Methods of accomplishing strategic spatial planning in England, Wales and Scotland after the change of government in 2010

CRITIQUE

Pablo Alejandro Abrecht

CONTENTS

1. Introduction 2. Methods of accomplishing strategic spatial planning in England, Wales and Scotland 3. Main planning implications after the change of government in 2010 4. Methods compared and contrasted after the change of government in 2010 5. Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Introduction Strategic spatial planning is constantly under exhaustive review, not only in the UK with the recent 2010 proposed changes by the coalition government, but also under previous governments and in most of Europe. The review is mainly concerned with the flexibility demanded by current planning complexities, related to Europes increasing interconnectedness, and influenced by claims of stakes and players actively involved in development plans and projects across town and city boundaries, or even across regions and countries. The constant review is also concerned with effectiveness, a results oriented objective which is crucial for a successful and timely implementation of the local plans, and the interrelated regional, national, and supranational strategies. The 2010 change in the UK government expediently generated the shifting Open Source Planning Policy Green Paper No. 14, which includes considerable modifications to the strategic spatial planning inertia. But it is important to recognize that many countries across the channel have been challenging the traditional strategic planning paradigm widely enforced since the 1990s, including the dilemma related to more dirigisme or more governance. After the devolution, Wales and Scotland, with more contained territories and the chance for a new start, seemed to have found a pragmatic equilibrium between dirigisme and governance, based in central guidance and local empowerment. It seems now that England is accelerating the transformation of its planning system into an also more locally generated, although centrally guided model, which should allow more flexibility and effectiveness as shown successful in several parts of sophisticated Europe. This critique will initially briefly describe the current strategic spatial planning methods in England, Wales and Scotland, in order to then focus on the 2010 changes in the planning system and their implications. It will finally compare and contrast the current particular methods of strategic spatial planning in England, Wales and Scotland, and identify potential positive and negative implications given this recent planning system transformation.

2. Methods of accomplishing strategic spatial planning in England, Wales and Scotland The previous decades devolution to Wales and Scotland became a tipping point for distinctive strategic spatial planning in the 3 territories. Devolved legislation powers started a progressive definition of particular planning systems, which in the three cases are the main responsibility of the English Secretary of State, thee National Assembly of Wales, and the Scottish Executive. In England, the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) prepares de Planning Policy Statements (PPS). The Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) were recently abolished, and a recent National Infrastructure Plan 2010 (HM Treasury, 2010) has been released by the Treasury, instead of the expected DCLG. In Wales, planning is managed by the Department of the Environment, Planning and Countryside, while the national planning strategy is prepared by the Strategy & Communications Department. The national planning policies are included in the Wales Spatial Plan, and recently, area planning has additionally been introduced. In Scotland, the three Departments related to planning matters (Scottish Executive Development Dept., Scottish Executive Environment & Rural Affairs Dept., and Scottish Transport, Infrastructure & Climate Change Dept.) are represented in the Scottish Parliament with the three ministers (Cullingworth and Nadin, 2006, 54). The national planning policy guidelines, are included in the National Policy Framework, and are subject to scrutiny by the Scottish Parliament, which has primary legislation powers, and generates additional Planning Policy, Advice Notes and other Circulars. As briefly stated, in a decade time, three distinctive strategic spatial planning methods developed in the UK. These distinctive methods do not only include differences in players and legislative powers, but most notoriously in terms of guidelines, policy statements, regionalism, power delegation and control, and several other aspects.

3. Main planning implications after the change of government in 2010 An apparently drastic planning system transformation started in the UK in 2010. The main arguments are that todays centralised, bureaucratic planning system gives local communities little option but to revel against Whitehall and regional diktats (Policy Green Paper No. 14, 2010, 1). Similarly, several European planning systems are being challenged, including the current Dutch system where Dutch provinces (regions) are acting as a heavily-laden navigator officer (Salet and Woltjer, 2009, 247). The Green Papers timing and initial proposal have the potential to generate several negative impacts, at least in the short term. The current economic recessive environment and unemployment will probably worsened as projects are cancelled, budgets cut, and a whole regional tier of planning and planners vanish. On the other hand, policy change announcement with no immediate policy replacement or clear guidance, adds uncertainty to the application and authorization process, planning agenda, investment incentives, and development projects. Once the simple and consolidated national planning framework and the reduced number of simplified guidance notes (Policy Green Paper No. 14, 2010, 3) are approved and implemented, an expected mid-to-long term economic renaissance is possible, since the financial incentives proposed, including the empowerment at the local level, added to less regulation at the regional level, could provide the mechanisms that drive development, growth and entrepreneurship as envisioned in the Green Paper. But, as mentioned in a recent article: Whatever the underlying rationale for development incentives, their introduction is a high-risk strategy and could be perceived as an admission of failure to convince local communities of the need for future housing, prompting central government to offer what may be construed as bribes (Gallent, 2008, 321). The market forces and economic interests should sooner or later react, and this can generate a constructive outcome if valuable sustainability, public benefit, design principles and other appreciated factors are not easily traded.

The main initiatives with strategic spatial planning impact include:

a simple and consolidated national planning framework, which will set out national economic and environmental priorities, and how the planning system will deliver them abolishing the entire () tier of regional planning, including the Regional Spatial Strategies and regional building targets civic engagement and collaborative democracy as the means of reconciling economic development with quality of life abolish () the Infrastructure Planning Commission whilst retaining its expertise and fast-track process within government (Policy Green Paper No. 14, 2010, 1-3)

Other more local oriented proposals include Reward councils and communities through incentives to encourage building new homes and businesses, amend the Use Classes Order so that people can use land and buildings for any purpose allowed in the local plan, and faster approval process for planning applications to which a significant majority of the immediate residential neighbors raise no objection (UK Land Agent, 2010). All these proposals have received an overwhelming amount of comments, including recommendations, and speculation on implications by the several planning stakeholders. As an example, the Acting Director Policy & Partnerships at the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) responded to the Conservative Partys Green Paper that we do not believe the planning system is broken; the system itself is basically sound, but has been over-engineered and centralized. Few of the Conservatives stated aims actually need a radical change to the planning system, change which could lead to a period of uncertainty, resulting in serious consequences for the provision of housing, employment and key infrastructure, as well as for overall economic recovery (RTPI, 2010).

4. Methods compared and contrasted after the change of government in 2010 Focusing on the main Green Papers initiatives with strategic spatial planning impact, a first basic comparison relates to the new national planning framework that is being proposed. This is not a new idea, since it already exists for Wales and Scotland. If the simple and consolidated objectives for the framework are achieved after parliament approval, those two adjectives should generate positive implications given the current complexity and disparities in
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the preparation process and in the implementation of Local Development Frameworks (LDF) in England. We still need to wait for the framework and guidance notes to be proposed and approved, in order to better compare the similarities of the future English planning system against the current Local Development Plans and uniform unitary authorities now in place in Wales and Scotland. The regional tier discussion and the civic engagement/collaborative democracy focus are probably the most exciting and most controversial policy issues at the heart of the current strategic spatial planning agenda. On the regional planning arena, while England just abolished the Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS), Scotland and Wales are apparently moving into the opposite direction, as Scotland recently replaced structure plans in 4 major city regions, and Wales also recently created a regional planning tier for six planning areas. In a recent research paper dealing with strategic spatial planning dilemmas, the authors argue for an improved interconnectedness between regions and their public and private sector agencies, and mention that this should complement conventional notions of bounded spaces and nested territorial jurisdictions. According to their findings, the answer to addressing the challenges of development planning at the city-regional level is not primarily to enlarge the steering powers of regional planning per se, but to broaden its strategic network capacity through enlarging the coordinative and communicative intelligence of the intermediate regional planning bodies (Salet and Woltjer, 2009, 235). In different ways and timings, England, Wales and Scotland seem to be avoiding higher steering powers of regional planning, and heading into a more coordinative and communicative intelligence. While Scotland and Wales are fostering flexible regional interconnectedness to address regional interests, the recent Green Paper states that the new government will create a new system of collaborative planning by: () giving all local planning authorities and other public authorities a Duty to Co-operate (Policy Green Paper No. 14, 2010, 3). Even though English regional planning was abolished, there will be a need for several English authorities to work interconnected in metropolitan area projects and regional shared interests. The abolishment of the English regional tier should release regulatory structure and dirigisme to a more open source and creative collaboration among shared
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interest within regions. Though this seems to generate a constructive opportunity, the abolition of the regional tier could on the other hand create negative effects in terms of the housing delivery and potential loss of strategic perspective for major retail and employment issues (NLP, 2009, 1). The civic engagement/collaborative democracy emphasis is a hope in the search for flexibility and effectiveness. Several International organizations extol the virtues of public involvement and local participation. If wisely organized, empowered communities can provide ideas, add transparency and generate consensus of opinion. We will soon be able to confirm if the proposed policy statement becomes a true virtue in the English planning system, since collaborative planning can sometimes be biased by powerful economic stakeholders or strong specific interest groups that may not really represent the communitys interest or the best achievable public benefit. On the other hand, it could be difficult to reconcile a timeconsuming collaborative approach with the faster approval process mentioned in the proposal, including the consultation fatigue that may affect community members and local authorities alike. As mentioned in the Green Paper, the great challenge will be to achieve genuine engagement. This is also the challenge in Scotland with the collaborative regional approach for Edinburgh and South East Scotland (SES Strategic Development Plan), and also the case of the recent area planning in Wales, which admits fuzzy boundaries to address the regions interconnectivity in a collaborative approach. Similarly, strategic spatial planning state of the art efforts in Italy in the 1990s made a contribution to opening decision-making processes at the local level to a more interactive approach, slowly abandoning traditional, entirely politically and technically driven decision-making modes (Sartorio, 2005, 34). An additional frictional issue could derive from the increased Welsh and Scottish autonomy recently gained after the devolution, and the first insights of the newly published UK infrastructure strategy. It stands out that Whitehall is convinced with localism, but central guidance is intended to be valid for the whole country, including Scotland with devolved primary legislation powers, and Wales with powers of secondary or subordinate legislation. Once again, we still need to see not only the implementation of these conflicting new centrally
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requested powers, but also the reaction of Scotland as the additional papers become available. This will probably mean a less regionally segregated Scotland that can positively influence the Scottish vision, scale and transnational opportunities, but also a less politically and governmentally autonomous Scotland after years of negotiation.

5. Conclusion English, Welsh and Scottish strategic spatial planning systems seem to be aligning with the contributions of recent academic research conclusions, with European successful experiences of civic engagement, and with interconnected local, regional and international interests. The main forces for the recent change revolve around the sometimes pendulum like dilemma of dirigisme versus governance, and the overarching need for flexibility and effectiveness in a successful strategic spatial planning system. Furthermore, the recent English planning system proposal appears to be generating a consolidation of a UK planning system, which would already coincide in main elements and methods such as a national planning framework, a UK infrastructure plan, and agreed emphasis on local collaboration. It is important to recognize that the Open Source Planning proposal is consistent with conservative paradigms, as they tend to be more liberal, market oriented, and less regulatory, although centrally strong when it refers to political power. On the other hand, one should also consider the temporary uncertainty of the whole new planning system, since several actual policies or guidelines still need to be proposed, approved by the Parliament, and later implemented. Policy uncertainty may generate confusion, negative macroeconomic consequences may temporarily increase, lack of English regional guidance may diminish focus on housing targets and strategic perspective, empowered civic engagement may conflict with faster approval processes, local economic incentives may distort the public benefit, and frictions related to devolved powers may arise, but the new English planning system agenda is already set towards an envisioned consolidation and simplicity, towards more governance and less dirigisme.
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Bibliography Cullingworth, B. and Nadin, V. (2006), Town and Country Planning in the UK (14th Edition), Routledge, Oxon Gallent, N. (2008), Strategic-Local Tensions and the Spatial Planning Approach in England, Planning Theory & Practice, 9(3), 307-323 HM Treasury (2010), National Infrastructure Plan 2010, Whitehall, London NLP Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners (2009), Conservative Party: Planning Green Paper, (www.nlpplanning.com/pdfs/pub_1267106686.pdf) accessed 9 Oct. 10 Policy Green Paper No. 14 (2010), Open Source Planning, Whitehall, London Royal Town Planning Institute (2010), RTPI Responds to Publication of Conservative Party Plans to Reform the Planning System, (www.rtpi.org.uk/item/3423/23/5/3) accessed 9 Oct. 10 Salet, W. and Woltjer, J. (2009), New concepts of strategic spatial planning dilemmas in the Dutch Randstad region, International Journal of Public Sector Management, 22(3), 235-248, (www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm) accessed 9 Oct. 10 Sartorio, F.S. (2005), A Historical Review of Approaches, its Recent Revival, and an Overview of the State of the Art in Italy, DISP 162(3), 26-40, (http://ecollection.ethbib.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:22383/eth-22383-38.pdf) accessed 9 Oct. 10 UK Land Agent (2010), Conservative Party Release Planning Green paper, (www.uklandagent.co.uk/blog/2010/02/conservative-party-release-planning-green-paperopen-source-planning) - accessed 9 Oct. 2010

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