The “Forest City” plans for west Suffolk have been described as practical and carefully thought through by one of the architects involved.
The proposal would see up to one million people housed in affordable homes on what was formerly farmland just east of the city of Cambridge, between Newmarket and Haverhill.
Businessmen Shiv Malik and Joseph Reeve are the project’s key drivers. Architect Steve McAdam, who sits on the board of directors, was reported to say the location “seems to be a very good place to locate a population growth”.
Mr McAdam has an impressive portfolio, having previously worked on the London King’s Cross redevelopment and the London Olympics and post Olympic masterplans.
The Forest City Suffolk plans would include 400,000 homes across 45,000 acres, alongside 12,000 acres set aside for a new forest. No formal planning application has yet been submitted, and the developers have said it could take several years before detailed blueprints are ready.
The idea has already attracted criticism. Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, has previously described the proposal as “ridiculous”. He was approached again for comment.
Mr McAdam said the vision for Forest City emerged from “a very different avenue, a much more disruptive process” than traditional new town developments. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “It’s not in any local plan, there’s no government agency sponsoring it, it’s not as though a bunch of developers are behind it or volume house builders.”
He pointed to around 1,200 young people who have signed an online petition supporting the Forest City Suffolk plans. “They say they are the generation that is worse off than their parents and they don’t think it should be like that,” he said. Rather than “just moaning”, he added, the team had produced a proposal that was “quite rational and considered”.
Mr McAdam also said the site aligned with two government growth initiatives, the Oxford Cambridge corridor and the innovation corridor. He confirmed discussions were under way with seven landowners, with one already on board and two others expressing interest.
“But the key ingredient here is cost and we want to use a community land trust, external which will keep the values of the land to the trust itself,” he said.
“The reason people can’t afford to buy is not the property value itself, it’s the land it stands on and that can escalate massively, so by controlling that we think we can keep the cost of a four-bedroom house down to £350,000.”
