The UK Government's pledge to build 1.5 million homes can lead to local resilience, social cohesion and wellbeing but only if the planning process embraces faith and belief communities as full partners
Treating faith and belief as partners in planning can accelerate social cohesion from day one
Iona Hine
Researchers from the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum and Goldsmiths University of London have issued an urgent call to rethink how faith and belief are understood and mobilised in planning new towns and settlements.
Their report, 'Housing with values: faith and belief perspectives on housing and community planning', presents the findings from a Faith & Belief Policy Collective study, produced in light of the UK Government's ambitious pledge to build 1.5 million new homes.
The researchers' analysis is based on interviews with practitioners and professionals including architects, housing developers, journalists, lawyers, activists, ordained ministers, policy makers and researchers, social historians, and scholars of religion. The report offers guiding principles for inclusive planning and proposes fuller civil-public collaboration to establish and disseminate good practice.
It follows the publication of the New Towns Taskforce (NTT)'s own recommendations to government in September 2025 which advised that plans for social infrastructure should include "faith-based spaces to enrich communities and open up opportunities for personal development" and that faith organisations should be involved in "community engagement strategy".
The new report's authors welcome this but warn that current planning systems in Britain have not yet embraced faith and belief communities as full partners in building thriving communities.
Co-author Dr Iona Hine from Cambridge's Faculty of Divinity, said: "Developers, agencies, and other planning professionals recognise the effort required to form healthy communities and ensure everyone lives well. Our hope is they're open to thinking about that challenge in dialogue with people of all flavours of faith and belief."
The report warns that flourishing communities are undermined by a wide range of factors including: short-term developer models that prioritise profit over social infrastructure; tokenistic consultation; segregated housing patterns that entrench inequality and risk alienation; secular bias and low faith literacy among planners and developers; and intergenerational imbalance in new towns.
The report's key recommendation is for a 'New Towns Faith Taskforce' to be established to advance the conversation about how best to harness the vision, resources, and overall contribution of faith and belief communities to the delivery of New Towns.
Its authors call for the early provision of schools, health centres, cultural, sporting and faith-based facilities; long-term, co-design consultation that builds trust and ownership; and integration with natural landscapes and local heritage, deepening attachment to place, among a range of other practical recommendations.
The report argues that faith and belief communities offer trusted networks, convening power, insider knowledge, volunteer capacity, inter-generational reach, as well as financial and spiritual capital, and cultural contributions.
Dr Hine and her colleagues point to modern international examples such as Singapore's proactive planning for religious diversity, but also to model communities in Britain such as Bournville and Ebenezer Howard's Garden City movement (Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City, Wythenshawe, etc), that paved the way, in their design and ethos, for the 32 postwar New Towns which are currently home to 2.8 million people across the UK.
Lead author Christopher Baker, Professor of Religion, Belief and Public Life at Goldsmiths, University of London said: "As we embark on this next chapter of New Town building in England, it is vital to understand the contribution that faith and belief bring to the sustaining of new communities, through their vision, experience, resources and local leadership."
Dr Hine said: "This is pivotal moment for housing supply and community formation in Britain. Treating faith and belief as partners in planning can accelerate social cohesion from day one, reduce loneliness and social isolation, and provide governance and voluntary capacity that complements statutory services. Ignoring these dimensions risks creating settlements that are physically complete but socially fragile."
Dr Iona Hine manages the Cambridge Interfaith Programme and cross-sector Knowledge Hub. She is a member of the Faith & Belief Policy Collective and convenor of Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum.
'Housing with values' is available from the Cambridge Interfaith Programme website from Tuesday 14th October 2025 and the Religion Media Centre is hosting an online briefing for journalists at midday.
