What can be learnt from Skelmersdale New Town?
 |
| Figure 1 Mural by Concourse Shopping Centre, date unknown (Glassball 2015) |
Opening the ‘Report on Basic Plan’ for a newly designated Skelmersdale New Town, Chairman of Skelmersdale Development Corporation, A. J. Kentish Barnes, writes:
(Wilson, L. Hugh and Skelmersdale Development Corporation 1964, 1:Foreword)
The designation of Skelmersdale, a small former mining town just 15 miles North-East of Liverpool, marked the beginning of a second wave of New Town designations across England during the 1960s (TCPA, 2020). As Barnes makes clear in the Basic Plan’s foreword, this was firstly to address a growing need for housing in Liverpool and Merseyside, but was also a conduit through which planners could explore new utopian urban layouts, contrasting the towns and cities from which its new population would migrate. Following the dissolution of Skelmersdale Development Corporation in 1985 and the subsequent decades beyond its guidance, we are now in a position to critically evaluate the aims and objectives of Skelmersdale New Town’s urban planners. In this essay we will analyse how Skelmersdale was shaped as an urban project and, in doing so, determine what its successes and failures may have been, answering the question: what can be learnt from Skelmersdale New Town?
Objectives and Aims
 |
| Figure 2 Skelmersdale New Town Basic Plan (Wilson, L. Hugh and SDC 1964, 2:Fig.30) |
Designated in October of 1961 (Ministry of Housing and Local Government 1961, 7296), the proposed area of development for the town was approximately 4,029 acres and at that time home to around 8,500 people. It was proposed that 80,000 people could live in Skelmersdale following the towns establishment, with the Development Corporation building for around 50,000 of them and assuming natural population growth from thereon (Wilson, L. Hugh and SDC 1964, 1:2).
Outlining much of the plan was chief architect of Cumbernauld New Town, L. Hugh Wilson, who would go on to outline a series of fundamental requirements for the New Town at his time of writing (DSA, 2016). Fourteen requirements are laid out in the plan’s preamble, four of which have been selected for our purposes of retrospective analysis, these are as follows:
The design of the town according to high-levels of car ownership;
Focus of the town on a ‘compact urban centre’ to be reached on foot from residential areas;
Location of industrial sites in more than one area and with proximity to residential areas;
The definition of a clear boundary between town and countryside to avoid suburban sprawl and form a ‘strong green belt’.
(Wilson, L. Hugh and SDC 1964, 1:1-2)
Wilson’s Basic Plan (Fig 2) shows the above requirements in practice through a map of the designated area divided into three land uses: residential, industrial and a central area. Instantly noticeable are the distinct industrial sites spread across the development and the urban centre, sitting literally at the centre of the designated area and surrounded in all directions by housing.
The plan includes proposals for road layouts and much thought is put into car access and traffic flows throughout the Basic Plan. With footpaths also proposed through the plan, the pedestrian is considered to the same, if not a greater, extent with Wilson saying ‘If one accepts the function of a town as a meeting place it follows that the pedestrian should have certain rights there... The alternative is a civilisation dominated by the motor car’ (Wilson, L. Hugh and SDC 1964, 1:30). The consideration of car use, particularly its potential impact on pedestrians, would have been of great relevance at the time due to rapid increases in car ownership since the Second World War. More than this, it is surprisingly refreshing to see a planner of this period so reflective on the issue of cars, especially given later critiques of modern infrastructure from writers such as J. G. Ballard in his 1973 novel, Crash.
 |
| Figure 3 Linear Town Centre Proposal (Wilson, L. Hugh and SDC 1964, 2:Fig.24) |
 |
| Figure 4 Linear Town Centre Proposal - Diagrammatic Section (Wilson, L. Hugh and SDC 1964, 2:Fig.24) |
Exploring the ‘compact urban centre’ as an alternative to the neighbourhood system used in previous New Towns, Wilson proposed that the centre could take either ‘cluster’ or ‘linear’ form (Wilson, L. Hugh and SDC 1964, 1:30). Though layouts were speculative at this stage of development, it’s clear from the mapping (see Fig. 2 & 3) that the centre was planned as a megastructure spanning approximately one mile between main roads to the North and South and would act as the focal point for life within the town. The megastructure was to accommodate a range of uses: serving as the town’s shopping district, housing the town’s office space and containing a range of civic and entertainment spaces. All of this would be accessible by residents via pedestrian routes separate from car access, something explored in detail through diagrammatic sections in the Basic Plan (Fig. 4).
Implementation and Outcomes
Building commenced in January of 1964 and the New Town was constructed gradually over the following two decades under the guidance of the Development Corporation until its winding up in 1985. With plans being revised as development progressed, the scale of the project naturally necessitated revisions through ongoing communication between various stakeholders. The interface between local government, central government and of the Development Corporation between the two were crucial in a completely planned social and economic area, and at some points would become a sticking point.
In the premise of the New Town — providing additional housing stock for a growing Merseyside population — Skelmersdale was a complete success. By dissolution, the Development Corporation had built 9,417 dwellings for social letting with a further 1,484 for sale and in doing so housed a population of 41,800 people (HCPP 1985, 287). This is undoubtedly an incredible feat and was in no small part due to central government’s support for housebuilding. What is noticeable here, however, is that this population is almost half that which was originally proposed as the towns capacity. The reason given for this in the Development Corporation’s final report was that ‘at the time of designation the amount of land unsuitable for development had not been fully appreciated’ (HCPP 1985, 286). But perhaps the greater indictment on the planners is that had the town reached even its reduced capacity, its industry wouldn’t have been sufficient to provide employment for the active population.
Skelmersdale’s industrial planning, while successfully sticking to the Basic Plan and avoiding concentration in one district, was heavily reliant on the private companies which were to occupy the newly-built factories. Opened in 1970, the town’s then largest industrial unit, The Cortaulds factory, remained open for just 6 years, announcing its closure in 1976 and leaving 1,000 people out of work (Szydlowski, Thomas 2021, 358, 361). It would appear that much of Skelmersdale’s success was at the behest of private investment, something which would only continue as political consensus shifted away from the New Town ideal through its perceived ties to high levels of unemployment (Hansard HC Deb., 18 November 1976).
Another of the town’s original ‘requirements’ leaving much to be desired was that of the ‘compact urban centre’. Observing a map of Skelmersdale today (Fig. 5), we see that only the central third of the original proposed town centre was ever developed with the resultant complex far less ambitious and split between seemingly disconnected buildings rather than within a unified megastructure as originally proposed. What also appears to have been lost in these revisions is a logical system of pedestrian routes towards the town centre. Where Wilson had suggested pedestrians should have ‘certain rights’ and the most direct route towards the centre, what does exist is a convoluted series of worming pathways and significantly more prominent road-access without pavements. Difficulties and failures surrounding the establishment of an urban centre could be due to the piecemeal way in which the centre was constructed, with its first attraction — the shopping centre — opening in 1973, almost a decade after residential construction began. This was after significant planning difficulties and opposition from the local council who refused to relocate existing Old Skelmersdale town-centre facilities to the new site. Paired with central governments reservations about viability, these factors resulted in an urban centre largely unused by residents, and undesirable to new investors, as they had already found out-of-town facilities come time of opening (Szydlowski, Thomas 2021, 356-359).
 |
| Figure 5 Map of Skelmersdale - Town Centre highlighted in red (OS Digimap 2023) |
Conclusion
In many ways the era of the New Town represented more than simply the need for housing, it was a key component in a social democratic welfare state, aiming to elevate the standard of living of majority working-class households. For a short while it did exactly this. But the problems of a project like Skelmersdale New Town — a reliance on external private investment to bolster its economy and town centre, conservatism and bureaucracy within local government as well as the dependence of development corporations on a sympathetic central government — are all critiques which can be applied to the dominant economic and political system under which these New Town visions were optimistically enacted. The concept of New Towns — creating an urban environment from nothing — is an undertaking of such scale that it necessitates long-term planning and sustained investment outside of private interests. It is perhaps no surprise then, that with the election of Margaret Thatcher: an uncompromising embrace of these interests, the New Town dream finally met its end (Ortolano, Guy 2019, 3, 13-14).
Without doubt it can be said that Skelmersdale New Town alleviated a demand for housing, in fact, today it is the largest and most densely populated settlement in the West Lancashire Borough (Lock, Katy and Ellis, Hugh 2020, 113). It can also be said that Skelmersdale Development Corporation’s initial plan for the town was both bold and sympathetic in its consideration for those who would eventually live there. In spite of these good intentions, the project was doomed to fail largely due to political factors outside of its control.
What can be learnt from Skelmersdale New Town? That with the most sympathy and modernist passion in the world, naive faith in a political system growing consistently further from a position in which such grand public projects are possible, let alone prioritised, will be the death of any fundamentally modernist vision of a future urban environment.
Reference List
in alphabetical order
Dictionary of Scottish Architects (DSA). 2016. “DSA Architect Biography Report.” Accessed June 1, 2023. https://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=400198
Digimap. 2023. “OS Roam.” Accessed June 1, 2023. https://digimap.edina.ac.uk/roam/map/os.
Glassball Studio. 2015. Skelmersdale: A New Town. Skelmersdale: Glassball Art Projects.
Hansard HC Deb. vol. 919 col. 1687-714, 18 November 1976. Accessed June 1, 2023. https:// api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1976/nov/18/courtaulds-limited-skelmersdale
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online (HCPPO). 1985. “New Towns Act 1981. Reports of the development corporations 31st March 1985. Aycliffe. Basildon. Central Lancashire New Town. Milton Keynes. Northampton. Peterborough. Peterlee. Redditch. Skelmersdale. Telford. Warrington and Runcorn. Washington.” House of Commons Papers HC 583: 278-304. https://parlipapers-proquest-com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/parlipapers/docview/ t70.d75.1984-080544?accountid=12117
Lock, Katy and Ellis, Hugh. 2020. New Towns: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth. London: RIBA Publishing. 113-115.
Ministry of Housing and Local Government. 1961. “The Skelmersdale New Town (Designation) Order, 1961.” The London Gazette 42484: 7296. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/ issue/42484/page/7296.
Ortolano, Guy. 2019. Thatcher’s Progress: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism through an English New Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Szydlowski, Thomas. 2021. “Skelmersdale: design and implementation of a British new town, 1961-1985.” Planning Perspectives 37, no. 2: 341-368. https://doi- org.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/02665433.2021.1989710
Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA). 2020. “Skelmersdale.” Last modified April 1, 2020. https://www.tcpa.org.uk/new-town/skelmersdale/.
Wilson, L. Hugh, and Skelmersdale Development Corporation (SDC). 1964. Skelmersdale New Town Planning Proposals: Report on Basic Plan (Vol. 1). Skelmersdale: Skelmersdale Development Corporation.
Wilson, L. Hugh, and Skelmersdale Development Corporation (SDC). 1964. Skelmersdale New Town Planning Proposals: Report on Basic Plan (Vol. 2). Skelmersdale: Skelmersdale Development Corporation.