Lessons from the British and French New Towns: Paradise Lost?

Lessons from the British and French New Towns This page intentionally left blank Lessons from the British and French New Towns: Paradise Lost? EDITED BY DAVID FÉE University of Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, France SABINE COADY SCHÄBITZ Coventry University, UK BOB COLENUTT Oxford Brookes University, UK United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2021 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-83909-431-6 (Print) ISBN: 978-1-83909-430-9 (Online) ISBN: 978-1-83909-432-3 (Epub) Contents List of Figures vii List of Tables ix About the Contributors xi Acknowledgements xv Lessons from British and French New Towns: Paradise Lost? David Fée, Sabine Coady Schäbitz and Bob Colenutt 1 Part I: The New Towns and Policymakers Chapter 1 Reinventing the Healthy Garden City: Ebbsfleet’s learning from the New Towns Elanor Warwick 19 Chapter 2 Loss and Longing: Whatever Happened to the Egalitarian Ethos of the UK New Towns? Bob Colenutt 35 Chapter 3 Unpacking the Official View: Five Myths on British New Towns Helena Rivera 45 Chapter 4 Beyond Your Wildest Dreams? Building New Towns in France Today David Fée 61 Part II: The New Towns and Their Residents Chapter 5 Ways of Knowing the Landscape of the New Towns: A Lefebvrian Analysis Susan Fitzpatrick 75 vi Contents Chapter 6 The Suburban Urbanity of the New Towns: Everyday Life in Cergy-Pontoise and Milton Keynes Ivan Nio 89 Chapter 7 Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines: Lessons Learned from the Years 1965–2019 Danielle Gardrat and Frédéric Theulé 101 PART III: The New Towns in their Wider Regional and International Context Chapter 8 The London New Towns in Their Changing Regional Context Tony Champion 117 Chapter 9 Planning the World’s New Towns – A Tale of Two Countries, 1975–2013 Clément Orillard and Stephen V. Ward 129 Chapter 10 Learning from the Contrasting Histories and Trajectories of Harlow and Thamesmead Julia Deltoro-Soto and Stephen Marshall 143 PART IV: The New Towns and Heritage Chapter 11 Public Art in British New Towns: The Past, Present and Future Alina Congreve 159 Chapter 12 Public Art in French New Towns: From Experiments to Heritage Loic Vadelorge 173 Chapter 13 A Tangible Utopia: The Genesis of Built Experiments in French New Towns Catherine Blain 183 Chapter 14 A Controversial Heritage: New Towns and the Problematic Legacy of Modernism Sabine Coady Schäbitz 197 Conclusion 215 Index 219 List of Figures Fig. 1.1. Arial masterplan of Ebbsfleet Garden City showing regional links to London and via the Thames Crossing, with local connections between the six village neighbourhoods. 28 Fig. 3.1. Five Myths of the British New Towns. 46 Fig. 7.1. Bird’s Eye View of the Centre of Saint Quentin en Yvelines. 102 Fig. 7.2. Sept-Mares. 104 Fig. 7.3. Le Pas Du Lac, Erasmus Park. 108 Fig. 8.1. Annual Average Population Change, 1951–2018, for London New Towns, Arranged by Date of Designation. 120 Fig. 8.2. Occupational Structure of London New Towns Compared with the Wider Region, 2018. 124 Fig. 9.1. International Promotion of British Planning Consultants by UK Government. 134 Fig. 9.2. Cover of the GIEVNF Brochure. 137 Fig. 10.1. Comparative Analysis of Harlow and Thamesmead, as Planned. 149 Fig. 10.2. Comparative Analysis of Harlow and Thamesmead, as Planned and as Built. 154 Fig. 11.1. Milton Keynes Rose in Campbell Park. 161 Fig. 11.2. Women with Doves from Stevenage Town Centre Gardens. 164 Fig. 11.3. Harlow Water Gardens by Bill Mitchell. 165 Fig. 13.1. Evry Pyramides. 191 This page intentionally left blank List of Tables Table 8.1. London New Towns’ Contribution to Regional Population Growth, 1951–2018. 122 Table 8.2. Job Ratio and Index of Commuting Independence, 1971 and 2011, for London New Towns. 125 Table 10.1. Comparison between Harlow and Thamesmead. 145 This page intentionally left blank About the Contributors Catherine Blain, Architect and PhD in Urbanism, is a Research Fellow and a Lec- turer at Ensap in Lille (LACTH). Her research, mainly focussed on the French Post-War period, develops different lines of investigation such as the CIAM and Team 10 debates or the history of New Towns. Author of several books and articles, she was the curator of the exhibition L’Atelier de Montrouge, la moder- nité à l’œuvre (1958–1981) (CAPA, 2008). She is an active member of DoCo- MoMo-France (scientific committee), Vice-president of the French Association d’Histoire de l’Architecture (AHA) and member of European Architectural His- tory Network (EAHN). Tony Champion is Emeritus Professor of Population Geography at Newcas- tle University. His research interests include change in population distribution and composition, with particular reference to counterurbanisation in developed countries and the policy implications of changes in local population profiles. He led the IUSSP’s Working Group on Urbanisation in 1999–2002 and is author or co-author of several books, most recently Internal Migration in the Developed World (2018), Population Change in the United Kingdom (2016), New Forms of Urbanization: Beyond the Urban-Rural Dichotomy (2004) and The Containment of Urban Britain: Retrospect and Prospect (2002). Sabine Coady Schäbitz is an Associate Professor in Architecture and Associate Head of School of Art and Design at Coventry University. She is trained as an architect at the Bauhaus-University in Weimar and studied architectural conservation at ICCROM in Rome. She was the Co-Investigator for the New Towns Heritage Research Network project funded through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in 2016–2018. Her publications focus on cultural heritage, architectural and urban history, and design education. Bob Colenutt is an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. He has a career in urban planning in local government and the community sector. He was the Principal Investigator for the New Towns Heritage Research Network project funded through the AHRC in 2016–2018. He is the author of several books and articles on housing development, community development and urban policy. Alina Congreve has worked as a Lecturer and Principal Lecturer specialising in Planning and Housing at a number of universities including London School of xii About the Contributors Economics (LSE), University College London (UCL), Reading and Hertfordshire. At Reading and Hertfordshire, her postgraduate teaching had a strong focus on new towns. She has supervised a number of postgraduate dissertations and group projects on different aspects of New Towns including Bracknell, Hemel Hemp- stead, Hatfield, Stevenage and Milton Keynes. She holds a PhD in Geography and Planning from King’s College London and an MSc in Conservation from UCL. She is a trustee of the Harlow Art Trust, and was invited to join the trustees after organising a conference to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Harlow New Town. Julia Deltoro-Soto is a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Construction at the Uni- versitat Politècnica de València, with a background as an architect and urban designer. She obtained her PhD in Architecture in 2015 with the theme: Urban experience of British New Towns through compared examples; Harlow, Thamesmead and Milton Keynes. She has researched and published on topics related to urban design and planning, urban history and morphology, New Towns and economic and industrial land planning and strategies. David Fée is a Professor of British Studies at the University of Sorbonne Nou- velle in Paris and Head of CREC, the Sorbonne Nouvelle Research Centre on contemporary Britain. He specialises in the study of housing and urban policies in the UK as well as the British welfare state. He is the author of many articles on housing and planning in the UK as well as a book on the housing crisis in the UK (La crise du logement en Angleterre: 40 ans de politiques du logement et de la ville, Paris: Michel Houdiard, 2013). His current topics of research include inequalities in the UK, and British and French New Towns from a comparative and international perspective. Susan Fitzpatrick is a Lecturer in Human Geography at York St John University, UK. She has been researching placemaking and the British New Town since 2015. She has previously published work on residents’ responses to cultural and regen- eration policy in the context of both Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture of 2008 and Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games in 2014. Danielle Gardrat is the Head of Planning and Development for the Saint-Quentin- en-Yvelines combined authority. She leads a 12-member team in charge of the new local plan, the climate plan, as well as urban studies at various levels and planning documents. She holds a Master’s degree in Planning and Urban Projects Management from Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris, and a degree in Sociol- ogy. Previously, she worked in the New Town development corporation of Cergy- Pontoise (EPA) for 13 years.

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