Plans revealed for Forest City on Suffolk and Cambridgeshire farmland

The plans have been introduced by entrepreneur Shiv Malik and co-founder of the Looking For Growth campaign group, Joe Reeve. 

They said that Forest City would be a “real city for one million people”. It would be located to the east of Cambridge, between Newmarket and Haverhill. 

The plans, which have not yet been formally submitted, would see 400,000 homes being built across 45,000 acres of farmland. 12,000 acres would also be used for growing a forest. 

The founders explained that the proposal aims to create Britain’s first new city in over 50 years, providing affordable homes for a million people through Community Land Trust ownership.

The plans revealed that most buildings outside the city centre would be six storeys high. The city would have the same footprint as Bristol.

At least a quarter of the buildings, including skyscrapers, should be made of industrial wood. The area would be powered by solar and small modular reactors. It would also be fully 6G and fibre connected and have a multi-line tram and metro system. 

Automobiles (EV only) could be kept largely underground, augmented by a last-mile delivery system using smaller vehicles. 

What about the farmland?

When asked by Farmers Guide about the use of farmland in the project, co-founder Joe Reeve explained: “In total 63% of England’s land is arable use. Forest City plans to use a little over 1/1000th of that to generate £55 billion in GDP.  

“It’s really clear that for anyone living in rural or urban areas, we just don’t have enough housing, infrastructure, economic growth or nature. Forest City solves for all these issues.  
 
“The good news is that by building in just one place, we’ll be protecting arable land and farming as a way of life in so many other places around the UK.” 

Mr Reeve added that the scheme is designed to be able to compensate all affected tenants and landowners “incredibly generously”.  

“It’s also worth noting that 50% of land under consideration is owned by three lords, one Arabian sheikh and two solar farms. Our goal is for the Forest City project to make everyone – locals and the wider country – much wealthier,” he concluded. 

MP’s opinion

According to BBC News, Conservative MP for West Suffolk, Nick Timothy, described the idea as “ridiculous”. 

“It’s not really credible; it’s not proposed by any of the political parties. 

“My job is to give the government a hard time, but the government hasn’t proposed this. If it was proposed by anybody credible, then of course I’d oppose it emphatically,” he told the media. 

Read more rural news.