The Government's forthcoming Green Paper on reform of the planning system presents a unique opportunity to promote the positive role of planning in securing development and change for the benefit of local communities. Nearly fifty five years after the first comprehensive planning legislation, the time is ripe for a major review of legislation and policy in order to equip the system with the tools necessary to achieve beneficial change. Positive planning has huge potential. It has a major contribution to make to the delivery of neighbourhood renewal, social inclusion, sustainable economic development, enhanced productivity, improved public services, and environmental protection.
We need to build a planning system fit for the 21st century. To achieve this the Government
needs to:
- Promote visionary and objectives-led
planning.
Planning should
integrate economic, social and environmental objectives, rather
than trade one set of objectives off against another. An integrated
approach to planning can only succeed with the support of a wide
range of interests joining together to provide a vision of how
their area needs to develop.
The Green Paper should build a
coalition for positive planning involving representatives of all
key interests in the planning system.
- Provide adequate financial
and human resources.
There is a desperate lack of resources, particularly at the local
and regional levels, to enable the planning system to fulfil its
potential. Many local planning authorities lack the skilled staff
necessary to carry out even the basic statutory planning functions,
and do not give planning the priority it deserves.
The Green Paper should make a commitment to increase
the funding of the planning system, with local ring fencing if
necessary, and initiate positive action to tackle skills deficits.
- Enhance the plan-led approach
within a new forward planning framework.
Businesses and communities need a stronger degree of certainty
about future development patterns. We should not overlook the
benefits of the current development plan system as the basis for
exploring the need for new types of policy and implementation
plans.
The Green Paper should initiate
major reform of the development plan system to provide a stronger
framework of regional, local and neighbourhood plans, safeguard
the primacy of the plan, deliver speedier plan reviews, and guarantee
public involvement.
- Establish a clear and effective
role for planning at the local level.
There is a new range of local strategic, corporate and community
planning processes. Key Government initiatives, such as Best
Value and Local Strategic Partnerships, have emerged with too
little attention being paid to their relationship with the statutory
planning system and related consultation processes.
The Green Paper should clarify
the respective roles of different local strategies, and promote
the planning system as a key tool for the co-ordination of spatial
development.
- Improve the means available
to implement plans.
Planning
is often seen as regulatory and reactive. There is the need to
view the planning system as a whole, including delivery mechanisms
such as land assembly, compulsory purchase and planning agreements.
The Green Paper should encourage
a more interventionist approach to planning, enhancing the implementation
tools and demonstrating a clear commitment to supporting their
use.
- Engage communities effectively
in shaping their local environment.
There is too much rhetoric and not enough action to engage people
in decisions about the future of their areas. Public confidence
in planning is low and there is widespread concern about development
being forced on local communities.
The Green Paper should establish
a Commission charged with developing measures to secure effective
community-led planning, including through new neighbourhood plans
and consideration of a third party right of appeal.
- Promote balanced communities,
meeting a wider range of housing needs.
Mixed housing development makes a vital contribution to social
cohesion and economic vitality. There is a need to enhance significantly
the role of planning in facilitating the delivery of different
types of housing to meet different needs, including for affordable
housing.
The Green Paper should better
equip planners to meet housing needs through reform of the planning
gain system, introducing new controls over housing design and
type, a legal basis for social housing, and closer integration
of physical and investment planning for housing.
- Enable planners to respond
effectively to regional differences and priorities.
The region is emerging as the appropriate scale for addressing
strategic development needs and links with Europe. Yet the planning
system is too centralised, and strategic planning responsibilities
confused, with insufficient flexibility to address distinctive
regional issues.
The Green Paper should strengthen
the role of the regional tier of planning, introduce a stronger
democratic basis for planning in the regions, place Regional Planning
Guidance on a statutory footing, and allow greater freedom for
regional bodies to determine their own priorities within a clearer
national and European spatial framework.
- Strengthen links between land
use planning, public and private investment and fiscal regimes.
A range of national taxation measures has recently been introduced
designed to promote an urban renaissance through better use of
land and buildings. Further fiscal reforms are needed so that
the tax regime facilitates rather than frustrates the achievement
of planning objectives, and the investment strategies of public
and private bodies help deliver spatial plans.
The Green Paper should establish
ongoing joint arrangements between the DTLR and the Treasury,
and other relevant Government departments, charged with ensuring
that tax incentives and public investment contributes more effectively
to spatial objectives.
- Build a systematic process
for disseminating policy reforms, research and good practice.
There is a large volume of useful independent and Government-sponsored
research into planning practice and policy reforms. Much of this
is not as widely publicised or promoted as it needs to be and,
therefore, does not achieve as much as it can to improve practice.
The Green Paper should develop
and fund a comprehensive and easily accessible programme for the
sharing of information on best practice in planning and policy
development.
- Focus on the delivery of high
quality development and environmental enhancement.
Recent years have seen a growing emphasis on the need to secure
improvements in the design quality of new building and to enhance
the quality of places. Still too much new development is of poor
quality and erodes local character.
The Green Paper should sustain
a commitment to the proactive use of the planning system to secure
higher design standards in order to enhance local distinctiveness
and improve the local environment, including through addressing
skills gaps in planning education wherever necessary.
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