Dreaming big

Is a forest city with a million homes now within reach?

- Helena Horton Environment reporter

In the next few years, building work could begin on a city made of wood in the middle of a new nature reserve east of Cambridge, with four-bedroom homes on sale for £350,000. It sounds too good to be true, but a cross-party coalition of campaigners is trying to develop a “forest city” for a million people, with construction commencing by the end of this parliament.

It would be the first such project in England since the new town of Milton Keynes in the 1960s.

Shiv Malik, an author, investor and former Guardian journalist, came up with the scheme. He has written about the rough deal millennials have in terms of housing and debt. Now he is trying to turn his ideas into reality.

"No one's done this before - building in this way which would create a huge net gain for nature. We are trying to build in natural infrastructure," he told the Guardian.

Malik is in discussions with the housing department. Shortly after the proposal for the forest city was made public, the government announced its ambitions to build a network of "forest towns" in a similar area.

The Labour government has been accused of pitting nature against housebuilding in its bid to construct 1.5million homes to address the housing crisis.

Ministers are in the process of passing controversial legislation, which environment groups say puts 5,000 nature sites at risk.

Malik's almost 800 supporters span the political spectrum, from Green party campaigners to leaders of rightwing thinktanks. He's also enlisted Paul Powlesland, a nature campaigner and barrister, to join the board of the Albion City Development Corporation, which is overseeing the proposal.