Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!
October 2009
Don’t throw out the bathwater AND the planning baby Mr Gummer! In his article on the “reality of local power switch” (Planning, 25 September 2009, p9), John Gummer, Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal, indicates that there has been little input from planners on Conservative Party proposals to abolish regional planning and revert to a bottom-up approach to planning for housing provision. In the same issue, Grant Shapps, Shadow Housing Minister, (Planning, 25 September 2009, p13) states that “these regional plans are the problem not the solution”.
Whilst it is to be expected that a new administration may wish to make changes to the policy approach of a previous government this dramatic leap from some form of strategic planning to an entirely local planning system begs the question as to what is an appropriate scale to plan rationally for the spatial distribution of future jobs, housing and infrastructure. As suggested by John Gummer, this key issue merits a robust response from the planning profession.
We would be interested if Spelman/Shapps could point to many companies that decided to site a new business operation without first considering the strategic merits of alternative broad locations in relation to communications, access to suppliers and markets, availability of an appropriate labour force (size and skills), housing for key workers, and distribution costs. Similarly, large organisations such as the NHS plan ahead for major hospital expansions or rationalisations based on age-specific population projections and data on the incidence of key illnesses.
Why should planning for housing and associated development be any different? The key determinants of housing demand and need, namely population and household change, incomes and accessibility to key employment centres, are now reasonably well understood and bear little or no relation solely to local authority administrative areas. As a comprehensive strategic “regional” planning function is to be retained in Greater London under the proposed approach, why not elsewhere for other metropolitan areas and large cities with economic and transport influences that transcend administrative boundaries?
Regional plans in themselves are not the problem. In the absence of a broad strategic national spatial planning strategy for England, they are the only way to plan ahead in a co-ordinated manner for future long term employment, housing, and infrastructure needs. The current system of spatial strategies has been developed with considerable effort over the last eight years, involving a great deal of public consultation. They are now at the point of formal adoption, providing for the first time a statutory regional framework. We fully acknowledge that there are problems with the current system and proposals for integrated economic and spatial regional strategies that the labour government has never resolved, but these do not justify abandoning the principles of strategic planning.
The key current deficiencies can be summarised as follows:
- There is no direct democratic buy-in (apart from Greater London)
- Critically, the infrastructure requirements of growth have not adequately been recognised at regional scale and supported with an agreed funding approach.
- Consequently, in those regions and sub-regions that are currently most congested and under the most environmental pressure, there is, unsurprisingly, little enthusiasm for more development without a commitment to meet the infrastructure and services costs associated with growth.
The likely consequence, in a pressured region like the south-east or south-west, is that the already acute housing shortage will severely worsen, with all its attendant social stresses and dislocation. Is this what the Conservatives want?
A further important factor to consider is the new Climate Change Act. Its statutory national targets will be very tough to deliver and will require serious review of future spatial development patterns. We simply do not believe that an entirely local planning system would be able to meet this challenge.
There are a number of possible ways in which the present system could be more constructively changed, without requiring additional resources, but their detailed consideration lies beyond the scope of this article. One possibility would be to create small, directly elected regional planning bodies, focussed not on quasi-regional government, but solely on the regional planning role. Until they are operational, the present regional spatial strategies should remain in force.
The key point to emphasise in response to John Gummer’s challenge is that localism on its own will not produce the increased level of housing development or jobs that are needed, nor an adequate response to the climate change challenge. A balanced “top down” and “bottom up” approach is required with political buy-in at both levels, together with far greater attention to infrastructure and services needs. Otherwise, we will be having this debate in ten years’ time and the incidence of housing shortage, infrastructure dysfunction and planning appeals will increase in the absence of a clear strategic policy framework. Surely no-one thinks that is an efficient or adequate approach to planning for development in the 21st century?
Our plea to the Conservatives is “think again before you throw people and society’s needs out with the bureaucratic bathwater!”
Bill Brisbane is former Managing Partner of Roger Tym & Partners
Mike Gwilliam is former Director of Planning and Transportation at South East Regional Assembly
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