Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness(Questions 593-599)

DR JOE HOWE

WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2002

Chairman

  593. Dr Howe, you are at the School of Planning and Landscape at Manchester University, but could you spell out what you are there, for the record?
  (Dr Howe) I am Director of Graduate Planning Studies at the University of Manchester

  594. We were particularly anxious in the course of this investigation not to get so involved with diffuse pollution from agricultural sources in the countryside that we overlook the enormous implications of this Directive for planning within the urban environment. We were not overwhelmed with submissions, it has to be said, from planners, which made me wonder how many were aware of this, but we did do some investigations and we turned you up, if I may say it like that.
  (Dr Howe) I think that is fair to say.

  595. From a planning point of view and looking at the terms of the Directive, and you heard the Minister say that the planning guidances were likely to remain instrumental here, but could you tell us how do you think this is actually going to work in practice? If you had to give a seminar to some people from local authorities and they said, "What on earth is the Water Framework Directive and what does it mean for us?", what would you tell them?
  (Dr Howe) It is going to have huge implications and I think it is fair to say that to date local authorities and planning bodies are not up to speed with the potential implications of the Water Framework Directive. I think that is probably reflected in the lack of submissions before the Committee. Some of the work that I have been doing at the University of Manchester has been to try to argue that planning and planners need to become aware of the spatial implications of the Water Framework Directive. Perhaps the most important aspect of the Water Framework Directive will be the implication for forward planning and at the moment there appears to be a lack of synchronisation, shall we say, between the spatial scales that local authorities are responsible for in their development plans and the spatiality of the river basin management plans. They do not sit very comfortably together. Inevitably, some local authorities will sit across two river basin management plans, for instance, so spatiality is problematic. I think, secondly, that there is an issue of who is going to be responsible for the implementation of these particular management plans. Much discussion has taken place about whether or not the Environment Agency is the most appropriate body to oversee this particular initiative and they probably are, in my opinion. Nevertheless, at the moment the Environment Agency is not known for employing too many planners and there are going to be huge land-use planning implications here, so it is important that planning bodies and the Environment Agency get together to familiarise themselves with the various land-use management implications of this.

  596. So we should really be asking the Minister whether or not the Environment Agency is involved with his Department in discussing with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister the planning guidances?
  (Dr Howe) Absolutely.

  597. And are planning guidances sufficiently strong instruments in order to deliver this?
  (Dr Howe) They could be, but they are not at the moment.

  598. What needs to happen to them to make them strong enough?
  (Dr Howe) Certainly PPG25, which is on flooding, potentially could have some implications for this, and also PPG13, which is on the development plans aspect, really needs to spell out the implications of river basin management plans and perhaps a way forward which the Committee might like to consider is that in future the development plans or planning policy guidance has in it some recommendation that river basin management plans should be incorporated within development plans per se so that there is an incorporation to ensure that there is consistency across various local authorities within a river basin district, if you will.

  599. So if I ask the question, "What legal status will the river basin management plans have in regard to land-use planning?", the answer may well be that the legal status might be impeccable, but the means to translate that into action is deficient?
  (Dr Howe) Very much so and they will be there to be challenged unless they are incorporated into the development plans and I imagine that the courts will have quite an important role to play in all of this unless they are incorporated very clearly within legislation and into the development plans.


 
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