I want to have a say in what happens in my local area – I expect you do too. It’s also fair to expect the people who run things to have the plans and processes in place to do their jobs well. A crucial part of the mix is the way in which communities and individuals can engage on a wider-than-local basis. Back in the 1990s the RSPB was campaigning for a better future for our estuaries – many of them are large, and most form part of the boundaries between localities – some such as the Severn, Dee and Solway mark the edges of countries. The Mersey was covered by, from memory, 11 different local authorities. The administrative confusion (some called it chaos) was one reason our great estuaries and the rivers that fed them were ignored, blighted and in decline. We won that argument – and there was a phase of coming together under the banner of coastal zone planning.
With the coalition Government’s drive for localism comes an intense debate about how we deal with the issues and places that require a larger-than-local approach.
We’ve come together with a wide coalition of our own to write to the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP– the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to make the case for the bigger picture.
You can read the letter for yourself below – but first, here’s the list of signatories.
The letter was signed on behalf of, and with the support of:
Association of Building Engineers, Association of Consultant Architects, Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, British Property Federation, British Urban Regeneration Association, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Campaign for Better Transport, Chartered Institute of Housing, Construction Industry Council, Country Land and Business Association, Environmental Protection UK, Freight on Rail, Friends of the Earth, Institute of Historic Building Conservation, Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Structural Engineers, Landscape Institute, Local Government Technical Advisers Group, National Housing Federation, Planning Officers Society, Rail Freight Group, Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Royal Town Planning Institute, Shelter, Sustrans, Town and Country Planning Association, UK Green Building Council,WWF-UK.
Here’s a link to the Planning Blog and below is the full text of the letter.
Dear Secretary of State
Larger than Local Planning
This letter is signed by a uniquely wide-ranging group of twenty nine national bodies who have come together with a shared concern to ensure that the planning system (including its policies and practice) offers an effective framework to deliver the Government’s objectives in terms of the economy, the environment, sustainable development and social policy.
Our particular focus is that level of planning which Ministers have called “democratic decision-making that is larger than the local, but smaller than the national”. We are writing to seek a meeting between you and representatives of this group to establish how best we may work with Government to ensure that this level of planning can be developed jointly as an integral part of the Government’s localism agenda and how its practice can be encouraged.
Our initiative is driven by twin concerns. First, we wish to ensure that any new Government policies truly improve the ability of the system to deliver positive outcomes for communities. Secondly, we wish to ensure that this larger than local planning and investment – which we term strategic planning – is carried out to address the most pressing issues facing the nation such as economic recovery, meeting housing need and demand, sustainable transport, regeneration, sustainable development and growth, investment in our infrastructure, biodiversity loss, climate change, and reducing inequality.
We support the drive to enable communities to contribute to, and take, those planning and investment decisions that are best taken at the neighbourhood level and to play a full role in implementing those decisions.
We feel that as part of this drive it is vital to develop new forms of inclusive strategic planning and investment. Strategic planning should be taken, in this context, to mean any form of planning – statutory or otherwise – which enables communities and groups of communities to express a vision for the future of an area wider than their own.
This level of planning is needed where there is the need to set out priorities for investment and solutions to problems which must, of necessity, be addressed beyond neighbourhood or district boundaries. It comes into play in order to ensure that investment in major infrastructure best serves both the needs of local communities and the wider area and is most cost-effective.
It is necessary to ensure an integrated approach to the protection and enhancement of the environment and to prevent loss of biodiversity and where any decisions taken locally have a wider than local impact. This level of planning is important to ensure that climate change is addressed at a level – such as water catchment areas – where intervention can be most effective. Importantly, this level of planning can help to provide much needed certainty to investors, social and physical infrastructure providers, community initiatives, transport providers and operators, developers and local enterprises.
We recognise the initiatives that the Government has already taken on strategic planning and investment, including the encouragement for local authorities or other groups and bodies to come together to undertake joint planning and the announcements about Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund. We are pleased to see a national planning framework announced in the Coalition Agreement and the national infrastructure plan announced in the recent Budget.
We will engage with Government in this process in a positive, constructive manner and are committed to fresh thinking that may, on occasion, be challenging to all sides in this discussion. Part of this challenge will be in highlighting where aspects of planning reform may do damage to the longer term well-being of the nation. We are already concerned that some aspects of the Government’s proposals may potentially hinder solutions to providing much needed housing in appropriate locations, to investment in enterprise and to providing a lead on tackling climate change.
Therefore, we look forward to working with the Coalition Government, with other relevant private, voluntary and public sector bodies and groups and, importantly, with local government to develop policy and to provide thinking and advice on the ways that strategic planning and investment can achieve the outcomes that the Government desires. We particularly wish to engage, as a matter of priority, with officials from your Department during the drafting of the Decentralisation and Localism Bill.
As a first step, we are writing to ask for an early meeting between you and representatives of the bodies signing this letter. Such a meeting is, we believe, particularly urgent now that RSSs have been revoked and there is the need to limit any adverse impacts that this may have on investment whilst communities consider and implement alternative approaches.
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