Foreword
There are now eighteen new towns in Britain, some only just starting and some well advanced
towards completion. The planning and building of each town is the responsibility of a development corporation appointed under the New
Towns Act, 1946, and charged with the duty of creating a town in which people can live, work and spend their leisure in pleasant
surroundings. The development corporations are financed by the Government, but private enterprise provides some of the factories, shops
and houses. Eight of the towns - Basildon, Bracknell, Crawley, Harlow, Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage and Welwyn Garden
City - lie in open country twenty to thirty miles from London. Their special purpose is to provide homes with work near at hand for some half
a million people who would otherwise be living in crowded conditions in London or travelling long distances to work. Three other new
towns - Newton Aycliffe, and Peterlee in County Durham, and Corby in Northamptonshire - offer solutions to problems created by the
particular needs of local industries. A new town at Skelmersdale in Lancashire will take families from Merseyside, and Dawley in Shropshire,
only recently designated, will do the same for Birmingham and the Black Country. The welsh new town, Cwmbran in Monmouthshire, serves local
industry. There are four new towns in Scotland - Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Glenrothes and Livingston - mainly designed to relieve overcrowding
in Glasgow. The scale of this enterprise is unique in the history of Britain, and nothing comparable has been undertaken elsewhere.
Most of the towns are planned with a number of residential neighbourhoods, each with its own schools, shops and social facilities, and all within
easy reach of the industrial areas essential to every new town. Parks and playing-fields are conveniently sited for general use, and in the town
centre are to be found the public buildings offices and principal shops, with ample car parks close by. Each town is developing its own distinctive
features and special character. Most of those attracted to the new towns are the younger wage earners, but as the towns grow provision is made
for all classes and callings, and for all ages. The proportion of families is considerably higher than in the older towns, and the healthy
appearance of the children is one of the most refreshing features of these new and lively communities. The most important factor in the success
of the new towns is the provision of employment. Already nearly 16 million square feet of new factory space have been built, and offices, research
laboratories and branches of government departments are established in the towns. Most of them can still offer attractive sites or buildings on
reasonable terms for the wide variety of industrial and commercial business which will afford wide scope for the growing number of young people
leaving school each year and seeking employment. Office organisations will be particularly welcome and will find the new towns a valuable source of
staff recruitment. The Commission for the New Towns has been established under the New Towns Act 1959, to take over new towns in
England and Wales from the development corporations when their purposes have been substantially achieved. Crawley and Hemel Hempstead have
reached that point, having come to the end of the first stage of rapid development and transfer of population, and they will now become consolidated
by the natural increase of their population. The Commission has taken over both towns, and the development corporations have been dissolved.
In addition to those mentioned above, proposals for three further new towns in England were announced in February 1963 - at Redditch near
Birmingham, at Runcorn near Liverpool, and on a site to be selected near Manchester.
BASILDON Essex (London 30 miles. On main roads A13 and A127)
Planned population: 106,000
Chairman: Sir Humfrey Gale KBE, CB, CVO, MC
General Manager: R.C.C. Boniface
Development
Corporation offices: Gifford House, Basildon, Essex. (N B Gifford House is outside the designated area)
Telephone: Vange 3261/8
the town Until the turn of the century the designated area of Basildon New Town, compromising some 7,818 acres, was rather
indifferent farm land flanking the north bank of the Thames. The direct railway line from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness laid down in 1888, bisected
the area from west to east. The depression in agriculture led to the splitting up of the larger farms into small plots which were bought up by Londoners
for building weekend cottages and huts. In this process little regard was paid to the most elementary principles of planning, the roads and sewers and
other services were for the most part lacking. Because of the housing shortage many of these dwellings came to be used as permanent
homes, for which purpose they were quite unsuited. Small shopping centres grew up at Pitsea at the eastern end of the area, and Laindon at its
western end, and by 1949, when the Development Corporation was appointed, the area had about 25,000 inhabitants. The Corporation's task is to
redevelop these areas as part of a new town designed to house ultimately about 106,000 people. The town will consist of ten neighbourhoods,
each with its own local shops, schools and other places of assembly. Development in six of the neighbourhoods is well advanced, and so far over
11,000 dwellings have been built, housing some 35,000 people, mostly from London. Four neighbourhood shopping centres have been completed,
together with churches, public houses and community buildings. An industrial estate of about 200 acres is almost full up, affording varied
employment for some 10,000 workers. A second industrial estate is in course of development, with some factories already occupied and others
under construction, while a third industrial area of 100 acres is to be occupied by the Ford Motor Company who are building a factory with a production
area of well over a million square feet. It is here that they propose to concentrate their tractor production. The first town-centre shops and the
open-air market were opened in 1958. There are now 150 shops in the town centre which also boasts of a bowling centre (incorporating a restaurant
and club room) and a ballroom, and is gradually acquiring regional importance for shopping and recreation. A feature of the town centre is a 14-storey
block of flats overlooking the town square with its fountain and trees, and the next few years will see a succession of public buildings under construction.
arrangements for visitors Visitors should get in touch with the Development Corporation in advance, when arrangements will be made to show
them round. how to get there By train from Fenchurch Street station to Pitsea, thence by local 'bus or taxi'. By road along A127 to the
industrial area, turning right at the roundabout outside the Marconi factory on the south side of the road.
Title: The New Towns Publisher: Prepared by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Scottish Development
Department and the Central Office of Information 1963. Comments: The New Towns is a booklet sized publication containing 18
progress reports relating to each of the new towns. The foreword and Basildon progress report contained within the publication is reproduced in its entirety,
unedited and unabridged. Lieutenant General Sir Humfrey Myddelton Gale KBE, CB, CVO, MC (04/10/1890 – 08/04/1971)
Raymond Cyril Charles Boniface (09/07/1911 - 28/05/1999). Chief solicitor to Basildon Development Corp. from October 1949 and General Manager from 1954-1975.
The eighteen New Towns in 1963 comprise: Basildon (Essex); Bracknell (Berkshire);
Corby (Northamptonshire); Crawley (Sussex); Dawley (Shropshire) Designated: 16th January 1963 and renamed Telford from
29th November 1968 (The Dawley New Town (Designation) Amendment (Telford) Order 1968; Harlow (Essex); Hatfield (Hertfordshire);
Hemel Hempstead (Hertfordshire); Newton Aycliffe (Durham); Peterlee (Durham); Skelmersdale (Lancashire) Designated: 9th October 1961;
Stevenage (Hertfordshire); Welwyn Garden City (Hertfordshire); Cwmbran (Monmouthshire, Wales); Cumbernauld (Dunbartonshire, Scotland);
East Kilbride (Lanarkshire, Scotland); Glenrothes (Fifeshire, Scotland) and Livingston (Midlothian & West Lothian, Scotland) Designated: 16th April
1962. | 
