Politicians and planning - part 2

Last week I set the cat among the pigeons by suggesting that local politicians should lose their role in determining the outcomes of planning applications.  Just as you wouldn't expect local councillors to have a say on whether someone gets council housing, or a school place in their preferred school, it seems to me that they shouldn't get involved in deciding if an application is policy compliant. Once the policies are set  they should be applied apolitically. 

But, there is a vitally important role for politicians, and that's in setting those policies in the first place. In my world of (currently) intractable policy ideas, local politicians would be able to set out their stall with regard to the vision for their area, and to have the tools available to implement this. 

How many campaign leaflets were delivered recently, containing a promise to stop development on this or that site in a Local Plan that is already halfway through the process, when the writers know full well that this won't be possible in practice? Politicians should have the power to actually carry through their ideas, quickly and effectively, within the timescales of a typical election cycle, and then to be accountable to the electorate who would be able to see directly what that administration had - or hadn't - delivered. (Authorities like my home one of Colchester, which have elections every single year, are insane anomalies which should be forced to move to a four- or five-yearly cycle.)

Currently we have a situation where Local Plan strategy and policy is meant to self-evidently derive from evidence, almost as if there is no subjectivity whatsoever. While evidence is important, having a distinctive vision for your area doesn't just derive from doing your homework. This leads to plan-making that is devoid of imagination; with no positive and distinctive aspiration for what a town, district or city might actually *be*. Read the 'vision statement' for any Local Plan, and they are virtually interchangeable. (I know, I have written them and tried my damndest to make this not so, with limited success). Anyplace plan-making breeds anyplace development and the erosion of local identity: socially, economically and spatially. 

The requirement for 'soundness', as defined nationally, comes at the expense of vision and distinctiveness. While, at the time, people mocked the late Will Alsop for imagining Barnsley as a Tuscan hilltop town, we need spatial narratives for our towns and districts that capture the imagination and hold something precious and locally specific at their heart. The system at present makes it far too easy for land promoters and developers to hold local politicians hostage - in both high and low value areas. While it is important that housing is delivered and authorities can't just duck out of their responsibilities to the country as a whole, more flexibility to define local need differently, and to adopt different ways of meeting that needs, should be available to local leaders.

Local politicians should be able to put forward a radical and holistic vision for their area which can carry across all aspects of local policy, from planning and housing to transport, the natural environment, the economy and community relations. They should have the power to enact distinct local policies - for example on affordable housing or transport - without the straitjacket of compliance with the direction set by central government.

In transport planning recently there has been a shift - at least, in forward-looking authorities - to 'decide and provide' rather than 'predict and provide'. In essence this means that you decide what transport characteristics you want your place to have, and plan and design for that, rather than modelling what transport needs would be under a 'business as usual' scenario and providing exactly that. So, for example, if the aim is to have no net additional car journeys, you mandate trip budgets and the active and public transport infrastructure to achieve that, and make development conditional on demonstrating it will deliver that; rather than predicting an increase in car trips as a result of development and planning for the extra carriageway or bypass. 

Plan-making should take a similar approach - decide what character you want your place to have, and plan for that. If that's stopping all greenfield development and providing for your needs solely on brownfield land, with the densities and use mix that can support it, then that should be a choice open to authorities, regardless of whether greenfield sites are more easily 'deliverable'. If that's proactively growing a village into a dense and vibrant town, that should be on the table. Powers to acquire land and put together the partnerships to develop it, should be far more easily available.

I know what you are thinking - what local politician will try to make the case for growth: isn't that electoral suicide? But many voters struggle to rent or buy affordably: their voices aren't activated because they aren't currently given an electoral choice that can deliver what they need. Local politicians can't put plans on the table that persuade communities that they will genuinely benefit because they are hamstrung by the national requirements for plan-making. Local politicians should be able to make the case for doubling the population of the town because they can make that development deliver a new train station, sports facilities, and a strict limit on traffic increases. Or, to limit new development, but bring in powers to repossess vacant homes and derelict sites, or policies that mean existing houses in the district can only be sold to people with a genuine reason for living in the area, and at affordable prices. Or to make developers provide one affordable rent home for every market home, no ifs and no buts. It's all about the trade-offs: the ability and the responsibility to be honest with the local electorate. Currently it's all too easy for local politicians to be slippery when it comes to planning, because ultimately the final say sits within the opaque system of examination, 'soundness' and appeals.

A lot of this comes down to challenging the primacy of viability and the market would squeak. But buying land should be at the purchaser's risk - in no other market (well, almost none) is the 'right' to turn a profit so wonderfully protected, and that's just - in my view - plain wrong. While developers might try to tough it out and sit on their assets in order to force a council's hand, giving local politicians more powers for CPO and to control how housing is rented, bought and sold locally, would mitigate to a large degree. Just look at the radical measures that Switzerland brought in regarding second homes. 

To achieve this would need a real overhaul of plan-making. Fewer stages in the process and less time spent hauling plans through endless committees and examinations. Politicians should be setting out manifestos which contain a vision - which could be either a plan relatively fully formed, or a plan for quick and effective consultation with a commitment on how the results are implemented. Then - post election - implement those promises. Within a four-year election cycle it would be possible to get a plan in place, and see development starting to be implemented on the ground.

Big change is possible if it comes with a democratic mandate. Outside the current Overton window it may be, but I wish that the newly elected local leaders had real power to make plans - quickly and decisively - and to be held accountable for them.