Memorandum by the Royal Town Planning
Institute (RTPI) (DHB 29)
INTRODUCTION
1. The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)
is a professional body representing over 18,000 chartered town
planners and is a learned, and learning, society. It has recently
merged with ROOM, the National Council for Housing and Planning
in order to create a more inclusive, outward looking, informed
and interventionist body. As part of this radical evolution the
Institute and ROOM@RTPI will be taking a more direct interest
in housing issues and, in particular, the relationships between
policies and practice in housing with those in planning and regeneration.
It is on this aspect that we focus this evidence.
2. First, the RTPI commends the ODPM and
the Select Committee for engaging in such a potentially constructive
period of consultation and scrutiny in advance of the Bill entering
Parliament. The RTPI would urge the ODPM, and other Government
Departments, to adopt this practice more comprehensively. We feel,
for example, that the provisions in the current Planning and Compulsory
Purchase Bill could have been further improved if similar consultation
had been undertaken.
3. Overall, the RTPI welcomes the majority
of the provisions in the Bill including, in particular, the licensing
of houses in multiple occupation, something for which ROOM and
its predecessor bodies have consistently campaigned, and the extension
of licensing to form part of a strategy for declining or low demand
areas. We also particularly welcome the provisions relating to
the Right to Buy, including the right to acquire, in so far as
they demonstrate a willingness to examine the retention of affordable
stock as well as concentrating on the supply of market and affordable
housing through the planning system.
3. The RTPI wishes to restrict its comments
to the need for a more comprehensive framework within which the
initiatives in the Bill—and all the other initiatives in
housing policy—should be set and co-ordinated.
HOUSING AND
PLANNING STRATEGIES
4. In making these comments on the Bill,
the RTPI is mindful of the Committee's willingness to discuss
the interrelationships between this and other legislation. We
share the Committee's apparent concern that the legislative provisions
which relate to the preparation of strategies for housing and
for planning are spread amongst too many pieces of legislation.
A good current example is provided by the Local Government Bill
which in Part 7, on Housing Finance Etc, contains provisions to
"require a local housing authority to have a strategy in
respect of such matters relating to housing as the appropriate
person may specify," [87(1)(a)]. This may have been better
contained within the Housing Bill or, even, the Planning and Compulsory
Purchase Bill. This contains new Regional Spatial Strategies and
a new development planning system at the local level including
local development frameworks and action plans.
5. To this needs to be added such strategies
as the Regional Housing Strategy, which should inform the work
of the new Regional Housing Board and the Regional Economic Strategy,
which should contain elements relating to housing, prepared under
the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. The spreading of such
strategies amongst different pieces of legislation and bodies
must lead to a lack of the necessary integration and co-ordination
which is vital if housing conditions and availability are to be
improved.
6. The need for a strategic framework and
for different legislation to be linked is shown clearly in the
provisions relating to the Right to Buy. The Government has already
announced the 42 areas in which the discount would be restricted.
Six of these have asked to be excluded from the list and twelve
additional authorities have asked to be added. Whilst this has
been done on the basis of national indicators of housing stress,
the RTPI would argue that such decisions would better be taken
through a local planning process which allowed local housing authorities
to identify areas in which discount might be restricted or, even,
the right to buy or acquire be withdrawn. This decision could
be made on the basis of, for example, future plans for regeneration
and redevelopment, local housing markets and demographic factors.
7. Such decisions could be made within the
local housing strategy or within the local development framework.
Better, however, would be a situation in which the local housing
strategy under the Local Government Bill also fulfilled the statutory
purpose of an Action Plan under the Planning and Compensation
Bill.
8. The RTPI realises that this evidence
strays beyond comment on the particular clauses in the draft Bill.
We are, however, concerned that, as successive pieces of housing,
planning and local government legislation are brought forward,
the opportunity is being lost to provide an integrated strategic
framework that is embedded in legislation in a clear and comprehendable
way.
9. For this reason, the RTPI suggests that
the opportunity should be taken in this Bill to seek to bring
together some of the different strategies that are relevant to
housing. This could be done initially, for example, by inserting
a clause in the Bill which requires Regional housing Bodies to
demonstrate that they have had regard to Regional Spatial Strategies
in fulfilling the functions in respect of the allocation of financial
resources.
10. The Royal Town Planning Institute would
be pleased to discuss with the Committee the matters raised in
this Memorandum.
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