Conclusions and Recommendations
205. The Planning Green Paper rightly identifies
room for improvement in the way the town and country planning
system operates. There is little dispute that decisions on planning
applications should often be reached more quickly and particularly
that the time taken to prepare and revise plans in past years
has been depressingly slow. Whether this amounts to a need for
the radical reforms does, however, need to be questioned.
206. The alternative, of continuing an evolutionary
process of revision to the planning system has been contemplated
only patchily in the Green Paper. It does propose many simple
changes to the development control part of the system, which will
continue the process of modernising planning rules. However, the
proposals on forward planning pay far too little attention to
modest, practical measures which could simplify the system and
save time with few adverse side effects. These should be introduced
and tested first before radical measures are introduced.
207. We conclude that the Government's proposals
will not for the most part achieve their key objectives of introducing
greater speed, simplicity and certainty to the system. Our review
suggests that the arrangements for tariffs and deciding major
infrastructure projects will take longer than the present system,
for example. The emphasis on criteria rather than comprehensive
land use maps for forward planning at the local level would no
doubt allow plans to be prepared more quickly, but have the effect
of encouraging disputes at the planning application stage and
invite many more appeals. The benefits of the 1991 legislation
in these respects would be lost, and the overall result would
be a more contentious, expensive, uncertain and time consuming
system.
208. The Green Paper has been quick to spot, and
in our view in some cases exaggerate, the problems with the current
system, but it has played down the strengths of existing practices.
By focusing on outputs and the mechanics of planning it has largely
overlooked the central value of the planning process as a brokering
mechanism between competing interests in deciding how land and
buildings should be used. The means by which decisions are reached
must be seen to be fair if participants are to accept the outcomes,
especially the ones they do not like. The present system commands
public confidence because it affords a fair hearing at all stages
of the process. The Government ignores at its peril warnings of
a perception that the proposed new system will constrain effective
participation by those with real interests. The Government's radical
reforms are in danger of spawning a new generation of Swampies.
209. It would take at least five years to establish
the new system. The Government has been quick to complain about
the length of time taken by local authorities to implement the
unexceptional obligation of preparing an authority-wide plan,
yet retains an incompatible belief in their ability to reinvent
quickly the entire forward planning process at the local level.
There are already indications of reluctance by local authorities
to keep their policies up-to-date, and a hiatus is virtually inevitable
as authorities make up the details of the Government's new system
as they start to apply it. There is a substantial price to pay
in the transition for any new procedures, only worth paying if
the resulting framework is a substantial improvement over the
existing one. We have found little evidence that it would be.
210. We conclude that the Government's proposals
are unworkable as a whole. We share the Government's enthusiasm
for clearing the stuffy air which surrounds planning. We wish
to encourage innovation and enthusiasm for the immense positive
contribution which planning can make to public life. Yet the Green
Paper shows a lack of grasp of the real issues over outward appearances.
For example:
- the important issue is how Government planning
policy is implemented, not how many pages it is;
- the case for Business Planning Zones fundamentally
misconceives planning as a drag on the economy rather than a contributor
to securing high quality development in the right places;
- the length of the Heathrow Terminal 5 inquiry
is legendary, but a poor basis for choosing a new system to decide
major infrastructure projects;
- Local Plan Inquiries may seem ripe for abolition
because of the time they take, but they are a significant contributory
force in establishing quality in the planning process, where outcomes
are seen as rational, democratic and driven by a commitment to
the wise use of land in the public interest.
211. The Committee was astonished by the lack of
attention to the most obvious problem facing the delivery of an
effective planning service, namely its under-resourcing. There
is a shortage of professional and experienced planning staff in
most local authorities, low morale and a recruitment problem.
Ministers' obsession with shaming authorities with poor performances,
measured largely in terms of speed rather than quality of decisions,
has no doubt contributed to this. Meanwhile, local authorities
divert money away from planning to other more politically attractive
uses.
212. The Government accepts that its proposed new
system will take more planners to operate than the current one,
but has no serious proposals in hand to train and attract staff
even to fulfil current requirements. We have no hesitation in
recommending that significantly more money and staff should be
ploughed into planning long before any major revision of its practices
is contemplated. We suspect that some at least of the problems
identified would diminish or dissolve if more and better qualified
staff were in post to address them.
213. We conclude that the requirement is for different
priorities than the ones the Government has selected. The current
system would benefit from gradual modernisation. There is widespread
understanding of how the planning system works, in general, if
not in detail. The Government will reach its objective much more
effectively by working with the grain of over 50 years of experience
rather than stubbornly discarding it.
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