£2.5m cash boost for garden towns

Nine locally-led garden town developments, from Bicester to Taunton, will each receive new funding to fast track the build out of these large housing projects.

The new funding will support local authorities and communities in delivering ambitious proposals, speeding up the progress of developments through additional dedicated resources and expertise.

Garden towns being supported by government are committed to delivering high quality, well-planed and well-designed new communities that will stand out as exemplars of good development in years to come.

The funding will support the development of nine new locally-led garden towns at Bicester, Didcot, Basingstoke, Otterpool Park in Kent, Aylesbury, Taunton, Harlow-Gilston, North Northamptonshire and North Essex.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said:

Locally-led garden towns have enormous potential to deliver the homes that communities need. This new funding will help support the construction of more than 155,000 homes in 9 places across the country.

New communities not only deliver homes, but also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to local economies.

The Government’s Housing White Paper sets out bold new plans to ensure the housing market works for everyone, so that more people can have the security of a decent place to live.

Across England, Government is supporting the locally-led development of 10 garden towns and cities, as well as 14 garden villages – with the combined potential to deliver 220,000 new homes across England.

Further information:

Allocations for the 9 garden towns are as follows:

Garden town	Funding allocation	Number of proposed new homes
Bicester	£500,000	13,000 new homes
Basingstoke	£95,000	10,000 new homes
Didcot	£295,000	15,000 new homes
North Essex Garden Communities	£700,000	43,000 new homes
North Northants Garden Communities	£50,000	18,000 new homes
Otterpool Park, Shepway	£155,000	12,000 new homes
Taunton	£375,000	13,000 new homes
Aylesbury	£155,000	15,000 new homes
Harlow & Gilston	£175,000	16,000 new homes

• A garden town is a development of more than 10,000 homes. Garden villages are smaller settlements of between 1,500 and 10,000 homes.

• Government is encouraging different and ambitious solutions to fix the housing market. There are pioneering examples of this already taking place in garden towns around the country: for example, as recently announced the Graven Hill site in Bicester Garden Town is providing 2,000 serviced plots for self builders.