Context 162 - November 2019

C O N T E X T 1 6 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9 21 New towns BOB COLENUTT and SABINE COADY SCHAEBITZ Saving new town heritage Protecting the extraordinary heritage of new towns will not bring back the post-war spirit of town planning and architectural idealism, but it will remind us of what is possible. The architecture critic of the Financial Times recently suggested that the new towns are the greatest architectural achievement of the 20th century. Yet the iconic architectural and urban heritage of post-war new towns in the UK and mainland Europe is in danger. Although post-war building heritage is undergoing a re- assessment in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, there is no national protection policy for the extensive heritage of the post-war new towns which represents a remarkable legacy of that period and is highly significant from a social and political point of view. One of the reasons why saving this heritage is important is that it concerns not just the loss of modernist architecture and post-war urban planning achievements.The recent focus on new town legacy is part of a wider reflection on the loss of the social and egalitarian mission that underpinned the new towns movement – a mis- sion that is missing from much contemporary town planning and architecture. It was in this context that a New Towns Heritage Research Network, including civic societies and universi- ties, was formed in 2017 (see www.mkcdc.org. uk/new-towns-heritage). The New Towns Heritage Research Network built on existing connections between academ- ics, local authorities and civic societies in new towns in the UK and mainland Europe (mainly in the Netherlands and France).The definitions, valuations and planning policies associated with new town heritage were discussed at a series of public events in six new towns (three in the UK, two in the Netherlands and one in France) organised through the network in 2018. New towns in the UK and mainland Europe were initially hailed as the answer to the ailments of the historic European city and the urgent need for housing after the second world war. Many studies of the new towns in the 1960s and 70s by Peter Hall and others were concerned with their effectiveness in dispersing population from large cities and with questions of whether they were self-sufficient or mainly commuter towns.The potential of new towns as a model for new settlements to address the national housing shortage is undergoing a revival promoted by the Town and Country Planning Association and now adopted in part by the government. However, the value of the planning, architectural or urban design heritage of the post-war new Mother and Child by Maurice Lambert in Basildon town centre (Photo: John Armagh, Wikimedia)