New towns – we need engineers to build them

‘New towns can drive industrial growth – but we need engineers to build them’

The publication of the New Towns Taskforce’s final report marks a significant step towards addressing two long-standing national challenges: the affordable housing crisis and the need for stronger, more productive local economies. This means new towns offer a practical mechanism for advancing the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy, by supporting its ambition to create 1.1 million well-paid jobs and boost economic growth. If spatial planning and infrastructure delivery for new towns are aligned with the strategy’s wider priorities, these places could become engines of regional renewal.

But achieving the housing goals set out by the taskforce will demand a major increase in capacity across planning, construction and development. Investment in a strong pipeline of skilled engineering professionals – alongside clear regionally specific delivery pathways and coordinated infrastructure planning – is the only way these towns will be built successfully and quickly enough to deliver the growth they are capable of.

Local delivery

Planning infrastructure and industry together allows new towns to reduce delivery risk, build local skills and attract investment aligned with the green and digital transitions. In turn, through infrastructure-led development, new towns can reflect and reinforce the ambitions of the Modern Industrial Strategy. This means designing new settlements around sustainable transport, clean energy systems and high-quality digital connectivity from the outset, ensuring the physical foundations for long-term economic resilience are in place.

Yet while the Modern Industrial Strategy is national in its ambition, its success will ultimately depend on effective local delivery, relying on a range of interconnected factors. Infrastructure has to be planned and delivered with a clear understanding of how it will shape the emerging place. It must also be operational ahead of occupation – without this, existing public facilities and transport networks risk becoming overstretched long before the benefits are realised.

Skills pipeline

Many of the services that new towns depend on are already constrained by limited funding and longstanding inefficiencies. Schools, GP surgeries, elderly care provision and high street retail often struggle to meet current demand, let alone the needs of major new communities.

Addressing these issues requires more than investment alone – a strong pipeline of skilled professionals, who can deliver the homes, employment spaces and infrastructure is essential, but capacity is falling short. Research shows that 82% of local authorities struggle to recruit town planners, while there are long-standing skills gaps across engineering.

Expanding access to the right skills is critical to resolving this. This means developing clearer career pathways across both the public and private sectors, ensuring people can gain the expertise needed to plan, design and build thriving new places.

Economic identities

To support long-term resilience, each new town should be shaped around the existing economic identity of its region – the distinctive mix of industries, skills, assets and specialisms that already define how a local economy operates. An identity includes the sectors a place is known for, the workforce strengths it has built over time, the research institutions or anchor employers located there, and the supply chains that support them.

By understanding these existing foundations, new towns can build on what already works well. This would help maximise local growth potential and position new towns as catalysts for regional specialisation rather than isolated, standalone developments.

When planners identify the industries that already drive local economies, they can integrate the training provision, workspace, infrastructure and digital connectivity needed to support those sectors to grow. In doing so, new towns can evolve into engines of economic development that reinforce and expand the industries most likely to deliver high-value jobs and long-term prosperity.

This can already be seen in several locations earmarked for new town development. Heyford Park for example, a designated new town location, is home to the Heyford Innovation Centre and a rapidly growing clean technologies ecosystem. New town status could accelerate this trajectory, helping to establish a major green growth hub. With this goal embedded from the beginning, essential low-carbon infrastructure and net-zero design principles can be integrated early in the development process.

Long-term prosperity

When planned in alignment with the Modern Industrial Strategy, new towns can deliver far greater impact. By embracing and amplifying regional industrial specialisms, they can reinvigorate local economies and create the certainty needed to attract long-term business investment. This coud help generate the jobs the UK urgently needs – not only in the planning, construction and engineering required to deliver new towns, but also across the wider sectors those towns are designed to support. Ultimately, new towns and the Industrial Strategy can reinforce each other, unlocking sustainable growth for communities across the country.