What would Howard do (about the North West's proposed new towns)?

Posted on: 9 December 2025 by Ian Wray in Blog

Ian Wray reflects on how the late Sir Howard Bernstein might have responded to the two new towns proposed for the North West by the government’s New Town Task Force.

A friend tells me that even today, when faced with a tricky dilemma council officers in Manchester sometimes ask: ‘What would Howard do?’ The Howard in question is of course the late Sir Howard Bernstein, former Chief Executive of Manchester City Council. Though others played their part in turning round Manchester (now exceeding London in productivity growth [1]) it was Bernstein who played the key role. He knew everybody. He was a brilliant strategist and negotiator. When Howard leaned across the desk and quietly said to a civil servant ‘That’s a really good idea’, alarm bells would ring.

The dilemma currently on the desk of Greater Manchester’s leaders is how to respond to the government’s offer of two new towns. One near Victoria station in the heart of the city, the other at Adlington in Cheshire, outside the Greater Manchester boundary, but clearly within its functional economic area.

New towns are part of the government’s drive to build more housing and accelerate growth in promising places, preferably financed by private investment. A New Towns Task Force chaired by Sir Michael Lyons reported earlier this year [2]. Unsurprisingly most of the sites identified are in the south of England.

According to the Task Force report ‘Victoria North’ could deliver a ‘new town within a city’. It would cover 155 hectares of brownfield land, northeast of Manchester city centre, building 15,000 homes over the next 15-20 years, along with new schools, a health centre, parks and open spaces, and a new Metrolink station. The ‘new town’ would support the labour market, improving productivity and boosting growth. It would also regenerate Collyhurst, one of Manchester’s most deprived areas.

The proposal in Cheshire is around the small village of Adlington, near Macclesfield. A proposal submitted by landowners Belport Adlington Limited, would deliver a ‘standalone new town’ of up to 20,000 homes on nearly 1,000 hectares of greenfield land. Manchester city centre is directly accessible from Adlington Station in under 30 minutes (although the report notes serious problems with rail capacity).

Part of the so-called Northern Arc [3], North Cheshire has a national cluster of life sciences businesses, a highly skilled workforce, outstanding living environments, easy access to two city centres, universities and an international airport.

How much would these projects cost? The Task Force report is silent on this crucial point. A report by economic consultants WPI [4] suggests a cost of between £3.5 and 4 billion for each new town. Some would come from the private finance, especially in house building. Long-term public investment could be paid back, so long as the sites have been purchased in advance at agricultural land prices, with value increases captured by the state as land owner. But it is safe to assume that a very large sum would have to come from public funds in upfront infrastructure costs for land acquisition, transport, drainage, energy, water supply, landscaping and so on. The sums could be high if off site major infrastructure is required, perhaps in transport or water supply. A new town would lever in massive government and private investment (which might otherwise lost to proposals in the south of England).

Initial reactions to the new town proposals have not been positive. At a University of Manchester seminar on the topic held in November 2025, scarcely a voice was raised in support. It appears that Greater Manchester’s Combined Authority has doubts about whether the proposed development corporation board is necessary in central Manchester. If so, it seems a surprising concern. Manchester City Council gave its full support to the former Central Manchester Urban Development Corporation, which is widely acknowledged to have kick started city centre regeneration in the 1990s.

There is vocal opposition to the Adlington proposal. A group called Saveadlington.com intends to ‘strategically work to block and publicly oppose the proposals’, citing loss of green belt and agricultural land, damage to ancient field patterns, destruction of local wildlife habitat, taking away the area’s rural appeal and merging Stockport and Macclesfield. Local Labour MP Tim Roca opposes the plans. Doubtless this is the start of a long-term campaign. Yet it remains unclear how much weight this would carry with a government which seems determined to back the builders, not the blockers.

Though contentious, the Adlington proposal is not new. It was first put forward as a major development in the Strategic Plan for the North West 1973 [5], although the proposal then was an urban extension to Macclesfield with an emphasis on public transport links (what we would call today a sustainable urban extension) rather than a ‘free-standing’ new town. The 2000 Regional Economic Strategy for the North West [6] pointed to the high economic potential of north Cheshire and south Manchester (dubbed the ‘Southern Crescent’) as did the Manchester Independent Economic Review [7] commissioned by Manchester from international experts. Recently Manchester’s Metropolitan Mayor, Andy Burnham, drew attention to a ‘Northern Arc’ of high economic potential in much the same location [8], endorsing the concept suggested by Ian Wray [9].

Allow me to speculate. What might Sir Howard have done? Would he turn down both plans? I doubt this. More likely he would lean forward and say, ‘That is an interesting idea’. He’d surely be happy with Victoria North, which is little more than an extension of current regeneration plans. If there was an issue with the development corporation board he would ensure that the right politicians and civic leaders were appointed. He’d stress that investment in transport was essential, especially in routes across the Pennines and to Liverpool, solving the problems of Manchester’s acutely congested city centre rail hub and building agglomeration economies by drawing in skilled workers from across the North. The development corporation board would doubtless become a helpful lever in lobbying for infrastructure investment across the board.

Adlington might pose more of a problem. Development in Cheshire has traditionally been seen as threat to the big cities, draining off public resources and population. Bernstein’s line might have been to reduce the scale of the plan, turning it into a couple of ‘new villages’, extending Macclesfield (as proposed in the 1973 plan) and reserving land for life sciences research in a new government research institute alongside private investment. He would want investment in public transport, especially in the rail line to Manchester and Stoke on Trent (which currently lacks capacity).  And he’d argue for getting HS2 trains to the heart of Manchester as soon as possible, to support the government’s own ambitious plans.

The new town plans have yet to be endorsed by government and are simply a proposal from an appointed task force of advisors. So there is everything for Sir Howard’s successors to play for.

Ian Wray is honorary professor in Liverpool University’s Heseltine Institute and professorial fellow in Manchester University’s School of Planning, Property and Environmental Management. He was chief planner, Northwest Development Agency, 2000-2010.

[1] https://www.centreforcities.org/publication/how-productive-are-the-uks-big-cities/ 

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68d694b79cb44667f7a1cee7/New_Towns_Taskforce_Final_Report.pdf 

[3] https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/heseltine-institute/blog/thecaseforthenorthernarc/ 

[4] https://www.wpi-strategy.com/new-towns-report 

[5] Strategic Plan for the North West p.240, SPNW Joint Planning Team Report, HMSO 1973

[6] England’s North West: A Strategy to 2020, Northwest Development Agency, 2000

[7] Published in 2009, the Review said: ’In housing, there will need to be realism in planning policies about the desire of most highly skilled workers to live in certain areas in the centre and south of the city region’ (p. 42) and made a similar point about business premises. https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/media/6668/mier-review.pdf.

[8] https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/heseltine-institute/blog/therealityofthenorthernarc/ 

[9] https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/heseltine-institute/blog/thecaseforthenorthernarc/