Spaced out thinking

Town and country planning has been with us for more than half a century. Ben Tuxworth asks why it hasn’t delivered sustainable development.

From his home in Bristol, environmental consultant Roger Levett reels off a litany of reasons why he left London. Some, such as the search for decent secondary schools, are familiar to many a metropolitan migrant. But Levett was also moved, literally, by the threat of severe water shortages and accelerated climate change, and their likely impacts on the crowded southeast. Levett’s outlook reflects not just his rather pessimistic analysis of our progress towards sustainability, but an even more sceptical take on the ability of the planning system to contribute.

“Water shortages are a classic example of the stunted level of debate we’re stuck with. At last there’s some acknowledgement that water’s going to be an issue in the south of England, but rather than talk about how we ought to be using planning policy to redevelop the north – where all the water is – we’ve got the usual knee-jerk technofix solutions. Pipe water in from Wales is one cry. I seem to be one of the few people who remember that we tried that before, and invented terrorist Welsh nationalism as a consequence.”

“We’re building huge numbers of houses with shockingly bad sustainability performance in the southeast and simultaneously bulldozing serviceable housing in the north, and accepting this as if it were some force of nature.”

Currently advising the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) on planning and climate change, Levett sees the water issue as symptomatic of a deeper malaise. “One of the planning system’s founding assumptions – going right back to the 1950s – is the one in favour of development. It’s still there in the Sustainable Communities plan, where it’s compounded with another deeply embedded assumption about the inevitable location of development in the southeast.

As a result, we’re building huge numbers of houses with shockingly bad sustainability performance in the southeast and simultaneously bulldozing serviceable housing in the north, and accepting this as if it were some force of nature.” House building, says Levett, is the government’s biggest missed opportunity on climate change.

“Like rugby, lawn tennis and alpine skiing, town and country planning seems to be one of those sports that the British invented, but left to foreigners to do really well.”

Like rugby, lawn tennis and alpine skiing, town and country planning seems to be one of those sports that the British invented, but left to foreigners to do really well. Shot at from both sides, the planning system is blamed for everything from macro failures like water shortage, to the micro irritations of sensible middle-Englanders wishing to extend their homes. Amongst the professions, planners beat teachers, social workers and even architects as the perceived root of all 21st century ills – including, depending on your point of view, asylum seeker centres, dodgy one-way systems, clone town high streets and unfettered wind farming. Can it really all be their fault?

Good intentions...

No, says Levett. “Of course it’s easy to knock planners – but if you look at regional and local plans being drawn up these days, most of them are pretty good at understanding the relationship between environmental limits and the traditional planning concerns for housing, transport, economic development and so on. In the main, people are attracted to planning by a desire to improve the world [but then find that] anyone showing creativity or wanting to do more than efficiently process the aspirations of developers is more likely to be punished and shamed than celebrated.”

He sees good intentions to reduce carbon emissions swamped by airport expansion, by regional development strategies for resource-intensive economic growth, and by the ready availability of investment for roads compared to walking or cycling. He’s particularly bemused by the example of energy efficiency, where standards for buildings are set in building regulations rather than planning guidance. “If we are serious about climate change then we should expect our planners to be pushing developers for ever higher standards of environmental performance.

But at present, if they call for energy efficiency in buildings to beat the minimum set by building ‘regs’, they are likely to be challenged and defeated by resistant developers. It’s hardly surprising that no one wants to stick their head above the parapet, particularly if it’s likely to slow the process down and mean they will miss a performance target.” It’s a point that Kelvin MacDonald, head of policy and research at the RTPI, concurs with.

“Planners are chasing stiff targets on processing applications swiftly – many of them are doing unpaid overtime just to achieve them. Given that these targets drive the grant system, it’s hardly surprising that getting awkward about sustainability issues is a rather unpopular activity.” Regularly criticised in the 1990s for failing to set out the case for planning as a key delivery mechanism for sustainable development, the Institute has now set up ROOM, headed by MacDonald, a sort of internal think tank, aimed at doing just that.

“We’ve established networks for RTPI members on environmental protection and sustainable development education, and we’ve commissioned work to look at the potential which planning has to mitigate climate change. We’re pushing for a UK-wide spatial development plan and we’ve been doing some scenario work on what the future of the UK looks like with current policy, and what it would be like if the government actually implemented its sustainable development strategy.” Meanwhile, though, it’s fair to say that the vast majority of planners don’t see delivering sustainable development as their day-to-day job.

Take the degree to which they’re involved – or not – in community strategies: a big, bold idea for involving all stakeholders in a community in drawing up a plan for its sustainable development. In theory, it’s supposed to set the framework for all other local strategies, including, of course, the local plan – or ‘Local Development Framework’ (LDF) in the new parlance. Now if you put representatives of the average community in a room together they come up with a fairly consistent wish list – a pleasant environment, safe streets, a vibrant economy, and so on – the very stuff of sustainable development, no less!

Community strategies invariably reflect this, with sustainable development principles adding the defining rider that these objectives must all be achieved simultaneously, within environmental limits. Logically then, the LDF would be the spatial expression of these desires: a detailed account of how the area’s spatial resources will be allocated to ensure the community strategy is achieved. And planners would spend their time on the translation job – certainly a challenge where generalised aspirations meet land use choices.

And yet MacDonald’s experience is that such involvement is scarce. “Some planners complain that these strategies are too bland to be any of any use. But they can give important perspectives on issues such as housing need that don’t emerge in the specifics of plan development – and so get underplayed.

I think a wise planner would see the community strategy as the defining agenda for the locality, and in fact he or she should be part of drawing it up to avoid difficulties downstream in the spatial plan. But when I asked a roomful of planners at a conference recently who was involved in community strategy development, only a couple of hands went up.”

Locals speak out

So what on the surface seems a sound idea – getting local people to help shape the future of their area – falls down at the first hurdle, because those charged with actually deciding on what goes where aren’t really involved in that process – and take little notice of its outcomes. Surely this should be changing, however, with planning law now giving the profession a specific responsibility to achieve sustainable development?

In theory, perhaps, but the process elements can’t be ignored: democracy isn’t the icing on the sustainability cake, but a crucial ingredient of sustainable development, so the nuts and bolts question of how to get local people positively involved in decisions about their local environments is one of the great challenges that continues to face planners, and indeed, local authorities in general. But here there are promising signs.

First, there’s a much clearer recognition that managing stakeholder input – ie, getting local people properly involved in long-term planning goals – is important. (This has partly been prompted by a new requirement on local authorities to produce ‘statements of community involvement’.) Then there’s the huge funding boost for the Planning Aid system.

This is effectively a support network for people wishing to engage with planning, and, says MacDonald: “The extra funding has turned what was a reactive service for NIMBYs into a much more forward-looking process, working with communities to help them achieve their aspirations through planning.” But, he warns, “there has to be a supporting environment [which] includes the possibility that communities will make decisions that planners and government don’t like”.

“When unsustainable macro policy decisions – like airport expansion, or road building – touch the ground they are always locally unpopular.”

This clash of the local and the central is of course a recurring theme here. When unsustainable macro policy decisions – like airport expansion, or road building – touch the ground they are always locally unpopular. But to Levett this schism has become a much more profound clash in recent years, leading to what he sees as a climate of fear within the organisations likely to stand up to ODPM bullying on development issues. “There is a strong sense that any organisation anywhere near government that suggests an alternative approach to the ‘develop first, save the environment later’ culture tends to get reorganised or abolished – the Countryside Agency being one example.”

Levett’s personal formula for turning round planning is for planners to confront the difference between rhetoric and reality head on – stating where government policy is at complete odds with sustainability. And because unsustainable development is the consequence of a number of interlocking vicious circles, he’d also like to see a concerted attempt to create ‘bubbles’ of sustainable development where the circles are broken and replaced by virtuous spirals. An example? “We need some bold action.

Ban private car traffic from one main corridor into a city, but run free public transport instead, at the standard of service expected in most civilised European cities – for example, a tram every five minutes from early morning to late at night. The higher quality of life this would offer might lead residents on other transport corridors to demand the same.” The virtuous spirals which ensue would include everything from safer streets to quieter living, from healthier air to more active children... An unlikely experiment in the near future perhaps. But ultimately, planning will either be part of these big picture solutions – or there will be nothing left to plan.

When planning works: how planners are delivering sustainable development

22 September 2005

Ben Tuxworth