'A jigsaw with pieces missing': Why are new housing estates forcing people to rely on cars?

New housing estates in England are being built in the wrong places with the wrong transport options and a lack of density that is leaving residents with no choice but to rely on cars, a new report has warned.

Experts from Transport for New Homes took a walk around nearly 40 of the country’s newest housing developments to evaluate whether they were built without the need to own a car to live there.

They found estates were like “a jigsaw with pieces missing”, criticising the lack of access to train stations and other public transport as well as the ‘developer-led’ tendency to build in rural areas where residents would have to drive to access local services.

Only one large-scale greenfield development earned praise: Poundbury in Dorset.

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The town has been in development since 1993 as a test-bed for King Charles’ thoughts on housing and urban planning. Experts praised how the “vibrant self-contained community”, which is set to be completed in 2027, was mixed use and built from the start for walking rather than driving.

Jenny Raggett, project coordinator at Transport for New Homes, said: “New housing estates being built in England resemble a jigsaw puzzle with some of the most important pieces missing – the stations, the mass transit systems and on-site community provision and services.

“Housing targets aimed at rural or semi-rural parts of the country and a developer-led choice of location where to build, are plonking more and more giant housing estates on fields on the edge of towns and villages, places where it’s all about driving. We need to build differently to avoid this ‘doughnut effect’, whereby everything ends up on out of town greenfield sites whilst brownfield sites lie unbuilt and derelict, and high streets are dying.”

Labour is looking to streamline the planning system in a bid to build 1.5 million homes while in power.

That has seen local authorities given mandatory housebuilding targets to reach 370,000 homes a year across England, signalling an influx of homes in more rural areas.

The ‘What is being built in 2025: In search of the station’ report saw volunteers take a walk around new housing estates across England as well as four in Germany and Sweden to find out whether cars or pedestrians were top of planners’ priority list.

That saw them assess traffic generation and its consequences as well as local bus, rail and trams connections and whether a range of amenities are within walking or cycling distance while also considering the type and mix of housing on offer.

They concluded that nearly every large-scale greenfield housing development was focused on car travel with not a single one on metro or tram systems. They also found bus travel was infrequent or insufficient while active travel options did not connect the development to places people wanted to go to.

This leaves areas at risk of increased traffic congestion as well as damaging existing town centres, experts argued.

Campaign for Better Transport’s Michael Solomon Williams said: “As it ramps up housebuilding, the government must learn from the mistakes highlighted in this report.

“We need to avoid ever more car-dependent sprawl leading to costly congestion, social exclusion and an increased burden on the NHS. Instead, the government should follow the success of our European neighbours and reap the huge economic, social and environmental rewards of creating high-quality, mixed-use new developments around public transport networks.”

Transport for New Homes has urged planners to consider transit-oriented developments from day one in a bid to connect new homes to local services.

The revised national planning policy framework should also include a more evidence-based approach to finding better locations for new homes, taking into account new transport infrastructure, economic growth and good access to services.

The group also recommended local authorities and urban designers masterplan large-scale developments as walkable, well-connected and mixed-use places with housebuilders to build to the plan.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “With at-scale house building high on the government’s agenda, this report is a timely reminder of what can go wrong in developing new homes but importantly also provides policymakers and developers with guidance and tangible examples of how to get it right in providing the sustainable, accessible and all-round live-able developments we need.” 

The government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill is set to be introduced in parliament this week, with the latest changes set to cut out input from Sport England Theatres Trust and The Gardens Trust in a bid to speed up decisions.

Sport England warned against the move, arguing Britain’s childhood obesity crisis is rising and low physical activity levels costs the economy £7.4bn a year.

But housing secretary Angela Rayner said: “We need to reform the system to ensure it is sensible and balanced, and does not create unintended delays – putting a hold on people’s lives and harming our efforts to build the homes people desperately need.”

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