Memorandum by the Local Government Association
(UWP 84)
THE PROPOSED URBAN WHITE PAPER
INTRODUCTION
The Local Government Association (LGA) welcomes
the announcement by the House of Commons Environment, Transport
and Regional Affairs Committee to carry out this inquiry into
what provisions should be contained in the proposed Urban White
Paper, and welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the inquiry.
We believe that the Urban White Paper should deal with the following
fundamental issues:
In summary:
— describe a sustainable strategy for
urban areas, which provides the balance between urban, rural and
suburban areas; is properly funded and contains proposals for
joint working between government departments, central and local
government, and between different agencies and sectors;
— describe a strategy for tackling
deprivation in urban areas by facilitating effective partnership
working, both locally and nationally;
— address the question of demand for
household growth by giving local planning authorities stronger
planning powers to resist greenfield housing and to control type,
size and tenure of new development; and by strengthening the regional
planning process;
— recognise the key role of local authorities
in managing the urban environment in partnership with their local
communities and calls for a more responsive planning system to
deliver this;
— advocate the LGA's New Commitment
to Regeneration as a means of integrating policies to foster urban
regeneration.
The following sections provide more detail on
these key issues.
A SUSTAINABLE STRATEGY
FOR URBAN
AREAS
Fundamentally the LGA supports the view that
only through the creation of sustainable city living can future
household demand be met and building on greenfield sites be minimised.
There is a need for an holistic, democratic approach to regeneration,
involving communities, partnerships and Regional Development Agencies.
Joined up governance; streamlined processes and funding are needed
so that no one area should be disadvantaged by funding in another.
It is important to recognise that the reconstruction
or revitalisation of urban areas is long term and will not be
achieved overnight. The Urban and Rural White Papers should allow
for a radical review of the huge amounts of public resources which
go into urban and rural areas, considering how, through local
co-ordination of funding streams, they could be better used to
support sustainable and attractive communities. Resources need
to be concentrated over a long period in order for sustainable
improvements and benefits to be achieved. Public and private funding
should be pooled to create long term regeneration funds, and tax
incentives should be introduced.
The LGA has continually emphasised the links
between urban and rural policies, and the positive role that local
government can and should play. The development of effective policies
for urban and rural areas must, therefore, involve most government
departments and a range of other agencies and sectors. This applies
to both policy-making and service delivery and is a key area in
which the modernising government agenda needs to be taken forward.
It will be essential that both the urban and rural white papers
include new proposals for joint working between government departments,
central and local government, and between different agencies and
sectors. Allowance needs to be made for this to be done in different
ways in different areas and no one area should be disadvantaged
at the expense of another.
In many instances, the solutions to problems
in urban areas lie in addressing issues in rural areas, and vice-versa.
The White Papers should recognise the potential of the LGA's Urban/Rural
compact approach, a voluntary partnership "agreement",
which aims to highlight the interrelationships between urban and
rural areas; this approach builds upon and adds value to existing
initiatives such as community planning, land-use planning, best
value, Local Agenda 21 work and "New Commitment to Regeneration"
strategies.
A STRATEGY FOR
TACKLING DEPRIVATION
All public services should make a difference
in deprived areas. Many statutory services provided by local authorities
have in recent years become far more sensitive to local needs.
There are many outstanding examples of high quality services which
provide people's basic and sometimes essential requirements. However,
it can be argued that those public services which make the most
difference in deprived areas are those services which are provided
under the auspices of a partnership approach to dealing with issues
in the area. The involvement of local people themselves in partnerships
is often critical to the success of such partnerships. For example,
health services are critical to the issue of social inclusion.
Whilst there are many emerging examples of good partnerships between
health authorities and local authorities, the NHS has traditionally
seen its remit as technical expertise in the delivery of healthcare.
It has not to date fully engaged with partners in health prevention,
which is a key aspect of social inclusion.
Local government has a key role to play in tackling
deprivation, using neighbourhood management. Neighbourhood management
seeks to enable communities to improve local outcomes by improving,
customising and joining up local services.
Other key mechanisms for addressing social exclusion
are:
— increasing and expanding the expectations
and aspirations of excluded communities and individuals, developing
policies that explicitly deliver greater social justice;
— making the money that does come into
an area work effectively for both individuals and communities.
This is a key issue, not always associated with social inclusion
initiatives. Ensuring poor people have access to financial and
other associated services, such as insurance, communications/phones,
utilities, and access to good information about local services;
— targeting actions not just to geographic
communities or neighbourhoods but also to particular groups who
are excluded; this is particularly important in relation to children
who disproportionately experience poverty, which unless addressed
will impact on the rest of their lives and their role in society
and also the elderly who particularly experience fears about crime.
The top three things that the LGA would like
to see about the way public services operate in deprived areas
include:
— measures to make partnership working
more effective;
— the granting of freedoms and flexibilities
to enable authorities/partnerships to tackle local problems; and
— continued co-operation between central
and local government.
In addition, all central and local government
policies should be "poverty proofed" (as is the case
in Ireland).
DEALING WITH
THE DEMAND
FOR HOUSEHOLD
GROWTH
Demand should be met, as far as possible, through
the "Urban Renaissance", minimising the number of greenfield
sites used. To deliver this, local authorities need stronger planning
powers to resist greenfield housing and to control type, size
and tenure of new development.
The redraft of Planning Policy Guidance Note
3, on Housing, represents the Government's best opportunity of
fundamentally making the change from greenfield to brownfield
development and enabling local authorities to match local housing
need with housing supply. This opportunity should not be missed
and the guidance within the draft PPG 3 needs to be stronger and
better focused. Specifically local planning authorities need to
be able to refuse permissions for greenfield development where
brownfield sites are available through mechanisms such as a tough
sequential test and phasing of development sites. As recommended
by the recent Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee,
local authorities need to be given specific planning controls
over size, type and tenure of housing so they can provide a better
local match between housing needs and supply. While there are
brownfield sites all over the country, there are relatively more
in the north. Yet the migration is towards the south, with the
consequent pressure on housing but less brown field sites to accommodate.
In terms of managing the regional planning process
there needs to be:
— a more equal relationship between
central and local government as to how the process of household
growth in any individual region is managed. Local authorities
find themselves at the sharp end of the process. They must take
the individual decisions about where new housing is best located;
how to improve existing housing stock; how to make vacant accommodation
more attractive; how to maintain quality in design and building
and how to involve the consumers of housing to ensure that the
housing provided matches local needs. The Inspector's report on
SERPLAN's draft Regional Planning Guidance has exposed the flaws
in the regional planning process. After much time and effort spent
on the draft Regional Planning Guidance, the authorities in the
south-east now find the guidance taken out of their hands. The
system needs to be reformed so that the Panel at the regional
examination in public reports to the regional planning body rather
than the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State would have
the option of intervening in the process if the regional plan
departed from national guidance—as is the case with development
plans.
— More effective tools, including the
breakdown of the regional housing target by housing type, are
needed at a regional level in order to deliver the urban renaissance
and protect greenfield sites. The regional planning bodies could
then monitor provision and if affordable housing is not coming
forward, land supply needs to be adjusted so that private housing
is not over provided at the expense of land for affordable housing.
— A range of fiscal incentives to enable
the necessary development to take place where the market incentives
are currently lacking, ie, in deprived areas.
In terms of dealing with low demand in housing,
the LGA believes that because the exact causes vary from area
to area, so will the solutions, and it is important that programmes
of physical improvement are implemented, with partners, alongside
a range of social programmes. The provision of jobs must be linked
with regenerated housing. Here, there is a need to safeguard valuable
industrial land in urban areas. Sustainable cities require a mix
of uses, with a ready supply of accessible sites for employment
purposes. If there are no jobs people will not move back into
the cities.
THE KEY
ROLE OF
LOCAL AUTHORITIES
IN MANAGING
THE URBAN
ENVIRONMENT
The LGA believes that local authorities are
strategically, best positioned to lead and enable the urban renaissance
in partnership with their local communities, having a sound knowledge
and skills base; existing, effective relationships with stakeholders
and an integrated, cross-service approach. The Urban White Paper
should therefore, include a recognition of the need for partnership
working in shaping a vision for the future of local communities;
the need to steer a path into the future which equips all citizens
to participate; celebrates the positive contribution of a diversity
of cultures; and harnesses new technology yet preserves the uniqueness
of each locality. The LGA would like to see less emphasis on national
solutions to urban problems and more on enabling local solutions
to be found, while maintaining supportive, co-ordinated (in terms
of government departments and agencies developing policy as well
as service provision) national programmes. Barriers to effective
partnership working, identified in our recent research report
"Take Your Partners", should be removed by improving
the legal clarity of partnership arrangements; addressing conflicting
national targets and initiatives; removing inappropriate national
prescription and reducing inappropriate restrictions on resource
use.
Proposals for urban and rural areas should complement
each other and the White Papers should not ignore the need to
create and support self-sufficient, sustainable suburbs. The Urban
White Paper should also recognise: (a) the community leadership,
enabling and advocacy role of local authorities, which provides
a strong accountable base for the identity of urban governance
and (b) the need to spread best practice across the whole of local
government.
To deliver the urban renaissance, it is crucial
that financial resources are made available to local authorities.
A responsive planning system is also needed:
the following three proposals would provide the means to Local
Planning Authorities to bring about the speedy release of brownfield
sites and foster creative urban sites:
— simplifying the planning system—recognising
that, because of the length of the process, it does not always
lend itself well to the demands of urban regeneration. The solution
lies in greater use of Supplementary Planning Guidance, including
more community-based planning at the neighbourhood level;
— stronger planning powers to resist
greenfield housing and to control type, size and tenure of new
development (see earlier commentary on meeting the demand for
household growth);
— enhanced powers of compulsory purchase—CPO
procedures need strengthening and streamlining as soon as possible;
"regeneration CPOs" which would remove the obligation
for authorities to justify the CPO in terms of a specific proposal
for development, are supported.
THE LGA'S
NEW COMMITMENT
TO REGENERATION
The LGA does not believe that short-term regeneration
programmes will be sufficient to tackle the problems in many areas.
For this reason it has advocated the adoption of the "New
Commitment to Regeneration" (NCR)—whereby all agencies
operating in an area deploy their mainstream funds to meet agreed
regeneration objectives enshrined in a locally agreed strategy.
The NCR aims to:
— develop local councils' community
leadership role;
— create a more effective relationship
between central and local government, which reflects the different
roles of the two tiers of government;
— regenerate local communities;
— encourage greater coherence, innovation,
flexibility and partnership in the way in which local authorities
make decisions in and for communities; and
— in the long term, achieve successful
regeneration by improving the quality of employment, education,
health, housing, safety, transport and the environment in towns,
cities and rural areas, and in so doing, improving the quality
of citizen's lives.
The LGA would like to see the continuing and
active support for developing partnerships between NCR pathfinders
(ie, local authorities, in partnership, piloting the NCR approach)
and Government Offices in the New Commitment to Regeneration initiative,
with the barriers to successful regeneration that have been lifted
in pathfinder authorities extended country-wide.
The LGA's most recent initiative, the "Local
Challenge", is aimed at, and builds upon, the same objectives.
It is intended to develop the role of local councils and their
partners in pursuing at a local level, national objectives and
targets. It is based on the premise that in many areas, uniform
national programmes cannot ensure effective delivery on the ground.
The LGA believes that:
— government and the LGA should work
closely together to pursue the objectives on which the New
Commitment and the Local Challenge are based;
— Government Offices and Regional Development
Agencies should be encouraged to pursue the scope for full partnership
with the NCR pathfinders;
— there should be further work on freedoms
and flexibilities (ie, specific rules or regulations preventing
local authorities, health authorities and others at a local level
from developing their plans in a joined-up and corporate way).
The "New Commitment to Regeneration"
approach to regeneration in both urban and rural areas is a powerful
example of the potential of local government.
January 2000
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