Crawley New Town: Growth of the new town | British History Online

Crawley New Town: Growth of the new town | British History Online

In order to provide for increasing demand for homes in the southeast of England after World War II, without encouraging further sprawl outward from London, the British government designated semi-rural areas, close to transportation, for development as "new towns," adding greenfield neighborhoods to existing villages. One of the first was Crawley, an existing village halfway between London and Brighton.

"The master plan provided for 4,000 a. of the designated 5,920 a.; the rest was to be kept in reserve and as green belt land. (fn. 1) Much of the land was already covered by Crawley town, Ifield village, and outlying settlements. The new town would have a new centre and nine residential neighbourhoods, separated by radial roads. Industry was to be concentrated in the northeast. Four of the neighbourhoods were to be within a ring road, the western half of which already existed. Each neighbourhood would be socially balanced, with a wide range of house types, (fn. 2) and its own shopping centre, primary school, church or chapel, and social facilities, grouped near a central green. Although the recommended population of neighbourhoods in new towns was then 10,000, those planned for Crawley were much smaller. The proposed population varied from 4,300 to 7,800, but only one was to exceed 6,600 and that was to have two neighbourhood centres. Almost all houses would thus be less than ½ mile from a neighbourhood centre and within 1¼ miles of the town centre. The road pattern was designed to discourage through traffic in the neighbourhoods."