TCPA conference - creating garden cities & suburbs - planning for growth
09:30 - 16:00  - Monday 9th July 2012  - 1 Whitehall Place - London - SW1A 2HD

The UK needs more, better-quality and greener housing. Many younger people want somewhere affordable to bring up a family, and many of the older generation are looking to comfortably 'downsize'. People want to live within positive, healthy, vibrant communities with easy access to the natural environment. Alongside providing homes, we also need to create jobs and support growth in sustainable locations and bring about a transition to a green economy.

The TCPA summer conference will provide the opportunity to discuss and debate whether garden cities and suburbs are part of the solution to how we tackle the housing and employment crisis by exploring the powerful opportunity and benefits that large scale, comprehensively planned new communities offer.

Last summer the TCPA published Reimagining Garden Cities for the 21st Century. By November, 'locally-planned large scale development' had appeared as a rung on the government's strategy for housing. Support for a new generation garden cities appeared in the prime minister's speech on infrastructure in March and there is clear recognition of the 'principles of garden cities' in the National Planning Policy Framework. With this strong reference towards these principles emerging in the coalition government's policies the TCPA convened an expert group which published Creating Garden Cities and Suburbs Today in May.

This timely conference will build upon this latest report and examine the successes and failures of the past, providing an understanding of why our garden cities and suburbs provide some of the most desirable places to live in the UK today. It is all too easy to forget the fantastic places we have delivered when we have seen so much that has failed. It will also look at the planning processes that enabled these new communities to come forward, how the governance arrangements evolved, how land was assembled and how infrastructure was financed and delivered, building on experience not just from the past, but from the present.

In addition to providing an understanding the benefits of delivering large-scale communities the conference will also discuss how to move on from the stigma associated with new developments, asking the fundamental question of how do we re-connect people and planning, giving communities a stronger say and developers greater certainty.

Who should attend?
This event is for planners, business and infrastructure providers, government officials, local authority officers and members, developers, architects, economists, consultants, academics and those from NGOs and voluntary
organisations - all those interested in delivering high quality, sustainable new communities.

How to book
More information, including the full program for the conference and a booking form can be downloaded here: Conference Program and Booking Form

Please return your booking form to Michael McLean at Michael.McLean@tcpa.org.uk or call 0207 930 8903 for more information.