Business Pair Reveal Plans for Affordable New City Near Cambridge
Shiv Malik and Joseph Reeve have unveiled proposals for Forest City, which they present as Britain’s first new city in more than 50 years, to the east of Cambridge.
The concept covers 45,000 acres, a footprint comparable to Bristol, and envisages 400,000 homes built at a gentle density inspired by Paris and Barcelona, together with 12,000 acres of new woodland. The pair say homes could cost around £350,000 because land would be held by a Community Land Trust rather than traded speculatively. Residents would own their homes but not the land beneath them, which is intended to protect future generations from runaway prices.
Planned features include solar power, modular timber construction, 6G connectivity and small modular reactors. The proposers estimate the city could add £55 billion to GDP within 20 years, though the accuracy of that figure is unclear.
The project is framed as bridging political divides, offering affordable homes and community ownership alongside growth, low taxes and deregulation. If it went ahead, it would proceed in phases: setting up a development corporation, detailed planning and coalition building, then legislative approval and large-scale modular construction.
The pair cite OECD research suggesting the UK is unusual among major developed economies in having less built-up land per person now than in the past.
Source: UK Property Forums, original article (4 November 2025)
