Forest City · Location
Where will Forest City be built?
Forest City will be built east of Cambridge, on around 45,000 acres of land between Haverhill and Newmarket in Suffolk. Haverhill sits at the edge of it and becomes the gateway to the new city. A detailed map of the proposed area is available in the full report.
The exact boundaries are being refined as part of the detailed masterplanning now underway, and will be examined publicly through the Government's Strategic Planning process.
The location is deliberate. Cambridge is one of the most important cities in Europe, receiving huge investment and struggling to keep up with demand — household-name businesses and start-ups are leaving because they can't get lab space and their staff can't find homes within a reasonable commute. Sitting on the way to the Port of Felixstowe, next to a city that has produced more Nobel Prizes than all of France, Haverhill is strategically placed to anchor the new city.
The alternative is already happening piecemeal: Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and North Essex have been tasked with building 340,000 homes over the next 25 years, and the Greater Cambridge area alone plans 150,000 — delivered as scattered estates with no new reservoir, hospital or railway. Forest City proposes one properly planned city instead.
A detailed map of the proposed area is available in the full report.