The previous white paper gave very little attention to market towns despite the growing tide of public concern for their futures. This White Paper is a major opportunity for a new direction. A distinguishing feature of this Paper should be that market towns have a prominent role in the regeneration of rural areas. Market towns are now critical in the hierarchy of settlements within the countryside. Our villages no longer have the services to support their communities and market towns are soon to join them if action is not taken now.
Rural people have to travel further for access to jobs, shops and community facilities.
There are several powerful reasons for the RWP to launch a drive to revitalise market towns. They provide an environmentally sustainable way of living that could be developed by exploiting their ability to combine housing, jobs and services in one place and to serve as public transport hubs for outlying settlements. They contain valuable assets, including redundant sites and buildings, which should be used and not wasted. Many of them have potential for accommodating some of the forecast increase in households, particularly in their centres. High quality mixed use development, including housing, in market towns could help to reawaken the taste for urban living that will be central to the success of the desired urban renaissance.