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Picture
Photo by John Moeses Bauan

​New Towns were conceived of with a utopian ideal in mind; focusing on a natural, neighbourly, suburban way of life – one that allowed its residents escape from the toxic environment of urban life, reverting back to a pre-industrial aesthetic and ethos.

We might see it as a precursor to current ecological campaigns. Every district were to have easy access to good schools and nurseries, play areas and parks. Every district were to have their own shopping districts, churches and community centres. The New Town was designed to be a cultural centre too, where its civic centre had a theatre, cinema and concert hall. Every type of home for every type of individual and family were built – often in sites and directions to maximise fresh air and sunshine. 
In subsequent years and decades, this vision has not fulfilled its promises. Towns like Telford, Milton Keynes, Derry or Cwmbran have been left in the cultural and socio-economic shadow of their urban big brothers and rural little sisters. The infrastructures have aged and the small, stretched councils lack the funding and capacity to revitalise them. They’re seen as lacking the cultural capital that comes with historic towns or vibrant cities, and are often marginalised as “Service Station” type regions with little to offer outside of convenient commuting distances.
​
These are almost-places. Not-quite towns. And are now no-longer-new. There is something eerie and haunting about these places – areas that promised release and relief, and still show the slightly faded signs of these promises. Towns that glimpsed at a possible future, but are caught in the defunct eddy of that glance. Some offer another distinctly uncanny feel too – places like Ravenscraig in Scotland, or Poundbury in England hold a special kind of unfinished modernity, a ‘too new to be real’ spirit that some have called ‘Grimly Cute’.
​


The list of New Towns we want responses to are:
Please note, this list is not exhaustive. We will consider submissions set in and about other “New Towns” that fit the feel, mood and criteria set out above.
ENGLAND
Bar Hill, Cambridgeshire

Basildon, Essex
Bracknell, Berkshire
Cambourne, Cambridgeshire

Corby, Northamptonshire
Cranbrook, Devon
Crawley, Sussex
​Dawley New Town, Shropshire
Ebbsfleet, Kent
Harlow, Essex 
Hatfield, Hertfordshire
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
Newton Aycliffe, County Durham 
Northampton, Northamptonshire 

Peterborough, Cambridgeshire 
Peterlee, County Durham 
Redditch, Worcestershire
Runcorn, Cheshire

Sherford, Devon
Skelmersdale, Lancashire
South Woodham Ferrers, Essex
Stevenage, Hertfordshire 
Telford, Shropshire 

Warrington, Cheshire
Washington, Tyne and Wear
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
Wixams, Bedfordshire


SCOTLAND
Chapelton of Elsick

Cumbernauld 
Dalgety Bay

East Kilbride 
Erskine
Glenrothes 
Inchinnan

Irvine
​Kilwinning
Livingston 
Ravenscraig
Tweedbank
​
WALES
Coed Darcy 

Cwmbran 
Newtown
Tircoed
NORTHERN IRELAND
Antrim 
Ballymena 
Craigavon 
Derry 


​
email: wildpressedbooks@gmail.com
​twitter: @wildpressed
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