New forest city is a rational plan, says architect

Plans for a new city housing up to one million people in affordable homes are "rational and considered", according to a leading architect on the project.

Businessmen Shiv Malik and Joseph Reeve want to build Forest City on agricultural land east of Cambridge, between Newmarket and Haverhill in Suffolk.

Architect Steve McAdam is on the board of directors and said the site "seems to be a very good place to locate a population growth".

Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, previously described the idea as "ridiculous".

The proposal includes 400,000 homes across 45,000 acres, as well as 12,000 acres set aside for a new forest, but no formal plans have been submitted.

Mr McAdam's previous projects include the London King's Cross redevelopment and the London Olympics and post-Olympic masterplans.

He said the Forest City vision came from "a very different avenue, a much more disruptive process" compared with usual new town proposals.

"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 told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

He referenced about 1,200 young people who had signed an online petition on the project's website pledging their support.

"They say they are the generation that is worse off than their parents and they don't think it should be like that."

Instead of "just moaning", the team had developed a plan that was "quite rational and considered", he explained.

The entrepreneurs behind the proposals - which includes ex-investigative journalist Mr Malik - say it could take several years before blueprints are formally submitted.

Mr McAdam praised the location, which he said ties in with two government growth projects - the Oxford-Cambridge corridor and the innovation corridor.

The team were in discussions with seven landowners, one of whom was on board and two others who were interested, said Mr McAdam.

"But the key ingredient here is cost and we want to use a community land trust which will keep the values of the land to the trust itself," Mr McAdam 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."

Timothy was approached again for comment.

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