Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-21)
Q1 Chair: Thank
you very much, all three of you, for coming along to our session
this afternoon. We apologise for being a little bit late starting,
so we might have to speed up a little bit as we go because we
do have another set of witnesses in this session.
To get the session going, we are very conscious that
there are big changes being made in terms of the Localism Bill
and, as a Select Committee, we wanted to try to understand what
the Bill means for sustainable development, try to explore the
extent to which it should or should not be on the face of the
Bill and how all of that links up in terms of strategic thinking.
So this is just a one-off discussion, and we are very grateful
to you for coming in. I wondered if you could perhaps start off
by exploring with us how the Government's proposal to introduce
"a presumption in favour of sustainable development"
could change the current planning system. How do you see it working,
or what do you see the pitfalls as?
Dr Ellis: I think
the presumption is problematic in two ways, and what we try to
do in analysing the presumption of sustainable development is
firstly to see if we can understand what the Government's intention
is, and that is obviously to write that into the national planning
framework rather than into the face of the Bill. It would be the
overriding objective of planning to have a presumption in favour
of sustainable development.
I suppose the issues that flow from it—just
very broadly and quickly—would be that there are two elements:
first of all, there is a presumption in favour, and then there
is sustainable development. The question: how will sustainable
development be defined? It is obviously critical if it becomes
a guiding thread principle of planning, and that is a debate that
is being actively discussed in terms of amendments, and there
are—it seems to us anyway—clear definitions of sustainable
development that we could work with.
Then there is a tension between the presumption
in favour of sustainable development and the presumption in favour
of the plan. That is a second dimension to the problem. I think
there is a consensus that we need a strong plan-led system. In
fact I would say it is a critical element of delivering sustainable
development spatially that you have strong regional, sub-regional
and local planning and it is plan-led. That element means, I guess,
that you can have some certainty about outcomes, and the process
can be democratic. Those two dimensions are absolutely critical.
The reason why it is so important to get a definition
on the face of the Bill is that there is a strong cross-Government
corporate sign-up to the UK's sustainable development strategy.
That contains five key principles that are vital to delivering
sustainable development, so that does give us the basis of our
approach.
Q2 Chair: Does
that still apply at the moment, in your view?
Dr Ellis: We asked
that question of DEFRA officials yesterday and, as of yesterday,
the UK sustainable strategy as far as they were concerned was
still a cross-Government corporate strategy.
Chair: Thank you. I don't
know if your colleagues wish to add anything to that.
Fiona Howie: I
would just add that, as Hugh said, we believe that the plan-led
system is critical, especially as the reforms are aiming to empower
people. We believe that if there is greater involvement at the
neighbourhood and local level to develop plans, but then a presumption
in favour that is not in line with the plan-led approach, that
will cause yet more tension within the planning system rather
than solving some of these issues. We are not against a presumption
in favour of sustainable development that is in line with the
plan, as long as we can get the right definition of sustainable
development.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson:
The words "a presumption in favour" are quite difficult
to deal with if you have not defined sustainable development very
clearly, because that might mean a presumption in favour of any
type of development. So we would want to see that definition very
clearly on the face of the Localism Bill to say that the purpose
of planning is to deliver sustainable development, which is then
defined. You are looking at wording as an objective to further
achieve sustainable development.
Q3 Chair: Just
briefly, do you think that the way that the Committee went yesterday
gives you any hope that that might now be coming forward?
Dr Ellis: I think
the Minister has made it clear that they are willing to think
about this, but the structural issues are still there, and one
of the structural issues is that there seems to be a rejection
of accepting sustainable development as the purpose of planning
on the face of the Bill. Historically, we have had purposes of
planning on the face of the Bill, so it is not as if it is a novel
idea or in any way impossible from a legislative point of view.
Then there was a focus on it being in the National
Planning Policy Framework. Of course, since none of us have seen
the National Planning Policy Framework, it is very difficult for
us to judge what the content would be. I would be very concerned
about the general discourse that is circulating, which is that
the NPPF will have what is known as a high-growth definition of
sustainable development, as if sustainable development were capable
of complete redefinition in any circumstance, and it plainly is
not.
Q4 Caroline Lucas:
We have already touched on the definition of sustainable development
several times and, at the risk of making the whole of the rest
of the meeting define sustainable development, could you say how
you think sustainable development should be defined in the local
planning context?
Dr Ellis: The starting
point, I think, is the five principles that flow out of the UK
strategy. Let me just take one or two of them and how they might
play out spatially. Working within environmental limits is already
a very key part of how local spatial planning operates, and Planning
Policy Statement 1 makes that issue very key. It would also play
out in relation to the varying and vital role of planning in,
for example, climate change mitigation and adaptation. The important
issue is that you cannot have twin objectives in planning. The
overall objective and vision has to be sustainable development
and, basically, planning's role is how to deal with that spatially:
how it plays out in space and how we can make the most of that
definition.
Although the operational principles might flow
into planning—they might be, for example, town centre first
policy; they might be in relation to climate change; they might
be in relation to sustainable housing and transport—all
of those things flow out of that core idea. What worries me is
that if you change the core idea of planning away from the definition
even now, which I think is relatively robust in PPS1, you undermine
the purpose and delivery of the system.
Fiona Howie: I
was just going to mention that the Minister for Decentralisation
was good enough to give a speech to CPRE last Thursday, in which
he picked up on the importance of sustainable development, which
we very much welcome. When elaborating slightly, he mentioned
that growth should be compliant with environmental standards,
which we felt was a very narrow interpretation of what we would
mean by sustainable development and the environmental element
of that. To reiterate Hugh's points, it is a broad area and we
have five principles that I think would set up the right framework
for that on the face of the Bill, but it does need to go beyond
simply environmental standards that are defined at the moment.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson:
Yes. Essentially, we are taking the five principles from the UK
sustainable development strategy and saying they should be on
the face of the Bill as part of the overall purpose of planning.
Q5 Caroline Lucas:
Do you think the Government is adequately involving stakeholders
in developing its guidance on sustainable development?
Dr Ellis: This
is a difficult issue. In our view, it is not sensible to develop
a new piece of legislation, like the Localism Bill, without a
much more extensive brokering of agreement. That could have happened
through a Green or White Paper, both of which were absent from
the process. Latterly, with the NPPF, what we have is a consultation,
which is very welcome, but there is no document associated with
the consultation. It is an invitation to suggest principles. There
is active consultation going on from the department now, but I
would say that the NPPF is probably the most important policy
document for planning for the best part of 40 years, and that
means that it really does need to have cross-sector support. The
most important and effective way of doing that is to lock all
the planning sectors into a room and broker an agreement that
can generate consensus. That is not the approach at the moment,
but we would very much welcome—because there is time to
get this right—a wider and more open discussion, particularly
with communities because they are not yet involved in the process.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson:
Just to add to what Hugh is saying, we have obviously been talking
to Friends of the Earth. We have a large number of local groups,
and they are now very interested in planning sustainable development.
They are very concerned that there has not been any way for them
to get involved in the ideas in the Localism Bill—for instance,
the process of neighbourhood planning, how it will work, how it
will play out in their community, how sustainable development
could be achieved through these plans. These are all questions
that at the moment it is very hard to engage with, because you
are looking at a very technical, difficult piece of legislation
that amends four different types of Acts, and it is just very
complicated. You have to talk about it for quite a long time in
order to get people to some measure of understanding about what
is happening in neighbourhood planning and what it means. Regarding
the National Planning Policy Framework, it is a real shame that
there is not more engagement now for people and communities to
start talking about these issues. We are going out and talking
to communities where we can, but of course there should be much
more done on that, and we would really like to see that.
Q6 Zac Goldsmith:
I wondered whether anyone knows the timing on the NPPF.
Fiona Howie: I
believe that they are going to publish a draft for consultation
in July but CLG might be able to answer that further..
Q7 Chair: Do you
see some kind of gap between one piece of legislation and the
publication of that, and a limbo period in between?
Fiona Howie: Absolutely.
I think the National Planning Policy Framework, as Hugh said,
will be essential to taking the new planning system forward. The
fact that the legislation is in the Commons at the moment, in
Committee, and we don't have a draft NPPF is making those discussions
more difficult.
Q8 Peter Aldous:
Is this gap an creating opportunity for something extremely undesirable
to happen? For instance, I am thinking of a town centre first
policy. If someone puts in a planning application, say, for an
out-of-town food store in this interregnum period, is it going
to be more difficult to oppose that application?
Fiona Howie: My
understanding is that the existing planning policy remains while
the replacement is developed, but I think it is making things—like
the discussions around a presumption in favour of sustainable
development and whether or not it should go into the Bill—very
difficult. Also, I know there have been amendments about the amount
of weight that should be placed on the National Planning Policy
Framework. Again, we could have a far more sensible discussion
about that if we knew what that document might look like.
Dr Ellis: The NPPF
becomes even more important in the absence of regional planning.
Whatever you thought of regional planning, particularly in retail
and town centre first, it was critical because it was the only
mechanism of defending the decision of one authority or a group
of authorities against the decision of one authority to allow,
for example, a large out-of-town regionally-sized retail development.
At the moment, with the mechanism going forward, the NPPF will
be the only document with which that sort of development can be
judged. That means that the content of it, on town centre first,
is absolutely correct.
I would also add that it also has to be—which
is, I know, heresy—to a degree prescriptive. It cannot just
be a completely light-touch, rhetorical document. It has to be
prescriptive, because if you want town centre first to work, and
all sorts of other sustainable development principles, you have
to have a detailed impact test to go with it.
Q9 Caroline Nokes:
Do you get a sense that in the intervening period, while current
planning policies are still in place, there is a rush in some
areas to get applications on the system before the framework comes
forward?
Dr Ellis: There
is certainly an uncertainty, which is largely to do with the process
of the revocation of regional planning, which was revoked. That
was then found to be unlawful, so regional planning now exists
again, but in that period particularly there has been a tremendous
amount of housing units falling out of the planning process or
planning provisions, so there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty.
Again, if we were starting from somewhere else we
would start with a more—again, maybe heresy—gradualist
process, with a strong transition plan, so that the Government's
objectives can be understood and implemented, but not in the sense
of leaving a vacuum that can be filled. The consequence of that
is development that we will live with for 50 to 100 years.
Q10 Caroline Lucas:
I just wondered if there are things we can learn from other countries
in terms of the way they work on sustainable development, and
I wondered, in particular, whether you could give examples of
where an assessment for sustainability is made before the development
is permitted.
Dr Ellis: There
are certainly overall lessons, particularly on climate and sustainable
development, of two orders, I think. Firstly, it is assessment
tools, where often there is independent commissioning of things
like EIA in north-west Europe. The overriding lesson of places
like the Netherlands and other Nordic countries is that they have
a strong consensus about the overall spatial direction of their
nation. In the Netherlands, it is built on a consensus for 100-year
plans, based obviously on flooding, and they have understood the
need to have that.
If you look at the implementation of perhaps
some of our most sustainable places—Freiburg might be one
example—they are based on 35-year consensus politically
and a strong planning process. If you characterise the opposite,
in the UK, we have a tendency on a 10-year cycle to decide planning
is bad, deregulate it and minimalise it, then decide we have cross-border
strategic sub-regional issues we cannot deal with without it,
so we reinstitute it, which is legislatively complicated, and
get it back. This regional planning was only on the books for
five to six years, which is worth bearing in mind. We only had
regional strategies for that length of time before we decided
to scrap them. I think if only we could broker this overarching
agreement about the objective of planning and its implementation,
then the UK, economically and environmentally, would be much better
off.
Chair: That is fairly clear.
Q11 Zac Goldsmith:
I have two questions. The first relates to the neighbourhood development
plans, and based on what we know of the proposals and even the
lack of definition or otherwise of what constitutes a neighbourhood,
I am interested in hearing from you how important you think they
are and how much power they will give communities and local people
to define the characteristics and nature of the developments that
affect them.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson:
I think, in terms of participation, what is quite concerning is
that there is no clearly defined process in the Bill—it
is all up to the Secretary of State to decide in guidance how
that process will work. When the plan is examined, there is no
right to be heard. It is default written representations, and
that is pretty exclusive, and it doesn't give the same opportunities
to look at the plan, to discuss the issues and to debate them.
It really doesn't. It is quite an exclusive process if you are
just having written representations, so I think there are big
concerns there.
There are also concerns around the equalities
impacts of neighbourhood plans, such as: how are you involving
people; who has been involved; are you going out to people where
they are? The neighbourhood plans are set up so you only have
to have three people living in an area; so, three people? I mean,
it is pretty difficult to see how they are going to get everybody
involved and how that is all going to work.
I think, in terms of what neighbourhood plans
can or cannot cover, there are obviously going to be prescriptions.
However, without the White Paper, we don't really know what the
Government is thinking about, in terms of what they think they
should cover. We would really like to see them as plans for neighbourhoods
to develop sustainably, but communities are going to have to be
supported to do that because it does take a lot of time and effort
to do that. If you are working full time, when are you supposed
to go to a planning meeting to discuss some pretty big issues?
There are lots of issues about that and the amount of information
that is required. Where does your evidence base come from? There
are lots of big issues there.
I think the problem is with trying to discuss these
issues when you just have a piece of legislation in front of you,
rather than being able to discuss them through a White Paper and
talk to communities who might be interested in doing this kind
of thing, and also talk to communities who have never thought
about doing this sort of thing, but say, "Well, if you were
going to do this, how would you do it?" That is actually
what we are trying to do at the moment, but of course it would
have been better to have a White Paper to do it with, rather than
doing it through the legislative process.
Q12 Sheryll Murray:
Don't you think, though, that some of the fundamental work has
already been done through the local parish plans and local town
plans, and the neighbourhood plans could just be an expansion
of those?
Dr Ellis: There
is something very important there, because our quick assessment
is that the neighbourhood plans and neighbourhood development
orders are not, in a sense, wrong in any way, but they do about
10% of the job that we need to do to make planning open. I say
that because, if you have written the parish plan, of which there
are many, and many communities have invested in it, that cannot
be a neighbourhood development plan without going through the
full and extraordinary lengthy complex process of adoption. I
think the Bill should contain, at the heart of it, a duty to have
regard to those expressions of community views, so that the mass
of other informal documents that communities produce, which are
at the moment not yet registered or have no legal weight, can
have that value. That is very important, because otherwise what
we have done is created a kind of Rolls-Royce neighbourhood plan,
but created access to it on a very limited basis. There is an
easy solution so long as we are able to think more broadly about
what community participation might mean.
Q13 Zac Goldsmith:
Practically speaking, we do not have sight of NPPF, and whether
or not that is a good thing or a bad thing is almost academic
at this stage because we have a Bill going through. The question
is: what specifically, practically speaking, should we be looking
to do to improve this aspect of the Bill, specifically in relation
to the neighbourhood plans?
Dr Ellis: This
is difficult. I think I would want to broaden the debate out in
the way that I described, so I would leave neighbourhood plans
and Neighbourhood Development Orders as an option. Then I would
say very clearly that we have created this broad duty to have
regard to other statements of community view, and I would create
guidance to make sure that all the effort that communities place
around the parish planning process are absolutely essential to
LDF preparation.
My one comment would be that neighbourhood planning
has attracted a lot of attention, but because your neighbourhood
plan must be in conformity with your LDF, essentially the process
that has been set up means that the LDF is where the power is.
You cannot argue about housing in a local neighbourhood development
plan; its location, numbers or waste. In that sense, it is the
LDF that we need to open up. Again, just finally, that is mostly
about the culture of planning. That is where the task really is;
making sure that planners communicate and making sure communities
are empowered.
Fiona Howie: We
have around 60,000 members, many of whom are very involved in
the planning system, and we are trying to get the message to them
that Local Development Frameworks or Local Plans—as they
might be renamed—will remain critically important to influence
because they will set that strategic direction. I think there
are big questions, and lots of our members are asking them, about
what can be decided at the neighbourhood level, and I think they
can include policies around design, character and distinctiveness,
which are all very positive. I think there may be some communities
who will be very disappointed that they are not getting the level
of power that has been talked about in the past in relation to
neighbourhood planning.
Dr Ellis: One of
the issues we have to focus on is the balance between strategic
and local. We need to have honesty—and this is absolutely
the role for the Government—about the fact that there are
some things that can be decided effectively locally, and some
things that genuinely cannot. You cannot tackle housing and climate
change purely on a local basis or purely on a local government
basis. So this tension—which is inherent in planning and
has always been there—between what the neighbourhoods want
and how that is fed up needs an honest final settlement. That
final settlement, I think, the Localism Bill does not achieve,
partly for the reasons I have described and partly because you
have to accept that there is an element—and we are allowed
to say this, although it may be unpopular—that where there
are, for example, wider housing needs, we have to face them. We
have to find a way of meeting them in a strategic way, and it
is exactly the same for energy. That is part of the sustainable
development objective, because some communities have more environmental
capacity than others, for example, or more housing or social needs
than others, and that does have to be dealt with strategically
Q14 Zac Goldsmith:
I think you are right. There is an impression that has been created
that this is a wholesale transfer of power back to the communities.
I think a lot of people are very excited about the prospect of
being able to have a much more innovative involvement in the development
of the high street, for example. I think a lot of other people
think we might be able to resist the Tesco invasion as a result
of this, but I think a lot of other people think they will be
able to block inappropriate or unpopular developments in their
area, all of which I think would be very positive. You have already
answered the first part of my question, which is: will this Bill
deliver that? I think the answer that all three of you have given
is that it will not.
The second question is: are there any amendments
that you are aware of or that you would recommend, or that your
organisations would back, which you think might improve what is
basically a very good piece of legislation but which has some
gaps, which I hope we will collectively be able to join up? This
is a very long-winded question.
Fiona Howie: The
points Hugh made are very relevant, and I think the issue around
housing, for example, is very difficult. I think if it were left
to the neighbourhoods to decide, it is quite likely that in many
places identified need would not be addressed. It might not be
a change in the legislation that is needed, but language about
the importance of engaging with local plans, and everyone not
just totally getting distracted by neighbourhood plans but still
feeding in at the local level, and ensuring that there are processes
to enable that to happen, so that people are engaged in those
discussions as well as in neighbourhood planning, rather than
concentrating on neighbourhood planning to the exclusion of getting
involved in those critical discussions. I think that balance needs
to be communicated and promoted as the new system is taken forward.
Q15 Dr Whitehead:
In your written evidence, you have all in different ways made
the distinction between NDOs in parished areas and NDOs in non-parished
areas, and suggested that the extent to which parished areas or
parishes have a statutory function may vary. There is a different
level, therefore, of accountability between an NDO in one area
and the other. How does that relate to what you have said already
about the extent to which you can reflect sustainability criteria
in Neighbourhood Development Plans and the extent to which you
have to refer to Local Development Frameworks? Do you think that
maybe the distinction between parished and non-parished areas
might be better defined in terms of the differences that might
result?
Dr Ellis: I think
it is absolutely clear that there is a two-tier system, as you
suggest, and the one based around parish councils has difficulties
but is basically coherent. It seems to us that the one for non-parished
areas, which is 60% of the population and based around neighbourhood
forums, could never pass into law. It simply cannot stand that
three people, or a multiple thereof, who have not been elected,
who would not have to disclose a financial interest in the plan
they were writing, could possibly form a legitimate unit to make
significant neighbourhood planning. The question is how you resolve
the problem. In fact, although again this may seem extraordinary,
perhaps the heart of the Localism Bill should have been to introduce
lowest form local governance into those non-parished areas. After
all, most of these areas were parished, historically. In fact,
if you want to do neighbourhood planning effectively, accountably
and openly, then you need the community council—let us call
it that for the sake of argument—operating in urban areas,
particularly in urban areas where there are contested ideas about
communities of interest or conflicting communities of interest:
perhaps 30, 40, or 50 different groups who want to deliver that
message, but that has to change.
Finally, because of the way the legislation
is framed, none of the duties on climate change or sustainable
development applies to neighbourhood planning, and I think that
is another thing that does have to change. After all, what we
are saying in the duties is, "Please think about climate
change; please think about sustainable development," which
are not onerous duties on neighbourhoods.
Q16 Sheryll Murray:
I have heard you mention several times about the three people
in the neighbourhood forums, but that is only one criterion, is
it not? They do also have to meet a series of tests and pass those
before they can be recognised. Do you think those tests should
be set out? It is quite strange that they are prescriptive, though.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson:
I think there is one test that they do not have to meet, which
is the equalities impact test. They are not covered by the Equalities
Act 2010 and there is no reference to an equalities impact assessment.
I think it would be key to have that in there and to at least
have that test as part of it.
Dr Ellis: Again,
the issue for us is that people have suggested, for example, that
ward councillors might serve on these forums and that there are
ways of incrementally making them more accountable. However, the
great criticism of regional planning was that, although there
were lots of elected representatives, there was no direct accountability.
It seems to me that this is a very wicked policy problem in this
sense: can you or can you not make them democratically accountable?
It is an "all or nothing" debate, isn't it? Sure, you
can make them a little less unaccountable, but it seems to me
that, given that planning is quite contested in urban areas, you
must have them democratically accountable from the beginning,
so they have some legitimacy in the process.
Fiona Howie: I
think there might also be issues around competing organisations.
It will be difficult for a local authority if approached by two
separate groups—perhaps a civic society and another neighbourhood
organisation that has organically developed—to try to compare
and contrast, or broker a deal between the two. I do think there
needs to be careful consideration given to criteria to help local
authorities make what could be quite a difficult and potentially
controversial decision. Again, if the aim is to empower communities,
it does need to be transparent so that they can ensure they have
made the best decision possible rather than people being turned
away and feeling they are not able to take up the opportunities
of neighbourhood planning.
Q17 Caroline Nokes:
Having parish councils across all of the 65% of unparished areas
is quite an interesting prospect, isn't it? I wanted to move on
to regional strategies and their abolition, and the requirement
on local authorities to construct voluntary agreements and arrangements
where they negotiate with neighbouring local authorities for items
that are of more regional significance. Do you think that voluntary
co-operation will be adequate?
Dr Ellis: No.
Caroline Nokes: I was expecting that.
Dr Ellis: The reason
is not because voluntarism is in any way wrong, but I suppose
we might claim history is on our side in the last 80 years of
planning. We have had regional planning since the 1920s, would
you believe? It has been turned on and off at various moments,
but I think the difficulty is that it will work in the best of
places where there is genuine desire to co-operate cross-boundaries
and cross-border, and where development clashes are well understood
and where there is a consensus, but in many places in England,
that is not the political reality. There are places trying to
defend themselves and their environmental quality from development
pressures.
To give you an example on biodiversity and climate
change in relation to particular issues of housing and energy,
that is an element where you have to plan at catchment level where
river basin level is the right spatial scale. But there is no
way of making authorities join up with each other, especially
if it is not a neighbouring one—if an authority three stages
up in Cumbria decides to chop all its trees down and create a
flood problem for the authority in Cockermouth, there is absolutely
nothing that can be done in the proposed regime in the Localism
Bill. We can afford to say this: we will have to reinvent some
form of effective sub-regional planning. I hope it is not on the
old regional basis and I hope it is in a more accountable way,
but even though the accountability was flawed, the research, the
evidence and the data on sustainable development that regional
plans did was hugely valuable.
Fiona Howie: I
should mention that I know perhaps part of the solution is viewed
to be the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships. I think we
have concerns that they are business-led and they have an economic
growth remit. So in maintaining that overview and influencing
the views of local authorities in creating their local development
documents or going below that, we believe they should have a far
more balanced approach that integrates economic, social and environmental
considerations rather than skewing their views towards economic
growth at potentially any cost.
Q18 Caroline Nokes:
I am glad you moved on to that, because I wanted to pick up on
an issue on Local Enterprise Partnerships. We have heard repeatedly
that they are to be business-led. In my own experience, from discussions
with my locally soon-to-be-established LEP, I know they would
like to see democratically elected councillors ousted from the
planning process so that business can run it and obviously make
"the right decisions". How do you think they should
be involved in the strategic process?
Dr Ellis: At the
moment, we have promoted amendments on duty to co-operate that
reference LEPs, only because LEP boundaries are the only spatial
boundary now left in England beyond the local, so there may be
opportunities there. I absolutely agree that since the LEPs themselves
are not corporate bodies of any kind and have no legal status,
it is very difficult to amend anything to actually place an obligation
on them, because they are very ephemeral organisations and, for
all the reasons that we have heard, I think the idea of them at
the moment in their current form carrying strategic planning powers
is difficult. However, what we have tried to do—and it is
very much a reserve position—is say that where you are a
member of a LEP and where you are also a local planning authority,
there are special obligations placed on you around co-operation
and sustainable development. The problem with the LEP boundaries
is that in the north of England they can be quite sensible in
terms of economic functional areas, but in the south of England
they are more challenging.
Fiona Howie: I
think there are some examples; I believe there is one in the north-west
that has recruited to its board not only business interests and
local authorities but also other people from academia or from
academic institutions, so I think there are some examples of good
practice where they are trying to take a more integrated approach,
but I certainly do not get the feeling that that is mirrored across
all of them. Certainly, we cannot give them a statutory role at
the beginning, and I think there is a huge amount of debate about
whether that would be a positive option anyway, but they are likely
to be looking across boundaries and so may well influence strategic
planning via their non-statutory route, but we would not want
them to do that unless they do take this more integrated approach
to planning.
Q19 Caroline Nokes:
I would like to pick up on the comment about recruiting quite
broadly representatives not just from business but from academia
as well. Does that necessarily give them an improved perspective
on sustainable development?
Fiona Howie: I
think they are trying to recognise that it is not just economic
growth; things like skills are very important, and that is why
they were trying to link to the educational institutions. I think
the fact that they are business-led is not a good thing, and I
appreciate opening up the board does not make them in any way
more accountable or transparent, but I think at least they are
looking beyond just saying, "We need economic growth, therefore
all we need is business partners to be involved in the boards
of these as well as some local authorities."
Q20 Peter Aldous:
Can I go back to what Dr Ellis said? There is obviously a concern
that the duty to co-operate does not provide a sufficiently rigid
framework and that perhaps the regional tier of Government was
too much of a straitjacket. It just alludes to what he might have
thought was an alternative way forward, and I would be interested
in learning a little bit more about that.
Dr Ellis: We have
taken various boundaries, as I said, over the last 60 or 70 years.
I think the problems with the regions, in terms of boundaries,
were that they were probably at too high a spatial scale. You
can image that in an ideal world we can evolve the test for regional
planning in England, which is partly based on accountability and
transparency but also based on environmental, economic and social
functionality, which might be boring but it basically means that
planning becomes more effective; it recognises the importance
of city regions; it recognises the coherence, perhaps, of rural
areas and market towns and sees a variety of different kinds of
regions emerging, rather than the nine standard regions.
In that sense, what you have I think is the
best of all possible worlds: more ownership, I would hope, from
a local authority level of the region. At the same time, you would
acknowledge that there must be a regional approach for England's
future. On top of that you also need a national spatial plan,
but perhaps I should not say anything more about that. That develops
a kind of a mosaic with more buy-in from communities. It will
never completely resolve the tension but, ultimately, that must
be agreed centrally. That framework has to have an acceptance
at the national level for delivering.
Q21 Chair: I am
just very conscious about time. We do have another set of witnesses
to come before us. Finally, could you tell us whether or not there
has been expertise that is embedded currently, providing that
support for regional planning in respect to sustainable development,
that is lost as a result of this Localism Bill?
Dr Ellis: I would
say that I am desperately worried about the loss of expertise,
particularly in terms of human resource, from strategic planning
to the regional level. The information and data sets are now located
at the British Library, but they are not active and they are not
being updated except in relation to some aspects of energy. I
am also concerned about the loss of a Sustainable Development
Commission and the loss of the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution, which published a report today called Demographic
Change in the Environment. Those sorts of documents—and
this document in particular—make the case for the need for
a regional and strategic spatial approach.
My problem is that without all those background
organisations—and you could say the same about the National
Housing and Planning Advice Unit—we have lost an entire
tier of intelligence-gathering. This is not an ideological case
about centralism; it is just about intellectual capital that informs
the evidence-based plan. It is going to set back delivery on climate
change, in my own personal judgment, by five to 10 years if we
lose those organisations.
Chair: Okay. Dr Ellis, Naomi, Fiona,
we must leave it there, I'm afraid, because we do have time restrictions
on us. Thank you very much for coming at such short notice.
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