Regeneration

Regen 41

Written submission by the Town and Country Planning Association

1.0 About the TCPA

1.1 The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) is an independent charity working to improve town and country planning. Its cross-sectoral membership includes organisations and individuals drawn from practitioners in local government, private practice, housebuilders, academia and third sector organisations and special interest groups. It puts social justice and the environment at the heart of policy debate and champions fresh perspectives on major issues of planning policy, housing, regeneration, the environment and climate change. Our objectives are to:

· Secure a decent, well designed home for everyone, in a human-scale environment combining the best features of town and country

· Empower people and communities to influence decisions that affect them

· Improve the planning system in accordance with the principles of sustainable development

2.0 Summary of TCPA evidence

· The TCPA’s response focuses on the Committee’s first question: ‘How effective is the Government’s approach to regeneration likely to be?’

· The Government’s approach to regeneration as set out in ‘ Regeneration to enable growth. What Government is doing in support of community-led regeneration’ covers four areas , which are :

1. reforming and decentralising public services, including reform of the planning system, with the introduction of Neighbourhood Plans, and changes to Housing Benefit

2. providing powerful incentives that drive growth , such as the New Homes Bonus

3. removing barriers that hinder local ambitions, and

4. providing targeted i nvestment

· The removal of the regional tier of planning and housing policy, which has been replaced by a new incentive scheme for housing (the New Homes Bonus), is likely to have a significant impact on regeneration. The Bonus rewards high-market-demand areas, but penalises renewal areas with high levels of demolitions (the Bonus is awarded on net additions). Therefore the benefits of the Bonus, and indeed the costs, to communities and places will differ substantially across England. This has the potential to exacerbate spatial inequalities and favour high growth areas rather than direct and enable development and investment in areas where renewal is needed,

· The combined impact of key planning and housing reforms on regeneration, not only the removal of regional planning and the New Homes Bonus, but Housing Benefit reform and the ‘Affordable Rent Initiative’, m ay also have spatial implications . In particular sustaining urban renewal and striving for socially and economically mixed communities could be compromised if, for example, Housing Benefit policy leads to much greater social housing need in those areas already subject to significant deprivation and disadvantage,

· The planning system - outside London, which retains its regional London Plan with proposed new housing and regenerations for the Mayor, and new mayoral development corporations - will have to deal the growing hosing and regeneration challenges at a time when both the framework and the resources have been significantly reduced, and

· There is a continuing need for the planning system to provide the long term strategic framework to drive sustainable development and regeneration.

3.0 TCPA response to ‘How effective is the Government’s approach to regeneration likely to be?’

3.1 Regeneration is a term which denotes a wide-ranging package of measures to reverse, improve or create the necessary conditions for bettering the social, economic, environmental and physical well-being of communities. The TCPA highlights the pre-conditions for effective and sustainable regeneration in a definition offered in Urban Regeneration. A Handbook: "comprehensive and integrated vision and action which leads to the resolution of urban problems and which seeks to bring about a lasting improvement in the economic, physical, social and environmental condition of an area that has been subject to change" [1] . The need for regeneration is not just confined to the urban areas but also the former industrial and mining areas.

3.2 Previously, there was a comprehensive and integrated vision with actions underpinning regeneration efforts, including:

· A national vision for housing and regeneration: the Sustainable Communities Plan in 2003 and the Housing Green Paper in 2007 targeted areas of low demand and aimed to deliver more homes and making homes more affordable, such as central funding through the Housing Market Renewal and New Deals for Communities programmes,

· Central funding and co-ordinating support namely through the Housing Market Renewal pathfinders since 2002 in the Midlands and northern regions, coalfields regeneration programme, and through the work of bodies such as the Homes and Communities Agency, and

· A planning framework becoming established which provided all sectors with a degree of certainty over issues such as identifying market and social housing need, aspirations and delivery targets, and housing land allocations through the statutory development plan.

3.3 The Coalition Government intends to implement a radical reform of the planning and housing delivery system, from the abolition of regional planning and a renewed emphasis on localism to the streamlining of national planning guidance, but without a green or white paper to allow proper analysis, consultation and review. The Government also intends to replace strategic ‘top down’ planning with an incentives-based regime through the New Homes Bonus, CIL and restricted use of Section 106 Planning Obligations. All of this set against a backdrop of severe public spending cuts, including on regeneration programmes such as the Housing Market Renewal areas.

3.4 While welcoming some elements and aspirations of the reforms, the TCPA believes that the collective and cumulative impacts of these reforms have not been thought through. Going back to the definition of regeneration set out in 3.1, the nature of the problems to be tackled has not been adequately identified in the first instance. The effect has already generated uncertainty and speculation over the potential impact of this on planning, housing (and in particular the delivery of housing need) and the environment, as evident in stalled inner city schemes. And the outcomes may undermine drivers of positive change or to contribute to the processes of decline in many communities and places previously earmarked and/ or needing regeneration, which the report of the Urban Task Force in 1999 sought to address.

3.5 For example, the TCPA cites a recent report by the Audit Commission in March 2011 reviewing progress in 2009/10 and the future of the Housing Market Renewal programme [2] . It highlighted the difference that the HMR programme is making and has provided the finances and the impetus for action to rebuild housing markets, and that without a dedicated funding stream under March 2011, a realistic future vision is needed for these areas given the changed economic circumstances and the housing and economic problems they continue to face.

3.6 The TCPA has analysed the details of the planning reforms closely since intentions were published in the Conservative Party policy paper Open Source Planning, and agrees in the validity of some criticisms of the current planning system through our representations to the Committee on its inquiries into the Revocation of the RSSs and Localism, the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into Sustainable Development in the Localism Bill, and publications in 2010 on the future of planning [3] (see Section 4 for full references). However the TCPA still fundamentally believe in the important role of the spatial planning system. It is needed as a long term strategic framework for sustainable development, and in particular and including delivering sustainable regeneration where a mechanism for positively managing change is needed.

3.7 The TCPA would like to draw the Committee’s attention to forthcoming report by the TCPA, commissioned by the J oseph Rowntree Foundation , which examine s how the reform of the planning system will impact on housing provision and social justice. Through this analysis, it is clear to the TCPA and stakeholders who attended the two roundtables that the benefits, and indeed the costs, to communities and places will differ substantially across England.

3. 8 The TCPA concludes this submission by highlighting key co nclusions of this report [4] . The final report is attached as supporting evidence to this submission ( see Attachment ) .

· the long-terms patterns of spatial inequalities in England are likely to be reinforced by a combination of the end of regional planning and policy and an incentive scheme for housing which rewards high-market-demand areas and penalises renewal areas with high levels of demolitions,

· there will be shorter-term impacts on a significant number of low-income households in terms of housing benefits and potential for spatial disaggregation, and

· net result in lack of uncertainty about the way we plan for and deliver housing, particularly in areas in need of renewal.

4.0 TCPA References

TCPA Policy Statement: Housing Market Renewal, April 2006

TCPA Policy Statement: Urban Renaissance in England, October 2003

TCPA and JRF, March 2011, Policy analysis of housing and planning reform, to be published on Tuesday 22nd March 2011, hard copy attached – Attachment

TCPA submission to the Department for Communities and Local Government on the New Homes Bonus, December 2010, www.tcpa.org.uk/data/files/resources/1006/TCPA-sumbmission-to-the-New-Homes-Bonus-consultation.pdf

TCPA submission to the Communities and Local Government Committee inquiry into the abolition of regional spatial strategies, September 2010,

www.tcpa.org.uk/data/files/resources/936/20100915_CLG_Select_Committee_RSS_TCPA.pdf

TCPA submission to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee on Localism, September 2010,

www.tcpa.org.uk/data/files/resources/947/20100929_TCPA_FINAL_CLG_Committee_Localism.pdf

TCPA, June 2010, The future of planning report: distilling the TCPA roundtable debates, http://www.tcpa.org.uk/data/files/tcpa_futureplanning_report.pdf

March 2011