Forest City 1

This blog title sounds like the opening salvo of a Boxing Day football score, something like: ‘Forest City 1 –  Meadow Town 0’. Except it’s not. Forest City 1 (FC1) is actually the uninspiring moniker of a mega-development concept spearheaded by a former Guardian journalist in partnership with a 28-year-old something-or-other and backed by a one-time Labour Secretary of State. I’m tempted to stop now but, in the seasonal spirit of following a star in the hope it’ll lead me to the promised land, I’ll persevere. For now. 

FC1 is a proposed-from-scratch privately funded ‘sustainable’ city east of Cambridge. Intending to destroy 45,000 acres of farmland, the city would house 1m people in 400,000 homes, all with access to a 12,000-acre forest. Ambitious? Yes. Unrealistic? Given Blighty’s modern-day failures to deliver grandiose schemes (examples: the South East Strategic Reservoir Option that was first mooted in 2006 and still hasn’t got permission; and HS2, the biggest turkey of the lot) what chance a new city any time soon?

It hasn’t always been like that. Milton Keynes – a city of approx. 290,000 people covering 22,000 acres – is a success in many respects even if, in other ways, it’s found wanting. Canary Wharf was also built from scratch, and the London Olympic Games was a veritable phoenix from the ashes. It’s Christmas, I’m feeling generous and mellow, so I’ll give FC1 the benefit of the doubt by keeping my options open as to whether it’s a turkey or a phoenix. 

Having said that, just looking at its headline features makes me reach for the sausage-meat stuffing. For one thing, there are better uses for 45,000 acres of farmland – like, to grow food! Furthermore, even before a shovel (or spade) hits the ground (or earth), Cambridgeshire is running out of water as fast as Cumbria is drowning in it. And I can’t ignore the fact that more modest ‘solutions’ to Blighty’s housing and infrastructure deficiencies (garden towns, urban extensions, village infills, brownfield first, repurposing, undergrounding) haven’t taken off or keep falling by the wayside because they’re a) not economically viable b) not environmentally sustainable or c) not possibly consensual amongst all stakeholders.

In desperation, this wretched Government is taking c) out of the equation across the board by shutting down the views of naysayers to make it easier for developers to secure planning permission for anything, everywhere, regardless of the impact of their projects on residential amenity and the natural environment. Two Tier Keir & Co haven’t twigged that there’s a disconnect between the ability to build and the desire to do so. Loosen the planning rules all you like, Reed-baby-Reed, but hamstringing businesses elsewhere with knicker-twisting employment law and ball-breaking taxes means you’re still not going to progress onto solid foods.

Could FC1 really deliver where all other strategies have or would fail? What has it got that the others haven’t? Starting at a high, abstract level, there’s the facilitating framework, delivery vehicle and governance structure. The FC1 blueprint envisages a systemic polygamous marriage of a geographically contained Special Economic Zone, Development Corporation and Community Land Trust. There are currently 48 SEZs in England that offer incentives such as discounts on business rates, enhanced capital allowances and simplified planning in places like the Thames, Liverpool City Region and Teesside. Then there’s Development Corporations that are statutory bodies responsible for planning, regeneration, and development and have overseen the growth of Milton Keynes (MKDC), Canary Wharf (London Docklands DC), the legacy of the 2012 Olympic Games (London Legacy DC) and elsewhere. Finally, the Community Land Trust allows for the creation of permanently affordable housing by leveraging the value uplift from commercial acreage, which can cross-subsidize residential prices and eliminate expensive land acquisition costs. Examples of CLTs are found in Cumbria, Shropshire, Warrington, Montgomery, Suffolk and Worcestershire. 

The SEZ/DC/CLT marriage (SEZ-model for short) and therefore FC1 have come in for stick because of supposed inherent poor corporate governance and lack of transparency. I wonder why then, given the plethora of such schemes around the country, no mud has yet hit a target, never mind stuck. One histrionic that made me chuckle was that SEZs are “Ponzi schemes for the asset classes.” The phrase ‘asset classes’ gives it away as the green-eyed rantings of a Marxist love-child. Case closed.

The SEZ-model was originally championed by Maggie (all hail) and reinvigorated by Rishi Sunak. The current Government is also embracing it, explaining that they “operate within the same regulatory frameworks that apply across the UK and are subject to the same laws and standards as elsewhere in the country. We have cemented this position through the ISZs [Industrial Zone Strategy] Action Plan (2025), which set out further measures to strengthen transparency and democratic accountability across the programme.” My take on this is that any lingering shortcomings in, or outdated features of, the SEZ-model can be overcome through legislation and better governance. There’s no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Doesn’t my (cautious) support for this model clash with my objection to Reed’s undemocratic relaxation of planning procedures? Yes and no. I’m following Thomas Sowell and his mantra: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” In the current context, this means that in order to sustainably build a large number of desperately needed homes at a reasonable price, something’s got to give or we’ll still be wading through the planning process and haemorrhaging opportunity into the next century. What makes a simplified planning process potentially acceptable for FC1, when I’ve dissed it elsewhere, is that its SEZ-model can be bespoke to require specific consultations – e.g. negotiations with the likes of the water industry, farming lobby and nature trusts – to incorporate pragmatic objectives, compromises and failsafes into the detailed plans. SEZs taketh away and giveth back, making any trade-off that bit more palatable.

Turning now to more tangible considerations, the main thing going for FC1 is its size. (No jokes here, please; it’s Christmas.) The other strategies mentioned above are too small or spatially constrained to accommodate the necessary services and infrastructure. FC1, on the other hand, could take advantage of economies of scale and oodles of cheap ‘virgin’ land to properly deliver what it needs for its own purposes, where it needs it and at lower cost.

All of this means that affordable, sustainable services and infrastructure can be built contemporaneously with the homes and businesses, rather than trying to retro-fit and shoehorn ridiculously expensive sticking-plaster solutions around too many unmanageable constraints as we always seem to end up doing. Examples of sustainable infrastructure include:

1. Super-efficient buildings powered by ground source heat sources, modular nuclear reactors, and roof-mounted solar panels. Thankfully, pesky pylons won’t be needed to bring in a supply from far far away.

2. Data centres built underground and their heat output recycled. 

3. New reservoirs, judicious abstractions, rain-water capture and meaningful demand management.

4. Sustainable Drainage Systems that direct storm water back into the natural eco-system to relieve pressure on state-of-the art sewage treatment plants. Punitive fines for flushing the wrong items down loos and sinks would be the icing on the cake!

On the other hand, I’m struggling with FC1’s proposed location – east of Cambridge in order to support Cambridge – an already comparatively wealthy (before July 2024, that is) part of the country. I’d be more supportive if FC1 were earmarked for a less vibrant that would equalise opportunities nationally, including the cost of housing.

I also don’t like the idea of losing 45,000 acres of farmland, as I mentioned earlier. Loss of farmland is a problem replicated all over England from all kinds of threats. This means that FC1 should not go ahead before a meaningful food security strategy is in place. A strategy might conclude that some farmland can be safely repurposed. Indeed, I might be fine with the loss of some farmland for FC1, providing we can reclaim other acreages by torpedoing Mad Miliband’s solar panel fetish and Chris Packham’s rewilding rantings, both ideological economic sinkholes. Farmers know that nature is good for their business; they just need to be allowed to get on with it and not have to chase ever-decreasing returns as the only option open to them because politicians and civil servants can’t tell the difference between a pig and a poke.

Continuing this train of thought with the eponymous FC1 ‘forest’, why trees? If you want to green the city, then why not ensure that all the non-developed farmland is nature-friendly? Let’s bust this myth of a farming-nature dichotomy once and for all. One way is to reintroduce floodplain meadows, once ubiquitous and indispensable throughout the UK. They’re excellent carbon sequesters, biodiversity havens and water filters and cleansers. In addition, they control the peaks and troughs of floods and droughts. All this and a food-source too (traditionally mown for livestock feed once or twice a year). 

Quite often when I’m struggling to come down off the fence on an issue, I look who has declared their hand either way and follow Roger Scruton when he said: Whatever certain people are for, I’m against (and vice versa). As noted earlier, it looks as if Marxists are against FC1, so guess which way I’m heading! As for FC1’s supporters, they’re a mixed bag – left (not Marxist) and right – and not that great in number. They include a catastrophe risk consultant, a senior lecturer in philosophy, a nuclear engineer, and a consultant cardiologist. Not a lot of ‘big names’ that I could see. Is this worrying, or indicative that FC1 would be, as spun, for the people and not for the profiteers, who are keeping their powder dry for now?  

What I’m saying is, there’s a lot not to like about FC1 and a lot of questions to answer. But there’s also a lot to hang my hat on and, as yet, no insurmountable elephants in the room, unlike with other strategies. Even FC1’s anticipated impact on nature is not putting me off. What if a few bats get uppity? If, say, three colonies are destroyed while 33 others thrive, then I can live with that if it means some of our British veterans can afford a home and find a job in a lovely community. Trade-offs, people, trade-offs. Negotiate. Mitigate. Compensate.

FC1 is ambitious, innovative, controversial, risky. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Everyone must think outside the box (for ‘box’, you can read ‘echo chamber’) when developing ideas and, like me, when trying to decide whether and which aspects to support.

It’s therefore apt at this juncture to quote the former CEO of Disney, Robert Iger, when he said, “Innovate or die, and there’s no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new or untested.”

He’s right. If people hadn’t innovated in the past, there would have been no steam engine, no spinning jenny and no penicillin. But there would have been more bats.