8 September 2014
A housebuilding process in which garden cities create masterplans with serviced plots sold to self and custom builders was a key proposal included in the winning entry of this year’s Wolfson Economics Prize.
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David Rudlin of urban design and research consultancy URBED won the £250,000 Prize with a submission that imagines a fictional town called Uxcester to develop the concept. It suggests that the Garden City should attract people looking for an alternative to an identikit housing estate and should be built and managed through a process of local cooperation and collaboration including custom and self build housing.
According to its calculations the entry claims that a self builder, exempt from any Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charge, would be able to build a home for not much more than £200,000 that would be worth £265,000.
Mr Rudlin argues that there may be as many as 40 cities in England that could be doubled in size in this way, such as Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Rugby, Reading and Stafford.
The winner said: “I am delighted that our distinctive approach to building Garden Cities has been recognised by the judges, as will the good people of the fictional city of Uxcester that we created for the submission. We believe that the expansion of existing places like Uxcester to create Garden Cities has the potential to make a significant contribution to meeting our housing needs.”
Runner-up champions self build
Shelter, the national housing and homelessness charity, was awarded a £50,000 runner-up prize for a Medway Garden City providing plots for self build.
Shelter’s entry invents Stoke Harbour Garden City, an urban locality on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent, where it believes that self build offers a real housing option to encourage early movers and foster character. Its model addresses the barriers of land supply and planning obstructions that currently impede the delivery and scaling up of other self build models.
