Take, for example, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s comments on multiple ‘new towns’ proposed across the country, intended to address the chronic housing shortages that have afflicted the country for decades. He says these developments will make use of two ‘traditional’ architectural housing types: the Georgian terrace and the Edwardian mansion block. This seems to be an echo of President Trump’s demand that all Federal buildings in the US should be classical or traditional designs, and a louder echo of the sort of architecture King Charles would like.

However, in the US Federal buildings are commissioned and funded by the State. What will be the situation in respect of UK new towns? Previous administrations have tried out the same sort of development ideas, first with ‘eco towns’ and then ‘garden cities’, none of which came to fruition, but wasted years of planning authority time and resources arguing about location, scale, and (occasionally) design itself.

You wonder if Sir Keir has based his proposition on any assessment of market demand. People who want to live in urban streets and blocks are more likely to buy homes of this sort in existing cities – and more than 90 per cent of housing transactions in the UK involve second-hand and historic buildings.

On the other hand, people anxious to move to the countryside, which is where most of these proposed new towns will be based, are generally looking for detached houses with big gardens and large garages, that is to say the sort of home that is probably unavailable in cities because of cost.

As far as growth is concerned, one has to ask: over what time period? New towns notoriously take a long time to come into being, during which period no houses get built. Infrastructure is essential, and this can take decades to organize. That is why Richard Rogers, a major Labour figure commissioned to work out how to revitalise our towns and cities, insisted in his report, Towards an Urban Renaissance (1999) that we could provide four million extra homes by 2025 by locating them around transport nodes in existing urban locations, without any need to encroach into Green Belt.

Calculated amnesia being the defining condition of today’s politicians, there has been no mention of this document by Sir Keir or any other Labour panjandrum. Instead, they pretend that it is the Green Belt that is causing the housing shortage, along with other fantasies about the way the housing market works in practice.

Splattering new towns all over the place may or may not be a good idea, but it will certainly not deliver new housing in a hurry – which is a pity because Labour claim that they will generate 1.5 million homes by the end of their first (possibly last) term in government. This ludicrous figure will only be achieved by some form of statistical manipulation, for example by claiming that local authority estate upgrades should be included in the figures, even if there is little net gain, which is the only figure that matters. This is particularly the case in light of official forecasts of population growth in the UK, the net additional number being five million by 2040. Richard Rogers starts to look increasingly relevant.

Splattering new towns all over the place may or may not be a good idea, but it will certainly not deliver new housing in a hurry – which is a pity because Labour claim that they will generate 1.5 million homes by the end of their first (possibly last) term in government. This ludicrous figure will only be achieved by some form of statistical manipulation, for example by claiming that local authority estate upgrades should be included in the figures, even if there is little net gain, which is the only figure that matters. This is particularly the case in light of official forecasts of population growth in the UK, the net additional number being five million by 2040. Richard Rogers starts to look increasingly relevant.

The consequence is that our local councils are by and large devoid of experienced staff, and politicians with commitment, capable of procuring significant housing development in their communities. The disastrous failure of Croydon Council is an object lesson in why we should be careful about thinking municipal housing is an easy option.

As has been argued here before, what might work is a vitaminised Homes England body, given the sort of brief and resources familiar to WAF from our observation of the brilliant work by Singapore’s Housing & Development Board, which has managed to keep some balance between demand and supply since independence from the UK in 1965. HDB owns land, procures housing directly, is centrally funded, staffed by people who know about development, and has planning powers.

This might remind us, albeit at smaller scale, of the UK Olympic Delivery Authority, which built the biggest housing scheme in London for 50 years as part of the London 2012 programme. This is the informing spirit we now need.

Cometh the hour . . .

The chairman of that ODA from 2007 to 2014 was Sir John Armitt, who now heads the National Infrastructure Commission. If only housing were treated as infrastructure, we might have built much more in recent years. Perhaps it is not too late to treat it as such and put someone like Sir John (or perhaps Sir John himself) in charge of strategy.

Let’s hope the government was listening to his recent comments on the expansion of Heathrow airport with a new runway, also trumpeted as part of the Labour ‘growth’ strategy. In measured tones in a radio interview, Sir John did not oppose the idea of an additional runway, he simply pointed out that it would take years before any construction would begin, almost certainly way beyond the lifespan of the Starmer government.

It was kind of him not to point out two additional things: first, that the money that will be spent on preparing for Heathrow expansion would be better spent on other forms of development, particularly housing; second, that there is a nearby airport (Gatwick) which already has an additional runway which could be brought into use relatively quickly by moving it a few metres, turning it from emergency to regular use.

The government needs to give approval to this proposal, which will be privately funded (to be fair, so would the Heathrow expansion). Will it do so? This might provide a clue about the reality of the claims being made about the desirability of growth.