Garden cities and suburbs

Slideshows have been included in the early modules of this course to provide
examples of the types of houses that have been built firstly in the eight
centuries up to 1900 and then through the 20th century. This module starts to
explain the way in which the settlement of the country has been planned. It is
important to remember that some of the house types in the slideshows can
reasonably be seen as being complimentary to and important component of
the garden suburb and garden city.

This module starts with the disclaimer that there are many books have been
written about the British garden cities/suburbs and new towns (a topic for the
next module). Being one of the subjects on which there is a substantial
literature (including useful websites dedicated to all the towns and suburban
developments referred to) I will try to stimulate interest in this area of British
planning and development and place it in its historical context. Given the
current perception of the scale of housing need, the concept of “Garden City"
has become a mantra for many political parties and NGOs. They are seen to
be the least worst way of providing the hundreds of thousands of new
dwellings to meet the needs arising from a growing population and the even
faster increase in the creation of new households.

The “Garden City" is also one of the features of development in Britain that
has attracted international interest; from the first example at Letchworth,
followed closely by Welwyn and through to the continuing development of new
towns of which Milton Keynes is the final example.

Genesis

One of the driving forces behind the garden cities was the accepted need to
improve living conditions primarily on grounds of public health. The issue of
whether the large numbers of houses required could be provided by the
private or public sectors (or something in between) has never been
satisfactorily resolved. Tudor Walters MP gave his name to the housing
standards being applied in the early part of the 20th century. He also
recommended the building of large numbers of houses to be publicly owned
and generally affordable, arguing that each house should have at least 3
downstairs rooms and 3 bedrooms and the minimum floorspace of 75 sqm.
He advised that there should also be no more than 12 houses per acre, a
density that has been prevalent throughout the 20th century and the early
years of the 21st (translating as 30 dwellings per hectare). The Housing and
Town Planning Act of 1919 required local associations to assess the housing
needs of their areas leading to 4 million houses being built in the next 20
years. (Hennessy P 1993 Never Again: Britain 1945-1951 Vintage p 166).
This is the rate of building (e.g. about 200,000 units per year which remains
an aspiration in 2013, although it has rarely been achieved.

As the standard of dwellings was to improve so was the environment a

consideration as to how housing related to other land uses. The Garden City
movement, inspired by a diffuse form of semi-anarchist politics (i.e. advocated
by reformers like Pierre- Joseph Proudhon with influence from Peter
Kropotkin, William Morris and John Ruskin). The movement planned to build
new cities in rural areas with low density housing in squares and cloisters
emulating the communality of mediaeval life. The Garden City Association
(now the Town and Country Planning Association) was funded by liberal
businessmen such as William Hesketh Lever who was responsible for
promoting its first site in 1899 to 1914 at Port Sunlight.

Other important thinkers at this time included Henry George and Herbert
Spencer who advocated a change to the taxation of land, developing a
scheme that is still being considered by modern political parties, through
which increase in land value would be returned to the community. It was
hoped that the new civilisation would act in community interest and not self
interest. The escape from and reform of the Victorian city was driven by a
mixture of arts and crafts, Benthamite Utlitarianism, Utopian
philosophy, Christian and Fabian socialism - a mixture of idealism and
pragmatism and personalities such as the Webbs, Octavia Hill (famous for
social housing and as being a founder of the National Trust), and Henrietta
Barnett (the instigator of Hampstead Garden Suburb (see previous
slideshow).

In 1898, the social reformer Ebenezer Howard wrote a book entitled To-
morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (later republished as Garden Cities
of To-morrow). Engalnd about was 50% urbanised including some cities in
'frightening conditions'. Howard saw the development of garden cities asa way
to provide more space, better living conditions as a good things in
themselves, and as a joyous union of town and country, amounting to a new
civilisation in a better environment.

George Bernard Shaw described Howard as a ‘heroic simpleton’ who got on

and did big things whilst our prominent worldlings explain why such
developments would be Utopian and impossible. Although the influence is not
easy to detect in the examples of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City,
Howard did live in the US from 1871 to 1876 and witnessed both sky scrapers
and suburban sprawl (a phenomenon that had started in the pre car era).
However, his ideas might have influenced the examples of garden cities in the
US.

Howard was very keen to see a balance between the new housing and
employment opportunities. Shaw pointed out, “… that manufacturers were
ready enough to go into the country; but what they went there for was cheap
labour. I suggested that half a dozen big manufacturers building a city could
give good wages, and yet get some of them back in rent …[and]… that the
enterprise might pay them all the same...." Shaw accredited Howard as being,
“… a mere spring of benevolent mud." Hall P 2002 Cities of tomorrow: An
intellectual history of urban planning and design in 20th-century Blackwell

It should be noted as part of the context of this debate, that the population of
England in 1900 was about 33m, 4.5m of whom were living in London. As
Howard was developing his ideas for an urban exodus, the need for decent
housing in London itself was recognised as being desperately needed.
Council housing started in 1890s. The earliest examples were developed by
the London County Council (LCC) at Pimlico in 1898 to 1905, and at about
the same time at Boundary Park (see previous module for slideshow).

Legal framework and its operation

The legislation dedicated to garden cities (and new towns) will be seen as an
indication that their development was not anticipated by and did not emerge
through the application of the legislation that has been applied to
development in general. In fact planning legislation evolved as much as a
means of preventing as promoting new development. The 1909 Housing and
Town Planning Act introduced a scheme for the control of suburban growth
which proved to be cumbersome and hard to implement especially in the
absence of people employed tin its implementation (only 4 “planners" in the
whole country).

In 1914 the Royal Town Planning Institute was founded (2014 will be its
centenary year and an opportunity to track celebrations designed to explain
the achievements of planners and planning over the last 100 years). The
object of the Institute is to advance the science and art of town planning for
the benefit of the public. In the last hundred years 4 has grown to about
23,000, the current membership of the Institute, about 80% being employed in
public sector, but a lot of ‘planning’ is being done by surveyors and architects
(since the Localism Act of 2011 Neighbourhood development planning is in
the hands of laymen). The RTPI describe planning as “a balancing act
between constructing modern communities and conserving natural and built
heritage to create diverse, vibrant and sustainable places where people want
to live, work and play. Balance means poise, stability, fairness, neutrality or
qualities indispensable for planners. If you can be poised, stable, fair and
neutral in the face of competing interests them planning could be the career
for you.”

1919 Housing and Town Planning Act introduced the concept of ‘betterment’,
being works which increased land value which was untaxed and which also
created a liability for compensation If permission to develop was refused. This
was a system that implied some substantial public costs and was introduced
at a time when the building industry was also in a very disorganised state.
This combination of factors meant that the mechanism of betterment and
compensation was little used. The subsequent attempts to extract
development land value for public benefit will be addressed in a later module

In 1923 the Chamberlain Act was passed with the primary aim of encouraging
private enterprise in the private house-building industry, incentives that were
removed by 1929. 1924 Housing Act (the Wheatley Act) subsidised rents to
stimulate building and also placed a limit of 12 houses per acre.

1925 Town Planning Act was intended to take control of urban sprawl at the
time of the experiment with garden cities.
1932 Town & Country Planning Act was another attempt to control sprawl
through what was termed ‘Schemes’. Penalties introduced for unauthorised
development were regularly ignored and councils could still not afford to pay
compensation when permission was refused.

In 1933 all authorities were to concentrate on slum clearance submitting five-

year programmes of both demolition and building to the Government.

The 1935 Restriction of Ribbon Development Act sought to prevent the

freeloading on existing infrastructure and associated access problems,
incidentally limiting incursions into the countryside.

1944, that is before the end of World War II, saw the publication of a planning
White Paper which was the precursor to the 1947 Town & Country Planning
Act. This Act steered through the post war Parliament by the Labour Minister
Lewis Silkin introduced a definition of ‘development’ for which planning
permission would be required. This definition and the nationalisation of the
right to develop land has remained effectively unchanged. The 1947 Act also
introduced the power to designate “listed buildings" and a requirement to
obtain consent for alterations to their character.

Further planning legislation was introduced in 1968 and 1971 (prescribing a

system for the production of development plans). The Civic Amenities Act
1967 gave local authorities the power to designate conservation areas (areas
of architectural or historic interest within which the character and appearance
should be preserved or enhanced through the exercise of powers over
demolition and alterations to buildings – also affording protection to trees) of
which there are now nearly 10,000.

The powers of local planning authorities have not been substantially changed
by the subsequent planning legislation in 1990, 1991, 2004 and 2008. That is
not to say that the way in which development has occurred has remained the
same. The 1991 Planning and Compensation Act was intended to give
primacy to development plans (a plan-led system) in deciding where new
developments should occur. Difficulties experienced by planning authorities in
actually producing and adopting plans has often given rise to a more chaotic
“system" described as “planning or, more accurately, permission by appeal".
A substantial amount of development has been carried out under permissions
granted by the Secretary of State on appeal in the absence of up-to-date
plans adopted at local level.

A system of regional planning (requiring the production of Regional Spatial

Strategies) was introduced by the Labour government in the 2004 Planning
and Compulsory Purchase Act. As the time when these strategies were being
adopted the national government changed and the Conservative led coalition
disbanded the regional planning authorities together with their strategies.

In summary, over the last hundred years, the private development industry
has become a major part of the national economy over which it has been
difficult to exert any effective public controls. Developments by and on behalf
of local authorities have been scaled back. Successive changes to the law
have had the effect of disrupting and disabling the ability of planning
authorities to produce up-to-date plans. In the absence of such plans large-
scale residential developments have occurred in locations where the
development industry has expressed and pursued its interests; being
permitted actually by the Secretary of State or by local planning authorities
under the threat of an appeal to the Secretary of State against a refusal of
permission. Unlike Wales, in England there has been no spatial strategy or
plan at national level and only briefly, a flirtation with regional planning
following the 2004 Act.

Meanwhile, the types of housing have not changed in any particular or

definable way. Changes that have occurred will have been seen in the
slideshows and will be the subject of further discussion in subsequent
modules. Some of the changes have been in response to changes in planning
policy rather than changes to the relevant law.

The Garden City

As noted by Hennessey, more than 4 million homes were built between 1919
and 1939. People moved to the new suburbs in droves, where they could
purchase their dream homes. The introduction of hire purchase meant people
could equip their homes with the latest looks. Almost three million homes
were built in Britain in the 1930s. Personal and family wealth and improved
transport links enabled a burgeoning middle class to leave crowded inner
cities for space and peace in the suburbs where over 80% of the population
now live.

Welwyn Garden City was developed through the 1920s following Howard’s
previous experiment in Letchworth Garden City. A garden city was defined by
Howard as, "a town designed for healthy living and industry of a size that
makes possible a full measure of social life but not larger, surrounded by a
rural belt; the whole of the land being in public ownership, or held in trust for
the community”. In 1919, Howard arranged for the purchase of land in
Hertfordshire that had already been identified as a suitable site. On 29 April
1920 a company, Welwyn Garden City Limited, was formed to plan and build
the garden city, chaired by Sir Theodore Chambers. Louis de Soissons was
appointed as architect and town planner and Frederic Osborn as secretary.
The first house was occupied just before Christmas 1920. The town is laid out
along tree-lined boulevards with a neo-Georgian town centre. It had and has
its own environmental protection legislation, the Scheme of Management for
Welwyn Garden City. Every road has a wide grass verge. The spine of the
town is Parkway, a central mall or scenic road, almost a mile long. The view
along Parkway to the south was once described as one of the world's finest
urban vistas.

The original planners intended that all the residents of the garden city would
shop in one shop and created the Welwyn Stores, a monopoly which caused
some local resentment. Commercial pressures have since ensured much
more competition and variety, and the Welwyn Stores were in 1984 taken
over by the John Lewis Partnership. A shopping mall, the Howard Centre, was
built in the 1980s, incorporating the original railway station.
In 1948, Welwyn Garden City was designated a new town under the New
Towns Act 1946 and the Welwyn Garden City company handed its assets to
the Welwyn Garden City Development Corporation. Louis de Soissons
remained as its planning consultant. That year The Times compared Welwyn
Garden City with Hatfield. It described Welwyn Garden City as a world-
famous modern new town developed as an experiment in community planning
and Hatfield as an unplanned settlement created by sporadic building in the
open country. "Welwyn, though far from perfect, made the New Towns Act
possible, just as Hatfield, by its imperfection, made it necessary." In 1966, the
Development Corporation was wound up and handed over to the Commission
for New Towns. The housing stock, neighbourhood shopping and green
spaces were passed to Welwyn Hatfield District Council between 1978 and
1983. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welwyn_Garden_City

The Garden Suburb

The literature on the garden suburb is dominated by the example of

Hampstead Garden Suburb http://www.hgs.org.uk/ - often referred to by its
residents as “The Suburb - started at the end of the 19th and completed at
the beginning of the 20th centuries. This was a development devised and
promoted by Henrietta Barnett who gave her name to the secondary school
built at the centre of the suburb. A (partial) photographic survey of the area is
included in an earlier slideshow. A fundamental principle of the development
was to include a wide if not full range of types of dwelling aimed at the
accommodation of small and large families from the lower to the upper
classes – in a location accessible to the newly constructed Northern Line
station at Golders Green. A primary school was also included and the
Henrietta Barnett secondary school doubled up as an institute for adult
learning. The central square included a Catholic Church (St Jude’s) a ‘Free
Church’ to cover a range of Christian beliefs and a Quaker meeting house.
Shops were developed around the periphery but no public house was
included in or on the edge of the suburb. The ambience of a garden suburb
was created by retaining significant areas of existing oak woodland and
adding extensive new planting of trees and hedges (Henrietta Barnett sought
to have an apple tree planted in every garden). Allotment gardens and tennis
courts were tucked away with access by twittern (local name for footpath).

As can be seen in the slideshow and numerous images available on the Web,
the predominant style of architecture was Arts and Crafts otherwise known as
olde English or agreeable and comfortable”. The development was principally
carried out by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker following their collaboration
at New Earswick. and Brentham (see below). This style had emerged a few
years earlier in the development starting in 1899 at Port Sunlight
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Sunlight).

Another notable example of garden suburbs is to be found at Brentham in the

west London Borough of Ealing. Brentham Garden Suburb is a development
of 620 houses. The first garden suburb to be built on 'Co-partnership'
principles and an inspiration for the later, larger and more famous Hampstead
Garden Suburb, it has made a mark on twentieth-century domestic
architecture, town planning and social housing out of all proportion to its size.
The Labour, Co-operative, Arts and Crafts, and Garden City movements are
all part of the Brentham story. The suburb was designed to a plan by the
leading garden city architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, with houses,
mostly in the Arts and Crafts style, by George Lister Sutcliffe and Frederic
Cavendish Pearson. http://www.brentham.com/

Summary

Given the reliance that the garden city and suburb place on planting for the
ambiance that now makes them so popular, it should be remembered that the
designers were deprived of fully appreciating their handiwork that came to
fruition as the landscape matured thirty and more years later The impact of
planting on property values has been measured as ‘non trivial’ in a variety of
areas, not only in the examples in Hampstead and Brentham.

We will return to garden cities and suburbs just as the current Government
(and opposition) has. The Town and Country Planning Association
(http://www.tcpa.org.uk/) were in at the beginning and continue to promote the
garden city as the response to the housing shortage if not to dire and
dangerous conditions of our urban areas. We will also address the eco town
as a modern version of the new town or garden city.

Finally it is important to note the difference between suburbs and new

settlements. The first can contribute to changes in the original town. The new
settlements can contribute to the social and economic geography of the area
or region in which they are located but can also take a long time to develop an
identity and community engagement.

This is one comment from a property professional, “The solution is to build

garden suburbs as extensions to our existing cities, providing much-needed
family housing. This is far more sustainable than creating new settlements far
away from existing employment. Meanwhile, we should also think hard about
how we can make central London as attractive a place for families as Paris or
New York, or help Birmingham and Manchester to compete with Munich,
Amsterdam or Toulouse. The very last thing we need is another dose, albeit
heavily disguised, of an age-old English rural fantasy. Forget garden cities, we
need a garden suburbs movement. Guardian Professional, Tuesday 30
October 2012 08.22 GMT Jon Neale UK head of research at Jones Lang
LaSalle