He who wants the world to remain as it is doesn’t want it to remain at all

I saw these words stencilled onto the Berlin Wall in 1994 and they have had a lasting impact on me. How do we change – progress – without abandonment and destruction? How many eggs do we break to make the omelette? How do we move from reacting, to planning – vision, bravery, risk, commitment – and then to delivery?

These are the things the new Government is grappling with. Simplifying the NPPF is a starting point – and policy tools matter to investment – but political will is far more important to planning than pure process:

1. Reinstating mandatory housing targets makes great sense.
2. Taking them away from the District level altogether would be better. Housing markets rarely work at this level.  Trying to make strategic decisions locally has not been terribly successful. Local Plans have had to grapple with strategic planning (and offered local politicians an unhelpful and often misleading sense of choice).  Planning applications have had to grapple with Local Plan issues. Appeals have been used to try to make sense of it all. This has not made the best use of planning professionals, who are a scarce and valuable resource.
3. Strategic planning creates a challenge of subsidiarity, but not doing it creates competing (far worse) challenges of unaccountability, intransigence, under-delivery, stasis and mistrust. Look no further than datacentre schemes and the challenges for I&L investment – strategic planning is a fundamental part of a successful economy. One of the new Secretary of State’s first acts has been to immediately Call In two data centre refusals. What will be the framework for future applications, though? The Government’s suggestion of a broader Spatial Plan for Energy and Infrastructure and re-starting onshore wind are first steps.
4. Creating incentives for City regions to combine and plan together will be a fundamental part of that the larger than local tier. We will hopefully see Local Led Development Corporations coming forward with bold masterplans and clear up front infrastructure requirements. That will require technical expertise to ensure that Strategic Environmental Assessment informs, but does not obfuscate, the process. It will demand genuine investment in the infrastructure of decision-making. It will require a truly Mission driven approach across Government.
5. Planning functions have seen 50% reductions in budgets since 2010 and policy officers reallocated to managing the development that does pop up against the run of play. Supporting planning as a visionary, inspiring, creative industry has to be at the forefront of the laudable promise to get 300 planners back into authorities. Initiatives like PUBLIC PRACTICE, which expanded last year with Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities support, are critical to this mission. Working out how Government and the planning industry can contribute to an increase in qualified planners working in the public sector proportionate to the increase in housing delivery needed is a truly cross-Departmental Mission for Government and the industry. Commercial players will need to show leadership in this space rather than expecting Government to do it all.
6. Be real about plan soundness. It is wholly wrong that land can be allocated for development but still retained as Green Belt. This is a cop out. See the recent refusal of permission for a significant industrial and logistics scheme at Maidenhead – acknowledged need for I&L, allocated for industrial use (and in heavy industrial use since before the planning system existed), recommended by officers for approval, but refused for impacts on openness (despite being a visually enclosed site). Fixing the NPPF so that allocations cannot promise/ rely on growth on the one hand but retain green belt designation on the other should be a priority.
7. It is tricky to speak in general terms about Green and Grey Belt – grey belt is said to be land that is in bad condition, previously developed such that GB protection is no longer deserved. There is a risk in some cases that this misses the point. GB is a spatial planning tool – its role is to keep places separate and relieve the feeling of unrelenting urban sprawl that began to creep in a hundred years ago. Because it is not an amenity designation or a national park, it is largely irrelevant whether it looks nice in performing that function. The commitment to Reviewing the Green Belt is a big step forward, because there is currently no legal or policy requirement to do so. Taking stock and simply asking – what do we need to provide? Where? Where would we need to shift the urban separation zone to? How good is the current urban separation zone? How does that inform the approach? – this is planning, not reacting.
8. There is little point in asking 317 authorities scattered across England to do it if there is any expectation of enthusiasm, coherence or speed. It is a strategic choice. Even a return to County Structure Plans would a merciful release from the purgatory that now afflicts the system – as long as there is actually a plan for the next 40 years, with a clear vision of success, rather than a fixation with the world remaining as it is. Whether the Government decides to tinker with structure or use its existing powers of direction (mentioned by the Chancellor in her first speech) remains to be seen.