This is demonstrated time and time again, up and down the country. This time last year, Boris Johnson made a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in which he said that he would not support greenfield development and as the then Prime Minister’s comments ricocheted around town halls up and down the country, many Local Plans were halted.
An impasse occurred again when, a few months later, the Planning Bill was scrapped, again when Johnson was forced to stand down, and then in a long process to select the next Prime Minister. I can recall more than one conversation in which a developer stated that they wouldn’t buy strategic Green Belt land because of the Tory leadership contenders’ positions on the Green Belt. I doubt they are any more committed to land purchases following the appointment of Liz Truss and stated objections to ‘Stalinist national housing targets’.
Separately many Local Plans are currently stalled because of the thorny issue of nutrient neutrality which requires a political decision. Others, particularly those in areas previously allocated for growth, such as the contentious Oxford Cambridge Arc are also paused – again, pending ministerial direction on issues ranging from sustainable transport links to housing targets.
In such areas, local politics, including resident sentiment, is at the root of the problem: local residents resist development and the councillors that represent them fear an own-goal, scored by the notorious ‘political football’.
Democracy has had an active role in planning since the first Town and Country Planning Act in 1947. I am not endorsing a US-style, market-led approach to planning which deprives local residents from having a say in the future of their communities. But Liz Truss’ success in winning the votes of the Tory party membership was partly due to an anti-development stance which will do doubt be replayed in the two years leading up to the next general election.
While there is undoubtedly a role for local voices in development decisions, it is clear from the new towns delivery programme, which required an Act of Parliament and the establishment of development corporations, that housing figures are only ever met when decisions are taken outside the remit of local authorities.
We support the return of the National Infrastructure Committee and an ‘infrastructure first’ approach which brings together infrastructure, housing, energy and climate change in a de-politicised environment to expedite the creation of new settlements. In doing so - removing the influence of politics in the allocation of land - there is much that we could learn from the German or Dutch systems. Germany’s strategic planning decisions are made through a series of regional plans at a federal level; the Netherlands has a single national plan. Both countries are seen as having exemplary planning systems which allow development to proceed unhampered by pollical interference.
In the UK, the closest we have got to this model is the Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS), RSSs established a spatial vision and strategy specific to a region, for example, including the identification
of areas for development with a 20-year timescale while also providing direction for Local Development Frameworks on a local (borough/district) level.
The RSSs provided a cohesive approach to housing targets and transport planning and regionally-specific policies in a way which is so problematic within the two-tier system.
As the new towns programme shows, when planning work, it is top-down, rather than bottom-up. Ideally, a national spatial plan is required to kick-start development. Community involvement would have a role to play within this national approach. But the engagement process must be efficient (is three rounds of consultation on a design code alone really the best route to fast-tracking development?), and it must be consistent across the country.
As Neighbourhood Planning has demonstrated, the potential for a specific community to impact on planning decisions lies in that community’s demographic: those communities with a professional, prosperous and permanent demographic are likely to exert more power on local issues than deprived areas and those with more transient communities.
This factor cannot be changed by sound bites and empty promises; only through a very long-term investment in community development, creating genuine opportunities for involvement and involving a representative sample of the local community can this be achieved. To do so would require an investment in education for local residents – and perhaps even educating planners to engage more effectively with the ‘hard to reach’.
As the recent Conservative leadership campaign has demonstrated, political speeches berating the development of greenfield land can bring about short-term political success. But to create and implement new settlements, and in doing so, to achieve the (political) goal of levelling up, requires a long-term commitment. Enabling this– if necessary, by relinquishing political power – could achieve real success, including a lasting legacy for which politicians could be proud.
