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South Norfolk put forward as possible new town area

Paul Moseley
BBC political reporter, Norfolk
BBC A partially built housing estate. In the background, a lot of flats have been completed. But in the foreground we can see construction work is taking place on more buildings.BBC
The government has said it wants 1.5m new homes to be built by 2029

A council leader said he would prefer an entire new town was built, instead of large numbers of homes being added to existing settlements.

South Norfolk District Council's (SNDC) Conservative leader Daniel Elmer said the authority had told the government it may be prepared to consider a new town in the district.

It follows the government's pledge to begin work on new towns before the next general election.

But countryside group the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said it did not want any new towns in Norfolk.

Ministers have said they want 1.5m extra homes built in England by 2029, with new towns of at least 10,000 properties contributing towards that figure.

The government said more than 100 locations had been suggested as potential sites and Elmer confirmed that, while it was "very early stages", SNDC had put its area forward as a potential site.

But he said the authority wanted guarantees that any new settlement would have adequate health, education and transport facilities.

The main street in Diss, Mere Street. It's a sunny day with shops on either side of a pedestrianised area. There are a few shoppers walking in the street.
There are currently six towns in South Norfolk, including Diss

Under the existing Greater Norwich Local Plan, 45,000 homes are due to be built in areas including south Norfolk.

"A new town gives you the opportunity to get it right and not to impact people who are already living in existing settlements," said Elmer.

"That can be disruptive for local schooling, it affects the views people get out of their own homes, and often gives a sense that what they paid for isn't what they now have."

'We need our green lands'

David Hook, from CPRE Norfolk, said the housing targets in existing plans were already "very high" and "we don't see the need for a new town at all".

"We need our green lands, we need North Yorkshire, we need Lincolnshire, we need Norfolk and Suffolk. We need those places to be different from Milton Keynes," he added.

"I'm not putting down Milton Keynes – but we need them to be different from those kind of environments."

It is expected that a government taskforce will identify specific locations for new towns by the summer, with a view to construction beginning by the time of the next election.

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