Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480
- 499)
WEDNESDAY 13 OCTOBER 2004
MR BOB
ROBERTS, MS
JOANNA RUSSELL
AND MR
TERRY ROBINSON
Q480 Chairman: It is a matter of
judgment in the end, I suppose.
Mr Robinson: I would point you,
for real examples, to the two developments the National Trust
is sponsoring at Dunham Massey and Cleveland. In those cases they
would be able to point you to a lot of people winning, although
at the outset the prospect for many National Trust members, being
a member of an organisation that then becomes a development agent,
was quite strange. However, they have seen that process through,
and they have seen it through by applying a tremendous amount
of effort to searching for solutions where there are lots of gainers.
It is very easy to walk away and think you have got a solution
where there is not enough winning going on. A lot of the secret
of sustainable development is to go on looking, because there
is often a solution that is beyond the one you think you have
got, where there are more people winning than there are with the
second group solution.
Q481 Chairman: Do you see Barker's
proposals as a threat to the countryside?
Mr Roberts: They could be. It
is like a lot of things; it depends on the extent and how they
are taken. We agree that housing needs to become more affordable;
it is difficult to disagree with that at the moment. We accept
in general terms that part of the solution to affordability is
increased supply; although the report does seem to go a long way
in terms of treating supply as being the answer when there are
a lot of other things, but there is a lot of scepticism about
the relationship between supply and affordability. We accept that
increasing supply is probably one way of improving affordability.
We also accept that in some circumstances some of that new supply
will probably have to go on green-field sites. We strongly support
the idea of brown-field development. We applaud the successes
that have been achieved, but we understand that that will not
always be able to provide what is needed and where it is needed.
That leads you to a solution that says that every proposal must
be strongly tested, but it must be tested locally not in some
sort of universal way. We are very opposed to the 20-40% additional
land bank idea because that does not fit in with regional and
local sensitivities. It very strongly directs you towards an approach
that, where you do develop and have gone through all the tests,
you have to have high quality, because for sustainability you
have to have high quality in terms of resource use and things
that fit the place and improve the place and give quality for
the community.
Q482 Chairman: None of that, of course,
is in Barker at all. I am not asking you how it may transpire
eventually into government policy but I am asking you specifically
about Barker's recommendations. Were they to be directly implemented
as policy, would that represent a serious threat to the countryside?
Mr Roberts: The biggest problem
is the implication that the planning system would be by-passed.
If there is one thing that we would want to emphasise, it is that
we think for all of the problems and stresses, the planning system
is the answer to a lot of these problems. It is not the problem
itself; it is part of the solution. It is rather worrying that
in several places Barker quite directly suggests ways of—sometimes
it is called "accelerating" but it sounds and looks
very much like going past or over the planning system when phrases
like "alternative routes to planning permission" are
put in. That is quite worrying, and we would be opposed to anything
which did not use the planning system to seek solutions.
Q483 Chairman: The basis for that
is your concern, I take it, that to go down that route would lead
to urban sprawl.
Mr Roberts: It could do. There
is a flavour in there, which is called "economic benefit",
which seems to boil down to employment benefits and monetary benefits
largely. There is a danger that they become predominant and override
other values. That has always been a danger when dealing with
environmental values because it is so difficult to monetarise
them.
Q484 Mrs Clark: You are one of the
organisations that are very much thinking that a national housing
strategy is not required and that the sustainable development
strategy, provided it has enough environmental aspects, should
be enough to address the situation in order to establish a stable
housing policy. Is this really going to occur? Are you hopeful?
What I would like to say about a sustainable development strategy
is this. I know what it is; members of this Committee know what
it is; there are a small, but dare I say select group of members
of parliament of all parties who know what it is; but there is
nobody in my constituency who has got any idea what it is, to
say nothing about the general public elsewhere. Is this not the
strategy that dare not speak its name, that nobody knows anything
about; and so why are you putting all your eggs in that rather
useless basket?
Ms Russell: We feel the sustainable
development strategy should be the over-arching strategy that
embraces all the others. There is a danger of strategy overload.
We have got the new planning system which requires a lot more
strategic thinking and regional spatial strategies, local development
documents which in themselves—
Q485 Mrs Clark: What does that mean?
How are you going to engage local authorities? How do you see
it engaging local authorities?
Ms Russell: The sustainable development
strategy?
Q486 Mrs Clark: Yes.
Ms Russell: That sets the framework
for all the strategies that the regional planning bodies and local
planning authorities have to prepare so they know what the principles
are and they take it forward into their strategies at regional
and local levels, which will engage with the public so that the
public will get involved with sustainable development issues at
their local level. We do not see the need for yet another stand-alone
strategy that might not be embraced by all the decision-makers
or by the public.
Q487 Mrs Clark: I am probably going
off the brief here, but I am just going to give you a local example.
Peterborough is a growth area. It is not at all apparent to me
that the local authority—and I am not talking about officers,
you understand but about the administration—has any idea
about the sustainable development strategy, or how it might integrate
with housing policy. What do you see as your role and government's
role in informing them about that—not just my authority
but others? They have no idea what it is and how it links in,
and so consequently there is a huge protest locally about housing
growth.
Ms Russell: I think you are right.
Government and local authorities have a very important role to
play in raising awareness of the public, and the issues and the
context within which very difficult decisions locally have to
be made. There is a lot of general interest in environmental issues
like climate change, and the public are becoming more and more
interested and more engaged. It is the job of the professionals
in the field to try and do what they can to engage people with
those issues in a way the public can understand, so they get on
board and can accept the need for necessary development and can
have a say in how that development should take place at local
level. The new planning system is predicated on far greater community
involvement in the system, and we embrace those objectives. We
think that is vitally important that everyone should have a say
in the future planning of their areas and should engage with the
issues; and that is what is going to help achieve more sustainable
communities in the long run.
Q488 Mrs Clark: I am not normally
an advocate for my neighbouring Member of Parliament Sir Brian
Mawhinney, but he has fought a long-standing campaign in terms
of his concern about planning committees and the planning process;
and he is concerned, as am I, about the fact that planning committees
and planning concerns do not seem to be at all tuned in to government
policies or whatever. How are you going to see your role as actually
informing them about this? Furthermore, how would you look at
a housing strategy with specific environmental guidance, actually
targeted at all those involved in housing? Do you think that is
a role for you? Is it a role for voluntary organisations; is it
a role for the Government or ministers—what?
Ms Russell: It is a role for all
stakeholders. The Countryside Agency has a role because we are
a statutory consultee.
Q489 Mrs Clark: Is there discussion
between any of these?
Ms Russell: All the stakeholders
get together at the regional and local level, and the new planning
system encourages that. It is a much more all-embracing system.
Spatial planning is going to embrace all relevant participants
at the local level to work together to achieve better quality
development and sustainable development.
Mr Roberts: I have some sympathy
with what you say, which is that it is not easy.
Q490 Mrs Clark: It is not transparent.
Mr Roberts: No, well it is not
transparent enough. It is a bit unreasonable, I think, to write
off the existing planning system—it is a damn sight better
than an awful lot of other planning systems that are around, or
non-planning systems. It is a relative issue. The latest changes
are attempting to introduce higher standards and more transparency.
I think there are two ways of looking at this. One is the question
you have asked, which is to what extent is government going to
make known to local authorities the new rules, and help them to
implement them—and there are measures going through to do
that. The other is to what extent planning authorities are going
to be influenced from the bottom up. A great deal of our own work
and a great deal of what we have produced and encouraged over
the last 10 years or more has been about community involvement.
Our theory is that the more you can involve the community, the
more you can engage the community; and the more you can give the
community benefit from proposed developments, very tangible benefits—and
that is something that is very interesting in Barker and what
comes out of that—the more likely you are to come out with
happier communities, rather than them feeling things are just
being landed on them all the while.
Q491 Mrs Clark: You are saying it
is about sharing and discussion and working together for solutions,
rather than top-down imposed.
Mr Roberts: Yes.
Mr Robinson: I want to go back
to your observation that not many people understand sustainable
development.
Q492 Mrs Clark: They do not.
Mr Robinson: Which is very easy
to agree on that. What they do understand is better places to
live; a more thriving local economy which is based on the
local opportunities and builds on local opportunities; services
and infrastructure which feed and help build proper community
cohesions, so that their quality of life—which is what I
quickly find when we talk about sustainable development, that
we come to talk about quality of life much more quickly than the
rather technical areas of sustainable development; and, on top
of that, more prudent use of natural resources, better use of
techniques where we are less wasteful and do more recycling. All
of that seems to me to be being picked up quite rapidly, both
at the political level by local politicians and in a lot of the
stakeholders. What the new planning system delivers for those
local authorities which can gear up to take advantage of it—and
I am tempted to say, "woe betide those that do not"—is
the opportunity to use the planning system to broker the
sort of improvements people want where development acts as a vehicle
to deliver those improvements, rather than the current situation
which is a perpetual stand-off between those that want to develop
and the rest who see development as some threat that we should
all be frightened of.
Q493 Mrs Clark: That is very helpful.
Speaking from a previous incarnation, as an ex English teacher,
and someone involved with the Plain English organisation, the
phrase "quality of life issues" or "quality of
life commission" would seem to be much more readily understandable
to people in constituencies up and down the country, rather than
"sustainable development", which we have even had problems
within this Committee in defining—so that is a very valuable
comment to make. You have said in your submission that you would
like to see the wording of the draft PPS1 to be beefed up. How
would you see that exactly?
Ms Russell: In the wording on
sustainable development it talks about integrating economic and
social and environmental objectives, which we welcome, but it
is the point the Chairman made earlier about economic objectives
perhaps overriding environmental ones. To reiterate the point
we made, we think it should be strong. The PPS1 is the over-arching
planning statement that all other planning statements are in conformity
with, and regional and local plans are in conformity with; so
it is really important that we get this one right. I would think
the wording should be strong on integration, aiming for the win/win
solutions—
Q494 Mrs Clark: Can you take me back?
Can you explain "integration" a bit more, please—integration
in what way?
Ms Russell: Economic, social and
environmental issues together to achieve improvement in quality
of life. That is sustainable development, and that should be strongly
stated in the guidance.
Q495 Mrs Clark: Again, we have got
to put that into plain English, have we not, in terms of people
within their constituencies and their daily lives?
Ms Russell: The second point I
would like to make on PPS1 is that it talks very much about improving
the quality of the planning service, and we recognise that that
is important; but we would like to see greater emphasis on improved
planning outcomes, the quality of development on the ground. That
should be in there strongly.
Q496 Mrs Clark: What do you mean
by "future planning outcomes"?
Ms Russell: The development that
is delivered. The development itself should be high quality; it
is not just the process of getting there, in terms of dealing
with the planning application efficiently, it is to do with the
quality of the outcome that is delivered on the ground.
Q497 Mrs Clark: Finally, do you think
that PPS1 will have the effect the Government wants it to have,
of putting sustainable development right in the centre of the
planning process? Is it going to have that outcome; and, if not,
why, and how would you amend it? It is a difficult question.
Mr Roberts: We do not have our
crystal ball with us today!
Ms Russell: It is certainly the
starting point, if that is backed up by appropriate guidance and
support and training for local authorities to help deliver that,
with awareness campaigns and the publication we talked about earlier
is all part of a mix that should help ensure sustainability is
at the centre of decision-making.
Mrs Clark: Thank you very much. I love
your phrase "quality of life".
Q498 Mr Thomas: When we are talking
about PPS1 or any other government definition of sustainable development—you
have already made it clear to the Committee that you are afraid
that the economic bottom line is the one that wins over. You said
quite rightly that you are looking for integration and win/win
situations, but when we cannot achieve that, when we are faced
with a choice in which there is a conflict, do you as the Countryside
Agency take the view that it is the environmental consideration
with sustainable development that should in those cases—not
all cases perhaps—be uppermost? If you do not take that
view, where does that leave the countryside and the environment?
Mr Roberts: We do take that view
where the environmental values are very high and very clear. For
instance, in designated areas there are some very clearly-stated
objectives, very important environmental qualities to protect
and preferably enhance. We do not think that they should be diminished,
reduced or got rid of for economic gain. In other areas, the environmental
features and qualities might be relatively few—back to the
cabbage field I mentioned at the beginning. In those circumstances,
the environmental reduction might be relatively modest. There
would be a loss of productive capacity, for example, in some ways;
but actually it would not be huge relative to some potential local
economic and social gains. It is horses for courses. It is not
an easy answer, but we must of course protect environmental quality
and preferably improve it. The key concept is to use development
to make places better. I think we are in a mindset because probably
the lifetime experience of most of the people in this room is
predominantly that development is bad news; so we have a knee-jerk
reaction and when somebody turns up and says they want to change
the place in some way we think it is going to be worse. However,
if you think about it over a longer period, development has created
some of the places that we value most, some very beautiful and
attractive places. It sounds very idealistic, but the trick is
to use development to begin to recreate places that we think are
beautiful and attractive and that we want to live in for the 21st
century, rather than preserve some sort of mythical 18th century
idyll.
Q499 Mr Thomas: I can see how that
approach works quite well in the context of a local environment
or specific location, so you can take a monoculture agricultural
field and say that in terms of biodiversity it is rubbish anyway,
and 20 houses with nice gardens would be better. I can see how
it works in context but what about the wider question, for example
the effect of flooding in relation to development in a particular
area; or the wider question about transport and the additional
emissions that might be caused by the fact that a development
is here, but the jobs are there, or the village or the markets
are there? How can you take that view and apply it on a wider
basis? It may work for the particular cabbage field, but how can
you make sure it works in the wider context?
Mr Roberts: That is precisely
the job of the local planning authority, to receive information
on those things from the Environment Agency or wherever the expertise
lies, to properly take them into account and come to a decision
in the light of that information. That is precisely what the planning
authority is there for. When you ask how you do it, the answer
is, "with difficulty". Sometimes there are conflicts.
We know what the consequences of building on flood plains are
now. We are not the Environment Agency, but I guess I know what
they will say about it. What you have described is the planning
process; it is receiving the multiplicity of information and attempting
to resolve it with the maximum possible gain.
Mr Robinson: The communities that
fare better at this are those which are—and we hope in increasing
numbers—using the planning system to prepare for this. You
are very poorly equipped to get these sorts of solutions if you
sit there waiting for something to be sprung on you. The planning
system has to be steered round to—we advocate a visioning
process whereby at community level the community comes together
and gives the planning authority the information it needs to say,
"this place is not going to be the same in 10 years' time
as it is now; what sort of change do we want; what sort of community
do we want to become; and therefore what is on our shopping list,
and what of that can we achieve through a development process?"
I want to refer to a lot of success we have had in terms of quality,
although it has not been adopted in a large number of places yet,
with the technique we developed jointly with the Environment Agency
and English Heritage and English Nature, called a quality of life
assessment, which is a consultative process where basically, because
you cannot put economic costs on—
Chairman: We are coming on to this. I
am anxious to make progress.
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