'We want planning to rediscover its purpose, to be a strategic, proactive force for economic prosperity, social cohesion and environmental protection.' Sustainable Communities - Delivering Through Planning (2002)

Planning is about the shaping of the natural and the built environment.  Planning is central to regenerating neighbourhoods, to improving transport provision, to enhancing our environment, to providing housing, and to creating a framework for public and private investment.  There are many examples of how good planning demonstrates these roles in imaginative and effective ways.

But at the same time what our society needs from planning now is being hampered by a lack of resources; a lack of political courage to take difficult decisions; and a culture of targets which focus on process when we need a real accountability based on the quality of the places created.

Government within the United Kingdom is doing some of the right things.  Planning legislation is being changed.  There is a more explicit emphasis on practising sustainable development.  There is a greater focus on involving communities in planning the future of their own areas.  There is a shift towards a new approach to planning, spatial planning, which thinks more creatively about how the many players and drivers in an area can contribute to outcomes and delivery.  There is new emphasis on the importance of effective regional and sub-regional strategies, and in some parts of the United Kingdom on national spatial strategies.  And some new resources are becoming available, notably in England through the Planning Delivery Grant

But this is not enough – not yet – to achieve the transformation that the Deputy Prime Minister wants.  And although there is more that government in the United Kingdom can do, and must do, ultimately the government does not have sole responsibility for planning or what it can achieve for society.  There is a very large role which lies with the profession, and the body which defines it, the RTPI.  This is our statement of what we have achieved and what we intend to achieve.

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