Here's a copy of my submission. Do you agree/ disagree? Any feedback welcome.
Submission to Local Plans Expert Group
Introduction
I am making this submission on the basis of my experience in the development plan system especially working on strategic planning issues.
I managed the Group preparing the Birmingham Unitary Development Plan in 1993 and 2005 and the current Birmingham Development Plan until I left the Council in 2014. On the latter, I was closely involved in dealing with the Duty to Co-operate and in taking forward a Strategic Spatial Plan to cover the Grater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership area – as a key document to provide the spatial component for the LEP’s Economic Plan.
I am currently working with Luton Borough Council as Strategic Planning Manager concentrating on taking forward the Local Plan. As in Birmingham, the cross boundary issues facing Luton are substantial.
I was also involved for many years with the work on the Regional Spatial Strategy for the West Midlands leading the work on employment land issues. Most notably this resulted in the identification of a strategic location which has provided the site for the new Jaguar Land Rover Engine Plant at i54 to the north of Wolverhampton.
Over the past two years, I have also been actively involved with the West Midlands Futures Network, a voluntary group of those who consider there is an urgent and continuing need for effective strategic planning. A copy of the group’s Manifesto setting out the case for strategic planning is appended.
To start my response, I have set out some of the principles of development planning:
1. Development plans provide direction and vision to manage and encourage change in a locality. They need to reflect the characteristics of their locality but crucially the community they serve.
2. When reference is made to community there is a need to be careful that plans address the needs of the future community and do not dwell unduly on those of the existing community. To do the latter is common but this tends to build inertia into the planning process.
3. Unlike most other plans, strategies or programmes, development plans are based on integration across all policy areas. This adds complexity but it also, if plans are prepared effectively, leads to higher growth, better quality of living and greater efficiency.
4. It is important that development plans remain relevant and robust. A tendency towards too much detail and inflexibility should be resisted since it adds time and expense to the plan preparation process and results in a plan that becomes out-of-date shortly after completion.
5. Development plans should be seen as the most pro-active part of the planning system. They should not be seen as a brake on the economy. Instead, they should be seen as vehicles for the delivery of growth and development and, as such, should be regarded as an integral part of a productive economy.
6. Planning policy and strategic planning have been subject to severe cutbacks in many local authorities yet it is a function that should be properly resourced. Government should therefore incentivise this by earmarking some funding, say from New Homes Bonus, to achieve this. In fact common sense suggests that, by encouraging more development and investment, such resources effectively should be seen as ‘invest to save’.
7. Any review of local plans needs to ask if the ‘asks’ of the system are appropriate and reasonable. Over the years, the system has become far more process-oriented and required to cover more and more things. An example here would be the way in which the Environment Agency effectively shifts responsibility for its activities onto local planning authorities (LPA). Another example is the difficulties LPAs find themselves with seemingly ever-shifting Government directives on dealing with Gypsies and Travellers.
8. Finally, development planning needs to effectively deal with cross-boundary issues. The Duty to Co-operate is a sub-optimal replacement of former Regional Spatial Strategies. It would be interesting to see a genuine cost comparison of strategic planning under the Duty to Co-operate. My guess is it is not only far more expensive (given the scale of time and resources involved in examining issues at numerous public examinations and inquiries) but also significantly less effective! The Duty to Co-operate is also seen as an Achilles heel of the system that many participants seek to exploit.
The remainder of this note is ordered under the specific questions raised in the consultation.
a. Content of local plans (including requirements of the NPPF, overlap with the NPPF, ditto re. the NPPG, length, preambles, template policies, spatial detail, plan period, one plan or several, relationship with local guidance etc. – including good and bad examples)
Length – Plans should be as short as reasonably practicable. They should also be easy to read and understood by everyone. In short they should tell a story about their locality reflecting on the past and providing a compelling case for the scale location and quality of future growth and development.
Coverage – there is a tendency for plans to focus on a few key issues, especially the level of new housing provision. In my experience there is need for plans to take a much more balanced view, for example, also looking at the needs of other uses, including those that might be considered less valuable or attractive such as ‘bad neighbour’ uses. Broadly speaking the planning system should cater for all development needs. In practice some ‘fall between the cracks’. A example here would be the failure of the planning system to deal effectively with motorsport venues, allowing many venues to be lost through redevelopment to higher value uses with little, if any pro-active planning.
Template policies – in my experience these tend to be favoured by some consultees looking across many development plans. One the one hand it enables such organisations to participate in the planning process across many authorities but on the other could be seen as ineffective and failing to provide bespoke advice to a particular locality. They may have a role in sharing best-practice but it is important they are not given undue status.
Spatial detail – too much detail is risky for development planning for the reasons outlined above but we need to recognise that a level of detail most appropriate to a particular area should be the way to go.
It is obvious that an approach to a local plan in Birmingham must be different to a rural area. One thing that should be a pre-requisite, however, is that the appropriate level of detail should be finalised having taken full account of any cross-boundary matters having been satisfactorily resolved. Without this it is possible for a local authority to spend a lot of time on the detail when the really important matters go unresolved.
Plan period – this is interesting. It could be argued that the tendency of the current system to look forward around 15 years encourages compromise, partial solutions. Taking a longer perspective could enable more radical, more effective solutions. There could be significant benefits from this if the concentration of growth in certain areas could help ensure the proper provision of supporting infrastructure and at the same time reduce pressures on other areas.
One plan – a single plan has its attractions but in reality a suite of documents, all complementary can be just as – if not more – effective, be more responsive and practical in terms of resource and expertise to prepare them. There is obviously scope for LPAs to concentrate on the more strategic elements and provide the basic information and tools for Neighbourhood Planning. A related question might be on the status of the plans and the current system which requires the allocation of sites only in development plan documents. In practice it would be much quicker and simpler if Supplementary Planning Documents were able to do this, even if those documents are recognised as having a lesser status. I participated in a Local development Framework Sounding Board and unsuccessfully argued the same point before the elements of the current system were put into place. It would be good to see the Expert Group at least reconsidering this point.
b. Local plan preparation process – could procedures be changed to provide better and quicker plan preparation? This would include matters such as the terms and flexibility of existing Regulations, the appropriateness of statutory requirements, available ‘best practice’ guides, irreducible requirements and can these be changed, scope for active case management, tests of soundness, the terms and implications of the duty to co-operate, the appropriateness of early review, modifying plans post submission, the examination process, powers of intervention, the importance of transition in any change etc.)
Radical Change? If the Expert Group is considering more radical options why not at least consider development planning with differing levels of certainty. If a plan were prepared, subjected to consultation and amended as seen appropriate by the LPA then could this not be initially adopted as SPD and be used as the basis for development management? Only in the event of a planning application within certain categories (say above a size threshold, within green belt or where there is a threshold of objection) would there really be an issue and in these circumstances couldn’t those decisions potentially be removed from the LPA? That would then give the LPA a strong incentive to take the plan forward to full development plan status, the reward being local control over the planning decisions. But the other advantage is that LPAs could more easily and quickly get plans with an improved level of status to be in-place. A change to the system on these lines could significantly improve the speed and responsiveness of the system.
Soundness – one of the characteristics of old-style local plans and Unitary Development Plans was that Public Local Inquiries concentrated on objections made to a plan and not on the more amorphous concept of soundness. The advantage of the old system was that if a LPA prepared a plan with a weak evidence base then it would be ‘found out’ through the inquiry process and changes
would be recommended to the plan by the Inspector. The LPA would have the scope to add to the evidence – on a tailored basis - to justify its position as part of that process. The current system is inflexible and requires a full range of evidence to be prepared across the board. This completely ignores Pareto’s principle adding complexity, cost and delay.
The Duty to Co-operate – despite a lot of effort by many practitioners this is clearly not working as effectively as it should and there is a stark contrast between the need for it to be effective and localism. Greater clarity is required and maybe there should be incentivisation or penalties to LPAs that do not participate fully and effectively. Most of my comments on the Duty are included in the next section (c).
Early review – this is the approach that Birmingham City Council decided to take in its dealings with adjoining authorities on its housing shortfall. The position was that plans into which much effort had been invested should not be wrecked subject to a commitment to participation in joint technical studies and where the outcome justified it to agree to the early review of the local plan.
Modifications post-submission or through the Examination process. In principle these techniques should be encouraged subject to provisos. First, that there should be full and effective consultation on the changes as they emerge through these processes and second that a situation if many changes are made, or the changes are on major issues that can put into question the overall quality of the plan that has been put forward. In other words there have to be limitations to this flexibility.
c. Agreeing strategic requirements (including cross boundary requirements) – this could include the role of SHMAs, the appropriateness of evidence requirements and methods for calculating objectively assessed need, the potential for strategic plans, two stage plans, dispute resolution, the role of intervention, striking the relevant balance, etc.
Strategic requirements - at present there is little incentive to encourage a sceptical LPA to effectively participate and really solve cross-boundary matters. It is easy to understand this because the issues are complex, controversial and especially tricky for some local politicians to handle. Effective strategic planning arrangements can be the only way to deal with this situation, a matter that has exercised the thinking of the West Midlands Futures Network in it Manifesto (appended).
It seems unlikely we will see a return to regional planning but commonsense suggests that some form of sub-regional planning at least is required. A pragmatic solution might be to suggest that the preparation of strategic spatial plans either by Combined Authorities (where they exist) or by LPAs grouped by Local Enterprise Partnership areas. As a minimum these plans should be required to determine the level and distribution of growth between authority areas and possibly broad distribution within authority areas (such as split between main settlements and a brownfield/greenfield target). Such plans would preferably be prepared and agreed on a voluntary basis but in the event this does not happen then a planning conference, independently chaired should be held with the outcome being the hi-level spatial plan. Some sort of strategic arrangements of this nature would also help provide some direction for more effective governance and also help to address the situation in many areas where local plan preparation is not synchronised.
Planning at the sub-regional level would also enable the scope of joint technical studies to be agreed hopefully leading to some efficiencies. It might be argued that Combined Authority proposals will
see this all this to happen but this is not necessarily the case since in the West Midlands, for example, the current proposals do not cover strategic land use planning with the emerging proposals appearing dominated by transport matters.
In terms of resourcing there is a powerful argument that this strategic-level work could and should be funded through top-slicing of New Homes Bonus.
Objective assessment of need – difficulties arise due to several interpretations and challenges almost as soon as they are prepared. There is always another source of data around the corner and there is the risk of inconsistent approaches and double-counting . Job growth is now seems to be afforded much weight in the assessment of housing needs. Is this really appropriate or, in some circumstances at least, does this hide an over-allocation of employment land?
Housing ‘overspill’ – perhaps some guidance on dealing with overspill would help address the risks of adverse environmental / economic consequences.
d. Implementation (to look beyond technical issues to consider any other impediments to comprehensive local plan coverage – this could include financial or behavioural constraints or practical difficulties etc.; in addition this includes identifying best practice, lessons from joint working but also potential measures that could help to ensure timely local plan coverage).
Infrastructure - many responses to growth proposals highlight that the implications of growth for supporting infrastructure are inadequately considered. It is often difficult to really argue the point. There does appear to be a disconnect between investment programmes and growth and an inflexibility to change things. If we are serious about growth then surely the principle must be that the areas that are taking the growth should also be prioritised for the investment in supporting infrastructure. It should be accepted that existing schemes could, as a consequence be downgraded. One option might be to ensure that the appropriate bodies and investment programme are required to take account of what development plans say. In Birmingham, the Unitary Development Plan adopted in 1993 included proposals for development of local rail which have not been implemented even now and over many of the intervening years the proposals were not supported by the Local Transport Authority even though the proposals remained in the plan.
e. Observations – thoughts or relevant experience about how the system is working and the need for change;
I have included a number of observations above which I will not repeat.
Over my career I have experienced a planning system with different balances between what is statutory as opposed to non statutory. In my experience the value of partnership working in a non-statutory setting can exceed that of statutory or more coercive approaches. Maybe the time has come for a greater emphasis on voluntary working but to accept this needs to be properly funded and incentivised. If the local plans are not sorted when that support is in-place then some form of intervention might be appropriate.
f. Other – what other measures should the Group consider that might assist it to make recommendations which would contribute towards making local plan making more efficient and
effective?
Example 1: The requirements for Sustainability Appraisal appear overly onerous, encouraging a mass of largely impenetrable documentation. Such requirements should be simplified and made more proportionate and effective for example using a straightforward litmus-type test to identify if policies and proposals support or go against the grain of the plan’s approach. This should easily support identification of appropriate mitigation.
Example 2: The Environment Agency should be required to support LPAs in developing their development plans rather than the agency effectively requiring LPAs to do their job.
One final thought. In the era on online working has the time come to consider how local plans could be prepared and then maintained on an ongoing basis on the internet, thus becoming more frequently updated. This style of working has been adopted in relation to the NPPF/NPPG. Further thought on this might be warranted and safeguards to enable proper consultation would be required but this could enable development plans to be more responsive and ‘live’.
22 October 2015
David Carter BSc MSc MRTPI
D Carter Consulting Limited
Email: contact@dcarterconsulting.com or rollingstart@yahoo.com
Tel: 07795087173
Web: www.dcarterconsulting.com
