The government, keen to prove its housing credentials, has invited bids for a new generation of new towns. Rather than looking for fresh pastures green, it would be better building on what already exists, the outer city estates, those neglected post-war dormitory towns.
There is now an exciting opportunity for transforming their fortunes by making them the basis for a network of eco-towns.
This would provide the affordable housing that the country urgently needs, often without serious incursion into the green belt.
It is hard to be precise about the number of outer city estates or their total population because they do not exist as an official category, but we are talking about between 3.85% and 6.7% of the UK’s households, using Experian’s Mosaic classifications, or approximately 1m. to 1.77m. households (2012 data).
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