Pulling into the Oxfordshire town of Bicester from the M40, there are few pretty Cotswolds cottages to be seen. Instead there are coachloads of Chinese tourists flocking to a retail park, next to a building site soon to become a development of 1,000 homes.

Advertised in China as a discount destination for Burberry and Barbour lovers, Bicester is already one of the south of England’s fastest growing towns. And that speed of change is only going to increase after it was selected by the Coalition as the site for a new garden city of 13,000 homes.

Retired local couple Ed and Angela Hamill spoke for many in the town, however, when they attacked the plans for their neighbourhood to become part of the answer to Britain’s housing shortage

Nick Clegg pledges to build ‘tens of thousands of new houses, built in a sustainable way’ as part of the issue of garden cities. The Liberal Democrat leader addresses sustainable transport and the completion of the coastal path. Clegg also speaks about climate change, saying ‘we can’t deal with climate change unless we remain leading members of the EU’

Families living in new garden cities would be encouraged to grow their own food in allotments under plans drawn up by Nick Clegg.

The Deputy Prime Minister wants to create planned communities with at least 15,000 homes each across the South of England centred around large garden plots.

His vision of the modern ‘Good Life’ was unveiled yesterday after years of wrangling with the Tories.

A document for ‘locally-led garden cities’ said they should provide ‘opportunities for residents to grow their own food, including generous allotments’.

Aides later said this would encourage ‘sustainability’ and that surveys showed people valued allotments and growing their own vegetables.

Ministers will start working on plans for three garden cities by the end of August.

Mr Clegg vowed to cut help remove planning red tape and secure a share of the £2.4 billion funding for private developers.

But officials have stressed that the garden cities must be backed by local residents to get the go ahead.

Here is bit more flesh on the bones from the report itself:

George Osborne has announced the creation of what the government is describing as Britain’s first garden city for almost 100 years, by the Thames Estuary at Ebbsfleet.

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday, the chancellor said that initially 15,000 homes would be built on the site, which has been chosen partly because a high-speed rail connection puts it within 19 minutes of central London.

Osborne also said he would use his budget on Wednesday to extend one of the government’s two Help to Buy schemes. He will pledge £6bn to extend the equity loan scheme to 2020, funding the construction of a further 120,000 homes.

I was listenting to a brilliant presentation on social investment (if you want to know more let me know and I can send you something) by Niamh Goggins of “Small Change” great name! She was explaining how pre-war counties had their own local lending boards. It led me to reflect that in these grim economic times we are rediscovering many pre “modern state” more local forms of association as a means of tackling our most immediate experience of austerity. I think the re-invention of garden cities fits into that category

It is important to realise that old tricks need a new spin. So whilst I applaud much of the thrust of the following article, I remain a little concerned that in seeking to turn brownfield sites more green we could be missing some of the point. There is still much green space which could be developed in rural England to help create local jobs and lower cost housing, both of which are desperately needed. What will garden cities do in this regard? Sorry for such a long introduction – but I find this stuff really interesting!! And I havent really opened  up a discussion about the second strand in  this article the links between living environment and health! Anyway onto the article

The garden city principles, which can be applied to development projects of different scales, hold the key to creating healthy and vibrant places for people to live and work. To share this message the TCPA has republished Norman Macfayden’s 1940 seminal pamphlet, Health and garden cities.

Although it is more than 70 years since the paper was originally published, it could have been written today as the government embarks on reform of public health and talks of a new generation of garden cities and suburbs.

Garden city planning has made a significant contribution to improving the quality of life of ordinary people, providing an unparalleled improvement on what had come before. The early pioneers understood that planning was not just focused on bricks and mortar; it was also about creating the conditions for people to live differently, addressing social isolation and founded on a co-operative ethos.

As exemplified in garden cities such as Letchworth and Welwyn the planning system has its roots in the public health movement, but over recent decades the two disciplines have drifted apart. Now that government has placed councils back at the centre of the public health agenda, planning must shoulder its burden of responsibility.

The decisions we make about the built environment cannot be easily undone. In an era of budget cuts it is more important than ever that we reconnect public health with planning. We need to see better co-operation between planners and public health staff, identifying local health needs and finding ways to meet them.

The CLA has said the Government should not overlook the role that the incremental growth of rural settlements across England could play in tackling the national housing shortage.

The Association said the Deputy Prime Minister’s call for more garden cities in the Home Counties were not the only answer to the lack of housing.

CLA President Harry Cotterell said: “We understand the Government is worried about the slow progress of localism but Nick Clegg has failed to recognise that without growth, the lack of new housing means rural settlements are losing services to the extent they have become unsustainable.”

 Mr Cotterell also said a suggestion from the Campaign to Protect Rural England that housing should be delivered exclusively through urban regeneration and on brown field sites is not feasible.

He said: “Austerity and the national deficit mean that the regeneration budgets once held by the Homes and Communities Agency and English Partnerships are no longer in place. 

“With a need for more than 200,000 homes each year, it will be necessary to use some green field sites, including land for strategic urban extensions and for critically needed rural-based housing of all types.”