Written evidence from Boyer Planning Ltd
(ARSS 74)
SUMMARY
This evidence has been prepared by Boyer Planning
Ltd, an established environmental planning and development consultancy
with long and extensive experience of the plan-making system and
its operation.
The abolition of RSS has harmed the delivery of a
wide range of legitimate development schemes in a number of ways.
It has caused a very obvious hiatus in development planning, impacting
on the delivery of these identified and established projects.
Uncertainty is now endemic in the system; a number of local authorities
are beginning to move away from engagement with developers, contrary
to what is recognised to be the good practice of partnership working;
and many are re-visiting well established and demonstrably sound
planning strategies halting the progress of Core Strategies and
other LDF work.
This is serving to undermine the rational framework
to spatial planning that exists at the heart of the town and country
system. Moreover it runs counter to the clear and demonstrable
need for investment and land to support housing and employment
growth and infrastructure improvements. At the present time it
is difficult to see how the plan-led system will be able to deliver
the Coalition Government's policy objective to increase housebuilding.
The rationale for the planning system is and always
has been to regulate development in the public interest. Decisions
cannot, and should not, be decentralised to such an extent that
local communities (any more than any particular interest group)
are able to determine what the wider public interest is and dictate
how it is best served.
The move to a local approach to plan making must,
therefore, be accompanied by the commitment to adhere to sound
principles of planning, based on a framework that adopts responsible
assumptions regarding demographic change, economic growth forecasts,
infrastructure requirements and environmental considerations.
Co-operation between local authorities will be imperative if realistic
development strategies are to properly reflect spatial influences
that almost inevitably extend across administrative areas. This
will require a means of conflict resolution and independent scrutiny
of both process and planning judgement.
Absent a strong government lead to this effect there
is a very real risk that the planning system will be governed
by vocal minorities working to short term horizons. Difficult
but necessary decisions will not be taken.
We are concerned that encouraging local authorities
to accept financial inducements in return for permitting new housing
will not ensure housing being built where it is needed but where
it is wanted by local communities. That is not consistent with
the underlying and traditional purposes of public interest planning
in this Country.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Boyer Planning Ltd is an established environmental
planning and development consultancy, working on behalf of private
developers, landowners and public sector clients throughout England
(and Wales). Our work encompasses both the Development Plan and
Development Control aspects of the planning system.
1.2 We have long and extensive experience of
the plan-making system and its operation. We have been involved
in the formulation and implementation of Regional Spatial Strategies
in most regions of England over the past decade.
1.3 Our evidence provides information on the
following, which we believe will assist the Committee in its understanding
of the implications of the abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies:
a historic context considering the role of the plan-led
system;
the need for a co-ordinated approach to economic,
social and environmental land-use planning at a strategic level;
the practical implications of revocation of Regional
Strategies;
our view of the potential difficulties with implementing
localism and preconditions to its introduction;
incentives; and
the imperative for co-operation and co-ordination
between local authorities.
2. HISTORIC CONTEXT
2.1 Throughout its history the town and country
planning system in the UK has operated on the basis of a framework
of development plans. Since the introduction of Section 54A in
to the 1990 Planning Act, and reaffirmed by the 2004 Act, the
Development Plan is the starting point in the consideration of
planning applications for the development or use of land, unless
material considerations indicate otherwise.
2.2 The planning system, operating in this manner,
helps to ensure that development takes place in the public interest,
in economically, socially and environmentally sustainable ways.
This has been, and must continue to be, the central tenet of the
planning system.
2.3 The role of Regional Strategies (or equivalent)
have their origins in historic discussions about the co-ordination
of land-use planning at a strategic level—taking into account
influences that extend across settlement and administrative boundaries.
2.4 The South East Study of 1961 was the first
major post-war attempt to apply regional planning principles.
It was followed by a series of similar documents, especially in
the South East where development pressure, and hence the need
for an overall framework, was greatest. A number of non-statutory
regional and sub-regional planning documents were prepared in
the late 1980s and early 1990s to ensure similar co-ordination
of planning policies.
2.5 County Structure Plans, introduced in the
1971 Act and updated in the 1990 Act, were a similar tool to provide
an overall structure or framework to guide development, environmental
protection and conservation, and infrastructure delivery across
a strategic area. This framework, as with all planning decisions,
relied on balancing these various factors to ensure that the public
interest was secured.
2.6 The process of County Structure Plans under
the 1990 Act rested on strategic planning authorities (County
Councils and latterly Unitary Authorities) being responsible for
their preparation with approval, initially, by the Secretary of
State. An integral element of this process was scrutiny prior
to adoption by independent Panels. The Examination in Public (EiP)
conducted for this purpose produced recommendations which underpinned
the Secretary of State's ultimate decision.
2.7 Once adoption of Structure Plans was delegated
to the plan making authorities, a weakness of this system was
that EiP Panel recommendations were not binding and could be set
aside in the approval process. Government intervention was infrequent
despite clear and justified reasons in favour of adopting Panel
recommendations. It was regularly the case that recommendations
concerning the level and distribution of development, and housing
in particular, were not accepted either in whole or in part, yet
the decision justified by the same arguments that had been found
deficient by the process of independent scrutiny. The resultant
levels of low housing provision through subsequent Local Plans
have been a contributing factor to the undersupply of housing
over recent decades.
2.8 Regional Planning Guidance (and thereafter
Regional Spatial Strategies) provided the opportunity to rationalise
the whole strategic development plan system by a single set of
spatial frameworks covering the Country in a consistent manner,
scrutinized independently and approved by the Government.
2.9 The Secretary of State's involvement in this
process has been portrayed by those opposed to it as a bureaucratic
and undemocratic centralisation of the Plan-led process. However,
in a system that requires checks and balances to ensure planning
decisions are taken in the public interest, the role of the Secretary
of State has been, and must continue to be, an important one as
the person with ultimate responsibility for and oversight of the
proper and legitimate operation of the planning system.
2.10 The rationale for the planning system is
and always has been to regulate development in the public interest.
Decisions cannot, and should not, be decentralised to such an
extent that local communities (any more than any particular interest
group) are able to determine what the wider public interest is
and dictate how it is best served.
2.11 Without the framework described above, the
Plan-led system and development planning become a meaningless
concept.
3. ROLE AND
FUNCTION OF
STRATEGIC PLANNING
3.1 Regional Spatial Strategies have provided
guidance on all aspects of land use planning. However, our submission
focuses on housing provision because of the apparent pre-occupation
by the Coalition Government on the role of Regional Strategies
in this matter.
3.2 Regional Spatial Strategies proceeded from
an evidence based approach to housing provision within the context
of the (still extant) policy objective to improve the supply of
new housing. This requires account to be taken of a wide range
of factors. PPS3 (para 33) identifies the following:
current and future levels of need and demand for
housing including housing market assessments, affordability, demographic
change;
the needs of the regional economy and expected economic
growth;
the availability of land housing;
sustainability appraisals of the social and economic
implications, including costs, benefits and risks of development,
consideration of the most sustainable pattern of housing; and
an assessment of the impact of development upon existing
or planned infrastructure and of any new infrastructure required.
3.3 These are principles that have guided the
preparation of Regional Spatial Strategies and are expected to
continue to inform Core Strategies (or any subsequently titled
replacement) absent the strategic tier of the Development Plan.
We take comfort from the advice of the Chief Planning Officer
in his letter to Local Authorities of the 6 July 2010 that Local
Authorities will still be required to justify their housing supply
policies in line with the current policy in PPS3. A local Development
Plan must still meet the requirements for soundness under the
current legislation.
3.4 The practical importance of a housing requirement
within the Development Plan is the certainty that it provides.
It guides land use allocations, providing a transparent understanding,
to the benefit of the local community, development interests and
infrastructure providers, of where development should and should
not be located. It gives a clear framework for investment decisions
and is a means of regulating supply. It is highly relevant to
decisions on planning applications.
3.5 Morever, RSSs gave the spatial aspect to
a range of national and regional strategies, eg Regional Economic
Strategies and Regional Transport Plans—aimed at creating
a clear framework for growth locations and investment by the private
and public sectors.
3.5 It is within this context that we examine
the practical implications of the abolition of Regional Spatial
Strategies.
4. PRACTICAL
IMPLICATIONS OF
THE ABOLITION
OF REGIONAL
SPATIAL STRATEGIES
4.1 Whilst the revocation of Regional Spatial
Strategies was not unexpected with the change of Government, the
absence of any transitional or alternative arrangements is a significant
deficiency in the move towards a new locally focused form of planning.
4.2 Across the country there exists a wide range
of legitimate development proposals, with a firm basis in a fit
for purpose planning strategy, and derived from an evidence base
stimulated by, if not directly part of, the relevant RSS. A great
many of these are development proposals that were established
through the RSS, often with LPA involvement, and endorsed by the
Panels who conducted the respective Examinations in Public. Major
investment has been made by public and private sector bodies to
reach this stage and many outline planning applications have been
submitted or are in preparation.
4.3 The abolition of RSS has harmed the delivery
of these schemes in a number of ways:
It has caused a very obvious hiatus in development
planning, impacting on the delivery of these identified and established
projects with uncertainty now endemic in the system;
A number of local authorities are beginning to move
away from engagement with developers, contrary to what is recognised
to be the good practice of partnership working;
Many are re-examining well established and sound
planning strategies halting the progress of Core Strategies.
4.4 All of this is serving to undermine the rational
framework to spatial planning that remains at the heart of the
system. Moreover it runs counter to the clear and demonstrable
need for investment and land to support housing and employment
growth and infrastructure improvements.
4.5 At the present time it is difficult to see
how the plan-led system will be able to deliver the "golden
age" of housing that the Coalition Government advocates.
The Secretary of State's interview with the Sunday Times (12 September
2010) is the most recent instructive confirmation of this agenda,
declaring that "we've just got to get houses built. We're
at rock bottom—1924 was the last time we built this little
number of houses".
4.6 As the planning system regulates the release
of land for housing, it will be through this system that permissions
will be granted to achieve and sustain the intended increase in
housing. Having dismantled the strategic element of the plan-led
system—which determined the broad spatial strategy for the
provision and distribution of development—the element of
the Development Plan that provided that framework has been taken
away.
4.7 What appears to remain is a locally derived
planning framework with a short term horizon which will result
in incremental, uncoordinated, and hoc growth. It is very difficult
to see how this approach can deliver development where and when
it is needed as distinct from development that a particular local
community is minded to endorse at any point in time.
5. LOCALISM
5.1 Decisions regarding planning and housing
are to be returned to a local level. Local communities are to
be able to establish the development needs of an area and identify
the locations that are suitable for development. We recognise
the value of local involvement and participation in the planning
process and we do not seek to preserve the "business as usual"
model. However, our experience suggests that localism will not
deliver what is required without a mature framework in which all
bodies—central government, local authorities, local communities,
and environmental, social and economic interests—participate
together.
5.2 To take forward this approach requires a
paradigm that hitherto has not existed in the planning arena.
A pre-condition to the successful implementation of this system
will be for all stakeholders to exercise realism as to the development
needs not only of their own area but also the nation, region and
sub-region.
5.3 Very often individuals who oppose a new housing
proposal will cite an absence of need, yet almost always nowadays
there is a Strategic Housing Market Assessment which indicates
a requirement for housing in excess of what was being planned
for in the first instance. Our experience of community consultation
is consistent in revealing that the local benefits of development
proposals—eg physical and community infrastructure improvements—let
alone the wider contribution to meeting housing need, rarely outweigh
the perceived objections.
5.4 A means of conflict resolution must be created
that places obligations upon local authorities, the local community,
development and environmental interests to work together within
a protocol that ensures that broader issues are adequately reflected.
It cannot be that wholesale opposition to a proposal from a local
or parochial consensus allows required development to be prevented.
5.5 Absent a strong government lead to this effect
there is a very real risk that the planning system will be governed
by vocal minorities working to short term horizons. Difficult
but necessary decisions will not be taken.
5.6 It remains imperative, therefore, that local
development plans are subject to scrutiny to ensure that they
are based on rigorous evidence and responsible judgements. This
scrutiny must extend beyond procedural conformity. An appointed
Inspector must be able to correct any deficiency in the plan in
terms of the policies and proposals it contains. The true public
interest of planning will not otherwise be served.
6. CO -OPERATION
AND CROSS-BOUNDARY
WORKING
6.1 Spatial planning by definition extends almost
always across local authority administrative areas, referring
to housing market areas, areas of economic influence and travel
to work areas. It is these factors, as identified earlier, that
formed the reasoned justification for the emergence of strategic
land use planning.
6.2 The need for cross border relationships will
continue to exist and must be properly taken into account in future
planning strategies.
6.3 There are wide-ranging examples of why local
authorities will need to co-operate and work jointly to consider
cross boundary relationships. A commonly experienced example is
where the most sustainable direction of growth for a settlement
involves development in an adjoining authority and therefore impinges
on different development plans. It is a characteristic of many
urban centres that they have tight administrative boundaries.
Examples among our current strategic projects are Cheltenham,
Worcester, Cambridge, Harlow, Derby, Tamworth.
6.4 In this, and other instances, the need to
co-operate is paramount if the most appropriate and responsible
planning strategy is to materialise. This will, of course, require
a commitment to a strategic framework for the planning system
to achieve its core purposes.
7. INCENTIVES
7.1 The housing bonus referred to as a
means of encouraging local communities and local authorities to
support new housing development requires the benefits that accrue
from new development to exceed the objections to it. Our experience
of local authorities and their response to local reaction leads
us to believe that the reality will be otherwise. New development
is often seen as compounding rather than alleviating any existing
problems despite evidence of mitigation and betterment. Sometimes
this may justify rejection of a proposal but other times it indicates
the need for a difficult decision in the public interest. Such
points of principle will not be overcome by financial inducement.
7.2 Encouraging local authorities to accept financial
inducements in return for permitting new housing will not ensure
housing being built where it is needed but where it is wanted
by local communities. That is not consistent with the underlying
and traditional purposes of public interest planning in this country.
September 2010
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