Background

Established in 1947, Harlow was one of the first post-war New Towns. It was masterplanned by architect Sir Frederick Gibberd in the spirit of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Towns.

Harlow was conceived to be completely self-sufficient – with residents living, working and playing within the town, and with separation of land uses being a key tenet of the masterplan: Gibberd designed distinct residential and employment areas with civic and shopping functions at the centre.  Neighbourhoods are bounded and linked by “green wedges” to maximise wellbeing through access to open space.

These foundational Modernist design principles have contributed to many of the town’s challenges: the nearest train station to the town centre is almost a 30-minute walk, whilst the inward-looking main retail zone feels disconnected from its surroundings, contributing to the lack of critical mass which, alongside changing shopping patterns, has resulted in high vacancies and private sector disinvestment.

Decline and Challenges

By the turn of the century, hopes of a prosperous self-sustaining town had faded, with major local employers such as Gilbey’s Distillery, Revertex, and A.C. Cossor having closed their doors in the preceding decades. What followed was a now familiar story of decline, with underinvestment in the core and growth beyond hindered by Green Belt land.

The town centre has become a de-facto subregional shopping hub for surrounding communities – accessed predominantly by private vehicles – unable to expand beyond the physical parameters imposed on it by Gibberd. Low land values have meant that the private sector has shown little interest in its rejuvenation as a town of greater density that can support a mixture of uses.

Where there has been interest from the private sector it has often come in its worst form, with profiteering developers taking advantage of Permitted Development Rights to convert vacant office buildings into substandard residential accommodation, often leased back to local authorities in London and elsewhere for use as temporary accommodation for homeless families.

The Day

Product Council members were given a comprehensive tour of Harlow, starting at the train station and working our way into the town centre from the north, charting a ‘local’s route’. As we approached the town centre, some of the key issues that have contributed to Harlow’s decline were made clear.

The town centre itself is designed like a fortress, with the rear service yards of office buildings and retail units greeting pedestrians as they approach. Many of the entry points are narrow passages sandwiched between now vacant buildings, making for an uncomfortable and intimidating environment.  By creating a compact, constrained and island-like town centre, the original masterplan has made it difficult to retrofit the flexibility required for future improvement and resilience.

The HGGT team explained that, with four major housing-led developments coming forward over the next five years to the north, south, east and west of Harlow, the town centre is in a race against time to adapt itself for the use of 23,000 new households that should be enticed to flood into town to use its shops, hairdressers and GP surgeries, and to eat and drink in its cafes and restaurants. Work has already begun on upgrading the public realm. Together Harlow and these housing-led developments will form a new and enlarged Garden Town.

Alongside the reinvention of the town centre itself, which is well underway with the transformational council-led regeneration of the southern end (the Water Garden development), the promotion of reliable, active travel routes to and from these new communities will be key to the holistic success of the wider district.

When asked about the three key lessons to carry forward for Harlow’s rejuvenation as a new and enlarged Garden Town, Naisha Polaine, CEO of HGGT, responded as follows:

• “A synchronised approach to jobs and education”: those educated in the town should be able to find jobs there across a variety of sectors and pay bands; the town’s position within the Golden Triangle could feasibly provide it with a future for Life Science-focused development and employment.

• “Leave behind low density”: the town centre must embrace higher density in order to promote a diversity of land uses (particularly residential) and move away from its past as a mono-use district. With a diverse array of uses and critical mass, the northern end especially can rid itself of its image of dereliction and cater to the future residents of the Garden Town.

• “Leave behind low quality housing”: The private sector must be encouraged to build high-quality housing for the long-term benefit of residents; the combination of new populations driving demand for a better range of local services and the regeneration of the town as a whole will push up residential land values, which in turn will catalyse greater quality in the built product and continued private sector investment.

Conclusion

In thinking about its push to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years, the new government would do well to learn lessons from Harlow’s trajectory and that of its contemporaries as they plan the ‘next wave’ of New Towns.

Specifically:

• Economic and social self-sustainability is desirable but not at the expense of insularity;

• Transport infrastructure should support and facilitate active travel to and within the town centre;

• A town centre must support diverse activities – both community infrastructure and commercial – in combination with ‘gentle density’ housing;

• Access to green and high-quality open space is paramount, both in the residential neighbourhoods and the town centre.

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