Homes first, community later. Sometimes never.
Northstowe
What we can show
Six years after the first residents moved in, Northstowe still had no shop, café or GP surgery. The town hub is now expected in 2028.
- Northstowe evidence: years without shop, café or GP
- South Cambridgeshire: Northstowe town hub expected 2028
How sprawl adds to this
Northstowe is what 'homes first' looks like at new-town scale. Village-edge estates repeat the same order at a size that can never fund the missing shop or surgery at all.
What a larger settlement can do
A larger planned settlement can put the town centre and health buildings in from the start. Northstowe had a plan too. Phase-one delivery is what has to be true. Concentration is the only scale that can fund a GP and a shop with the first homes, rather than six years later.
The pattern is fewer, larger places with infrastructure first, not another estate on the edge of every village.
GPs · How to stop urban sprawl · All cumulative harms · Corrections
We can stop this
We want building concentrated in fewer, larger places with schools, health, water and transport built in — not another estate on the edge of every village.
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678 people in the East of England have already signed.
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