerable cost; sometimes communications were particularly poor.

Layout and design. The first step in the establishment of each new town – it did not matter whether it was to be created from the beginning, or to be greatly expanded, or simply to be completed on modern new town lines – was the preparation of a master plan for the whole area which was done in consultation with the responsible minister, any other interested Government department and the local authorities responsible for the area in which the new town would lie.

Great attention has been paid to the natural characte­ristics and contours of the land, to the interrelation and grouping of buildings, to varying street patterns, to the best use of open space in the arrangement of gardens and greens as well as in the provision of parks and playing fields and to the preservation and planting of woodlands and individual trees.

Housing. Designers and architects have exercised considerable ingenuity in devising local street patterns that are often interesting to look at as well as fitted to contemporary needs, e.g. road safety requirements. Houses have been built at varying levels – some in terraces grouped and curved along footpaths and roads with wide grass verges, and others in squares, or round village greens; and sometimes, at strategic points in the layouts the basic materials traditional to the area have been combined with conventional modern materials, and contrasting facings and colours have been used.

Variety in house design extends even to houses of the same size and elevation: there are often differences in the measurements, arrangement and finish of the rooms.

Industrial development. Industrial development in the new towns has gone on steadily since 1948. The majority of towns have a fair variety of industry, although occasionally one industry predominates. The factory esta­tes in the new towns have been so sited that while they do not encroach upon the neighbourhoods, they can be reached conveniently by bicycle or on foot. In design they share the characteristics of other new town development: both standard and made-to-measure factory buildings have been constructed in varying sizes to good effect and careful attention has been paid to landscaping, in the re­lation of one building to another, and in the position and appearance of the communicating roads.

Town centres. The town centres have provided the main opportunity for architectural adventure; all of them are interesting; one or two have excited special admiration, notably Stevenage, which is planned on the all-pedestrian principle, with traffic roads ringing the shopping core and ample car parks sited of the traffic roads.

All the town centres have been designed to contain the more important public buildings: the town hall, central post office, the public library, the health centre, the fire station and etc.

Public open spaces – parks, children's playgrounds and sports fields have been provided in all the towns.