Local authority responses to localism
RSS revocation - what happens next?
Now that Regional Spatial Strategies are revoked, local planning authorities are free to throw away the housing targets set by the regions, and replace them with targets of their own making. Where regional strategies also set targets for employment growth or employment land, these too can be set aside. Do local authorities welcome or fear their new freedom, and how are they using it in practice? We tried to find out, through a survey of policy planners in a sample of 70 local authorities across England.
The new localism is certainly making a big difference, and fast:
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Just over half the authorities in our survey expect to review their LDF housing targets further to the revocation of the RSS, of which most have either started the review process or expect to start later this year.
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12% of authorities are still undecided, often awaiting members’ decisions to be made in September.
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Just 35% expect to stay with existing targets, mostly based on regional strategies (though occasionally on structure plans).
For plan targets relating to employment growth or employment land, the story is very different:
- Only 22% of our sample authorities expect to review these targets further to the revocation of RSS, and a further 26% are undecided.
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As many as half think they will retain their existing targets.
Why are employment targets sticking so much more than housing targets? Partly it is because employment targets are already more ‘local’: not all regional strategies told authorities how many jobs to plan for or how much employment land to provide, and even in those that did policy was often permissive, allowing authorities to adopt different numbers if they so chose.
Still, our findings are worrying. It is a key objective of many development plans to deliver a sustainable balance of jobs and housing. If employment numbers stay the same while housing numbers change, this balance can no longer hold true.
Changing housing numbers may also impact on other areas. Thus, a proposed new out-of-centre supermarket may have been justified on the basis that a number of houses would be built. If there are no new houses, the new supermarket may not be needed, or there may be a case for building a smaller one in a better location. More alarming, less housebuilding could mean less consumer spend to support a popular new shopping scheme or long-awaited town centre regeneration. We do not know how far the new planning is taking on board these impacts.
‘There is also a lot in the RSS that should be seen as positive (whatever your political colours) and it is a backward step to lose it.’ The final question in our survey invited general comments on the revocation of RSSs. Like other observers, many planners in our sample fear that the new localism will be a Nimby’s charter, ‘because most communities don’t like housing being built near them’ – though it is also noted that this problem may only apply to the overheated South, as low-demand areas in the poorer regions often welcome development.
‘RSS revocation may give the Council a better chance of producing a deliverable CS.’ A topic attracting much comment is the impact of the new localism on cross-boundary cooperation. Encouragingly, several of the districts in reviewing their policies are working jointly with neighbours to build sub-regional strategies. Less encouragingly, many feel that the new localism will undermine joint working – ‘[it] has weakened the strategic approach we were working towards in the city region and removed support for what we were trying to achieve through our [emerging] Core Strategy’. A related concern is that there is now no mechanism for shifting development from areas of restraint to areas of growth, nor to allow sustainable extension of urban areas into neighbouring districts.
