Lessons for Britain from Milton Keynes

Ministers have identified 100 possible sites for next generation of new towns’ The plan is to pick 12 of them by the summer , then task regional development corporations with building them out.

Despite the shameless pledge of its former Tory MP to protect its non-existent green belt, it’s still building.

In recent decades , Britain ’s planning system picked up a nasty habit of dropping homes on the landscape based on where it’s least contentious to build, rather than where people actually want to live, and then assuming the market will plug the gaps. Very often, it hasn’t. Ministers should beware of history repeating. [See more: Reform is very wrong about net zero ].