Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies

Memorandum from Hampshire County Council (ARSS 36)

Executive Summary

· The County Council believes there is a void between high-level national policy making and local planning delivery. Filling that ‘strategic planning’ void is necessary to address important issues related to the provision of infrastructure and delivery of services which must be dealt with across arbitrary district council boundaries for reasons of effectiveness and efficiency.

· Our submission to this Select Committee logically follows on from our bid, in 2009 under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, to take strategic planning powers away from the Regional Planning Body and give them to county councils. Both recognise that county councils, working collaboratively with their district partners and other stakeholders, can successfully fill the void between national and local plan making. We would urge the Committee to include a recommendation of this sort in its report to Parliament.

· Following the abolition of regional strategies, some district councils in Hampshire seem likely to plan for a lower rate of house building. However, the new housebuilding figures reflect important local factors which were not adequately considered in the flawed and distant Regional Strategy preparation process, yet they still provide for more than just local housing need. This is localism and democracy in action and should be commended.

· In two-tier areas, responsibility for the delivery of many local services are split between upper and lower tier authorities. It is essential, therefore, that the statutory duty to cooperate applies not only between lower tier planning authorities but also with their county councils. This is essential in order to ‘join-up’ local planning with the planning of transport, mineral extraction, waste disposal, education and social care provision, and flood management – all of which are county council statutory responsibilities.

· The Government’s intention for district planning authorities to have a ‘duty to cooperate’ is welcome, but it needs to also require cooperation with county councils in two tier areas. Indeed, county councils could coordinate the cooperation between authorities within their county.

· The County Council has major reservations about Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) being directly given any planning functions. It would be undemocratic for public policy to be determined by a private sector-led body. Decisions on which planning policies to adopt should rest with local government who need to take account of other considerations (environmental constraints, public opinion etc.) in reaching planning decisions operating via a democratically accountable process.

· Clarification from the Government is required on the proposed housing incentives package. Based on the limited information currently available, the County Council is concerned that the proposed incentives package will not address the very real funding issues for infrastructure and therefore will do little to assuage fears of over-stretched local resources or to persuade local communities to accept new development. The County Council is concerned that the incentives may be paid only to lower tier authorities: in two-tier areas, it is county councils who provide most public services including the new education, social care, transport and waste disposal facilities needed to support new housing development. The Select Committee is urged to recommend that Government set out details of the scheme as soon as possible, including the production of a full Regulatory Impact Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis in order for the impacts of any potential incentives package to be thoroughly assessed and debated.

· County Councils have a statutory duty to undertake surveys of their areas. This duty provides a formal basis for their research and data analysis activity. They employ specialists such as demographers and economic analysts which individual district planning authorities could not be justify employing, while surveys/data analysis for a whole county can be more cost effective than if undertaken by district authorities individually. It is unclear whether this statutory duty will remain in legislation following the passage of the Localism Bill. Without it, this valuable County Council research activity could be lost. The Select Committee is urged to recommend to Parliament that a similar provision be incorporated in the forthcoming Localism Bill.

Introduction

1. Hampshire County Council believes there is a need for a level of strategic planning between the national and local level. As the County Council stated in its bid in 2009 under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 - which sought to devolve planning powers from the regional level - this should preferably be at county level. Please see a summary of the key elements of the County Council’s bid at Appendix 1. [1]

2. Hampshire County Council played a major role in the preparation of the Regional Strategy for the South East (the ‘South East Plan’), including the drafting, in conjunction with the other upper tier authorities, of the two sub-regional strategies which covered the more urbanised parts of the county. The County Council, as minerals and waste planning authority, was very influential in shaping the minerals and waste policies in the South East Plan. The County Council also undertakes demographic and economic forecasting, and monitors development activity and land supply. Based on this knowledge and experience and the work undertaken to prepare our Sustainable Communities Act bid the County Council believes it can provide authoritative evidence to the Committee

3. The County Council wishes primarily to comment on those aspects of the Committee’s inquiry relating to future arrangements for strategic planning, including minerals and waste, but in order to help the Committee, this submission also includes some evidence on the implications of regional strategy abolition and the Government’s plan for incentives. The County Council would welcome any opportunity to elaborate through oral evidence to the Committee.

About Hampshire

4. Hampshire is very large and diverse. With a population of almost 1.3 million, it is England’s third most populous county. It is estimated to account for around 20 per cent of the South East Region’s economy and population. Major urban areas of Aldershot / Farnborough, Basingstoke and South Hampshire, contrast with substantial rural areas including large parts of two National Parks. The county includes two Growth Points and an Ecotown, while two airports, two seaports and four universities add to the development pressure in the county.

The implications of the abolition of regional house building targets for levels of housing development.

5. The implication in Hampshire of the revocation of regional strategies seems to be a move to authorities planning for a lower level of house building than that proposed by the final version of the South East Plan. The emerging intentions of the local planning authorities within Hampshire sum to around 5,600 new homes per annum over future years, compared to the 6,700 per annum target in the final version of the South East Plan. The former is close to the 6,100 per annum proposed in the draft Plan before the former Government’s Ministers hiked the figures.

6. It therefore seems that future house building in Hampshire could be only around 16% lower than the South East Plan’s target: not as dramatic a fall as some commentators are predicting. Moreover, this lower provision would still provide for all the household increase arising from demographic change of Hampshire’s existing population plus an element of in-migration. The County Council’s forecast [2] is that demographic change (people living longer, more one-person households etc.) will generate 85,000 additional households 2006 – 2026. This would be more than satisfied by the 112,000 new homes now being planned for by borough/district councils.

7. The emerging picture in Hampshire shows that local authorities do recognise the need for new housing development and not only that required to meet indigenously generated needs. Local authorities also recognise the acute need for affordable housing. However, the new figures more fully reflect important local constraints and infrastructure and environmental capacity issues which were not, in the view of local communities, properly acknowledged in the final South East Plan housing targets.

8. Hampshire County Council is not opposed to development provided it is of the right type and scale, and is supported by the infrastructure and services necessary to make it sustainable. The scale of house building must take account of housing needs generated by demographic change and economic growth but must also take proper account of the capacity of infrastructure to support development, environmental/sustainability considerations, and the views of local residents. In short, the right balance must be struck between these various considerations.

9. The County Council argues that decisions on the appropriate balance are best made within local areas involving local people and communities rather than at regional level, hence our proposals under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007. This means that such decisions are made by directly elected politicians who have local knowledge and democratic legitimacy. Local politicians also have the advantage of access to the advice of professionals with intimate knowledge of local survey data and evidence, and the ability to factor in wider ‘strategic’ issues such as the impacts on infrastructure and services (education, social services, transportation, waste disposal, countryside recreation, emergency services etc.) Local people and stakeholders relate more readily to their county and locality, rather than artificial regions, and feel more able to influence planning decisions and issues associated with the need for new development.

The likely effectiveness of the Government’s plan to incentivise local communities to accept new housing development and the nature and level of incentives which will need to be put in place to ensure an adequate long term supply of housing.

10. Details are still awaited of the size and nature of the financial incentives. Media reports have suggested that the Government might match council tax revenue from new housing for a period of six years. This would mean a payment of around £6,000 - £9,000 per new home permitted. If this is the case, Hampshire County Council’s initial view is that this level of funding would be insufficient to provide the infrastructure and services necessary to support new development Consequently, it is unlikely to assuage local fears about increased pressure on stretched local services and infrastructure and will provide little incentive to local communities to accept new development; particularly if it is simply funding redirected from other sources. One commentator has described this as ‘robbing Peterborough to pay Poole’.

11. In considering the likely effectiveness of any future incentives scheme, the Select Committee is strongly urged to recommend that the Government should make the full details of the incentives scheme known, along with guidance on how it will operate in practice as a matter of urgency. The County Council would also like to see Government commit to undertake a full Regulatory Impact Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis of the proposed incentives so that Parliament may have an informed debate about the merits of the scheme. Without these detailed analyses it will simply not be possible to properly consider the likely effects of any proposed incentives scheme.

12. Hampshire County Council would be very concerned if the funding for any proposed incentives (which seem likely to be paid to lower tier borough/district councils) were to be found from reducing existing grants to councils. If the latter involved reductions in a broad range of grants to upper tier authorities, this would effectively transfer resources from upper to lower tier authorities; yet it is the upper tier authorities which provide the vast majority of services to local communities. This would undermine the ability of the County Council to provide highly valued services to local communities. Furthermore, a stretch on upper tier authority resources would mean being even less able to provide the new services and infrastructure needed to support new house building such as schools, social care, roads and public transport, and waste disposal facilities etc. The County Council urges the Select Committee to recommend that in two tier areas, any financial incentive should be split between lower and upper tier councils in accordance with the scale of the development and infrastructure impacts.

The arrangement which should be put in place to ensure appropriate cooperation between local planning authorities on matters formerly covered by regional spatial strategies (e.g. waste, minerals, flooding, the natural environment, renewable energy, etc).

13. To date, political and media attention has focused on the inequities of top-down house building targets. However, this ignores the fact that there is a far greater range of topics to be dealt with in the successor arrangements to regional spatial strategies. In two-tier areas, responsibility for the topics listed in the Committee’s question are split between upper and lower tier authorities. Thus there is a need not just for cooperation between lower tier planning authorities, but also with their county councils. This is essential in order to ‘join-up’ local planning with the planning of transport, mineral extraction, waste disposal, education and social care provision, and flood management – all of which are county council statutory responsibilities.

14. To achieve the necessary ‘joined-up’ planning in two tier areas, the local (including county) authorities should be required to prepare a broad shared vision for their area which would draw on, and in turn inform, the preparation of individual authorities’ own documents. It would set out the economic growth aspirations for the area, the key environmental constraints and opportunities (e.g. flooding risk), the broad pattern of development (areas for growth versus restraint but not specific house building targets) and associated major infrastructure requirements including broad locations for minerals development and strategic waste facilities.

15. The vision document should not be seen as an end in itself but rather the catalyst for a process of ongoing dialogue and analysis about how the area should develop and change. As well as being of value to the authority’s own spatial and service planning, it would be valuable to other agencies such as utility providers, emergency services, Highways Agency etc who need to dovetail the planning of their new infrastructure with the planning of new development, and who operate at a geographic scale which is much larger than an individual local planning authority.

16. It would be a form of informal strategic planning that is not prescriptive nor imposed from above. Rather, it would be prepared collaboratively between authorities and tiers of authorities. It would seek to reflect the points made above and identify and acknowledge cross-boundary and strategic issues with local impacts. The key point the County Council wishes to make with this submission is that, while it is a good thing that regional strategic and regional house building targets have been abolished, there remains a need for some form of collaboration or ‘planning’ to address strategically important issues to operate on a greater-than-district basis. County Councils are in the ideal position to take on this role and we would urge the Committee to include a recommendation of this sort in its report to Parliament.

The adequacy of proposals already put forward by the Government, including a proposed duty to cooperate and the suggestion that Local Enterprise Partnerships may fulfil a planning function.

17. The Government’s stated intention to include a ‘duty to cooperate’, in tandem with changes to the planning system, as part of its forthcoming Localism Bill is welcome.

18. The County Council’s view is that a duty to cooperate will not facilitate strategic planning unless given support by national policy. Such policy would cover options on inter authority arrangements and what issues need to be addressed. In the preceding section, we outlined our proposals for how a duty to cooperate should be complemented by a coordinating role for county councils in two tier areas.

19. As far as minerals and waste planning is concerned, where problems of supply and demand have to be seen against a wide geographic canvas, the Aggregate Working Parties (AWPs) and Waste Technical Advisory Bodies (TABs) in the past provided a useful function. These bodies that comprised representatives of planning authorities, Government and industry ensured relevant information was collected, databases maintained and planning authorities had relevant strategic advice. It is important that decision making at the local level is informed by the strategic picture. The County Council considers that these arrangements should be endorsed by Government who should ensure they are appropriately funded.

20. The County Council has reservations about Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) being directly given any planning functions, at least until there is greater clarity on the way LEPs are to be developed and will operate in practise. Whilst greater business involvement in shaping the development strategies for an area is to be welcomed, there are questions about the how LEPs would be able to ensure robust governance arrangements that inspired community confidence in an area of statutory rights and responsibilities such as planning; there could be serious issues of democratic accountability dependent on the detailed arrangements for the planning role in a LEP. As a minimum, LEPs could usefully identify the planning approach which they feel is needed to maximise economic growth and could champion those during the formulation of planning documents. However, the decisions on which planning policies to adopt should rest with elected local councillors who need to take account of other considerations (environmental constraints, public opinion etc.) in reaching planning decisions. It could be seen as undemocratic for public policy and key planning decisions to be determined by a private sector-led body.

21. Moreover, giving a planning function to LEPs could, depending on the scale and nature of the LEPs, negate the Government’s objective, in abolishing the regional tier, of returning decision-making to local communities. Having said that, the fact that the Government is even considering the idea that LEPs might perform some planning role is a welcome recognition by Ministers that some form of strategic planning is needed.

How the data and research collated by the now-abolished Regional Local Authority Leaders’ Boards should be made available to local authorities, and what arrangements should be put in place to ensure effective updating of that research and collection of further research on matters crossing local authority boundaries.

22. The key issue here is ensuring that there is a consistent and comparable approach to future research and data collection on matters which cross local government boundaries. This is relevant not just to issues which transcend boundaries, but in terms of the economies of scale and thus cost savings which arise from a co-ordinated, joint approach to the collection and analysis of data.

23 County councils could play a major role in information collection, research and analysis within two tier areas. Hampshire County Council, for example, collates and analyses data on population, the economy, development activity, and land supply, and produces population and economic forecasts. This information is relied upon by Hampshire district councils to prepare and monitor LDF policies, as well as being used by the County Council itself. The same services are provided to two adjoining unitary councils under a Service Level Agreement. This makes best use of scarce specialist resources, such as economists and demographers which individual local planning authorities could not justify employing on their own account, and also minimises costs through economies of scale.

24. With the same cost-saving objectives in mind, the County Council also leads one-off research projects for all, or groups of, authorities within Hampshire. Recent examples include ground-breaking county-wide research into the future housing needs of a growing elderly population and a research into future employment land requirements in north Hampshire. These examples show the use of the County Council’s in-house expertise and involvement of specialist consultants who are managed by the County Council on behalf of all participating authorities.

25. Section s 13 and 14 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and the associated Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations 2004 place a duty on County Councils to undertake surveys of their areas, which provide a statutory basis for the County Council’s research and data analysis described above. It is unclear whether this section will remain in legislation following the passage of the Localism Bill. Without this section this valuable County Council research activity could be lost. The Select Committee is urged to recommend to Parliament that a similar provision be incorporated in the forthcoming Localism Bill.

APPENDIX 1 - Extracts from Hampshire County Council’s Sustainable Communities Act bid for the return of strategic planning powers

Proposal

The proposal is to devolve the responsibility for Regional Strategy preparation from the regional level to county level, enabling closer links between planning and delivery of services such as transport, education and health, and enhancing local democratic accountability.

It should be noted that the scope of the proposal excludes Local Development Framework and Multi-Area Agreement processes, instead focusing only on the recovery of powers currently held at the regional level and not suggesting any transfer of powers to or from district councils or sub-regional partnerships.

The proposal is that responsibility for preparing the Regional Strategy should be transferred to county level as follows:

Each county area should prepare a strategy for its area;

§ These should be combined into a region-wide document and assessed by South East England Development Agency and the Leaders Board, who should resolve any inconsistencies with the county areas concerned;

§ To ensure consistency, the region would set the timetable for preparation of all the county strategies and their scope in the context of the existing strategy (South East Plan), national policy etc;

§ The Examination in Public (EiP) Panel should play a role in testing the combined region-wide document, building on their ongoing role in the Regional Strategy preparation process;

§ Each county strategy should be prepared by the County Council jointly with any unitary council(s) and any National Park Authority in the county area, in consultation with the non-unitary district councils and other stakeholders;

§ Members would give strategic direction to the process, with the final document signed off by the County Council following discussion with other principal local authorities;

§ Each county strategy should be a holistic, integrated strategy including the identification of the infrastructure required for delivery of development. This would enable infrastructure items to be listed in the Regional Strategy Implementation Plan, which would thus provide a framework for local authorities to implement them through the devolved funding arrangements put forward later in this proposal. That, in turn, would require locational specificity for any major development areas proposed.

Variants on the above could include:

§ The region to prescribe parameters for the content of each county strategy, for example, house-building range to be tested and broad development principles.

§ The timely preparation of the county strategy could be a target in the Local Area Agreement (LAA), which would build in local authority commitment to it at a high level and give reassurance to Government over timely delivery.

There is scope to further develop the proposal. For example, ‘integrated county strategies’ could subsume the County Council’s Sustainable Community Strategy, Local Transport Plan and the duty to prepare an economic assessment.

The case for change

The case for county-level rather than regional strategies is that:

§ They would be drafted by individuals who are closer to reality on the ground and have intimate knowledge of the findings of surveys and research undertaken at this level;

§ They would be steered by directly-elected politicians who have local knowledge;

§ They would be integrated with county-level community strategies;

§ The remoteness of the current preparation process means that local bodies do not feel much ‘ownership’ of the plan, with potential impact on their willingness to deliver it;

§ The South East Plan is set at too generic a level to enable meaningful integration of Local Development Frameworks, for example on transport or biodiversity. Failure to resolve issues at the strategic level, or test and debate them locally, means the Plan cannot confidently be said to be sustainable;

§ The gap between the region and the district authorities is simply too big for planning to be sustainable on the ground. For example, the important links between housing, transport and infrastructure can only sensibly be made at the county level;

§ County and unitary councils deliver most of the public infrastructure and services needed by new development – transportation, education, social services, libraries, major countryside recreation facilities – while police, fire, health authorities are similarly county-based;

§ Key stakeholders, e.g. economic partnerships, wildlife trusts, countryside protection bodies, are organised on a county basis;

§ County/unitary-level plans would mirror the geographic units (county and unitary councils) for the new economic assessment duty;

§ South East county councils have demonstrated their ability to undertake such a task expeditiously and to a high standard. During 2004-5, they led the preparation of sub-regional strategies which were incorporated essentially unchanged into the draft South East Plan; while in only six months (including a period of public consultation) they provided South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) with a house building target for each borough/district.

September 2010