Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, in his opening keynote at this year’s conference at RIBA, emphasised that in order to create successful communities, garden communities need to deliver schemes with mixed use that would include shops, cafes and open space as well as new homes – modern market towns.
He explained that we now understand net zero ambitions, how to build houses, the merits of MMC and the value of green space, the challenge was to create communities. Lord Taylor highlighted the need to leverage the value of the landscape in which communities are situated, but stressed it was vital to recognise that what creates a community are the places where people meet and interact. There was a need to look at an urban model, and appreciate that the value of homes and the value of shops and cafes could not be separated.
Lord Matthew Taylor, author of the 2006-8 Government rural planning review “Living Working Countryside’, led the 2011-12 Government review creating the National Planning Practice Guidance suite. In 2015 his ‘Garden Villages’ proposal was adopted as national policy at the March 2016 Budget as the Garden Communities programme. He now advises both public and private sector clients on major new garden community projects.
