New Towns (Hansard, 23 July 1982)

§ Mr. Younger

After consideration of the comments received on the policy statement circulated last year, I have come to the following conclusions about the future of the Scottish new towns.

It is generally accepted that the new towns have been among the best means of achieving industrial growth across the central belt of Scotland since the war and that they continue to play a particularly important part in the attraction of new investment, including investment from abroad. They have an impressive record of encouraging the expansion of established industry, and have recently shown a relatively high degree of resistance to the effects of the recession. The development corporations continue to have considerable potential as central Government instruments for stimulating employment and underpinning the economy as a whole and their primary function will be to maintain their contribution to industrial growth and increased employment opportunities of all kinds.

Advance provision must, however, be made for the winding-up arrangements which will commence when a new town begins to approach its designated population or if it is clearly failing in its primary functions. I have considered alternative criteria and procedures for determining just when these arrangements should commence and whether the same criteria should apply for each new town. In the light of the responses to the policy statement I have decided that winding-up should begin when a specified percentage of the new town's present designated population has been reached. Different percentages may be appropriate according to the circumstances, prospects and unique characteristics of each town.

Central to consideration of the appropriate population percentage will be an assessment of the point at which the new town can reasonably be expected to become a community incorporating an acceptable mix of industry and housing, services and facilities equipped to continue to develop further alongside towns which have evolved in a more conventional fashion. As a first step towards establishing how completion could be determined and before taking any decision on the percentages, I will shortly be inviting each development corporation to submit a detailed development profile setting out what it considers has yet to be done in its town before its task is completed, together with proposed programmes to achieve this.

314W

Once the winding-up process begins, housing still held by a corporation will be transferred as soon as practicable to the district council within whose boundaries the town is situated. The remaining industrial and commercial assets and any unused development land will, on dissolution, be transferred to the Scottish Development Agency. In the meantime, the detailed schemes for these transfers will have to be prepared in consultation with the development corporation, the local authorities concerned and the Scottish Development Agency, as appropriate. The financial arrangements and the timing of the transfer to the local authorities of community-related assets will also have to be determined. The position of the staffs of the development corporations must, of course, also be examined and detailed arrangements for their future negotiated. My Department will shortly be starting discussions about these arrangements.

I do not envisage completion of the winding-up of any new towns before the end of the 1980s. In the meantime, I hope that the consultation process has clarified the position sufficiently to enable the development corporations to continue with confidence to fulfil their important role in promoting industrial growth and employment and in rounding-off development of their towns as communities as they approach their designated populations. Their continuing contribution to the Scottish economy will be of major importance. It is, therefore, essential to maintain public confidence in them as they pursue their task and to ensure in due course a smooth and orderly wind-up process.