Recently in Planning Category

So, finally, finally, finally! Yesterday afternoon the Conservatives published their Planning Green Paper, which they clearly orchestrated to be ready just in time for our Bura@20 event this afternoon. Thanking you kindly, Mr Cameron, for this act of great support!

And, as expected, the Infrastructure Planning Commission gets binned, as does the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) - if the Tories get in, then the CIL could be forever known as the "Lady Jane Grey" of the planning system - the IPC could be "Edward VI" (you can tell I've been reading my Churchill again!).

And, as leaked by Ms Spelman five months ago, the tier of regional planning and the RSSs get scrapped. There is to be a presumption in favour of sustainable development (my italics) which, of course, could always be construed as a presumption-against-development (on-grounds-of-sustainability) but hey!

There are the expected fulminations about the Green Belt and "the scourge of garden grabbing" (which I resolutely choose to interpret as being different from infilling - see blog 9th February - and can therefore heartily applaud).

So far, well, so predicted.

But I'm not quite sure that I buy into David Cameron's rather purple construct of a "broken" planning system - finding this a bit melodramatic (even for me!) since I believe the British planning system still to be the envy of the world (although if the South Somerset Planning Committee goes the wrong way for Teresa Sienkiewicz and her neighbours in Lopen tomorrow evening then I may be forced to concede there might be something in it).

That last post got me thinking: you know, manifestos are fraught with danger (remember Gerald Kaufman describing the Labour Party's 1983 election manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history" ) and I am sympathetic to politicians in the run up to an election wrestling with the need for a coherent manifesto.

I am particularly sympathetic to Francis Maude right now who must be buckling under the sheer weight of expectation. And, worse even than the press, are the sectional interests (such as me and my lot in the regeneration lobby) who are now baying for the feeder documents; the green papers and such like.

Incidentally, and this is a complete aside, the very best manifesto I think I have read in recent times was Michael Howard's Conservative Manifesto for the 2005 election (I'm not counting the obvious turning points in history such as FDR's New Deal or Martin Luther King's "dream" speech, I'm just praising a piece of written policy work). Lean, spare and economical, the Howard manifesto was hugely graceful in its execution and easy to read.

I say this merely as an observation on an object lesson in communication, not intending any party political point. Of course a manifesto is not everything in a campaign (as was also ably demonstrated by the Conservatives in 2005 ) but it is a start.

So we still seem to be hanging around waiting for the Conservatives Planning Green Paper (let alone the policy statement on regeneration) and the excellent Patrick Clift watches this for us like a hawk in the EG planning blog. 

Actually, many of us are getting a bit frantic with anxiety about it all. 

Alex Kendall has been coming onto this blog and saying rather provocative things, which I think I agree with (in an much as I understand them!) and I think we do need an honest debate here - and we'll be looking to start this at the BURA@20 debate on Tuesday 23 February. 

I suppose, as the cynics would have it, there aint many votes in planning - and this is one for Ann Skippers, the admirable new president of the RTPI, to get her teeth into (yes, Alex, they are my friends).

Whew, that's a relief then! According to Mike Hayes we're all on the same page in urging stability: "Change the policies; but not the process and let the IPC, HCA and LDF's find their feet."

I genuinely did sleep a bit better last night as a result of his response (when one gets through life relying so much on instinct and emotional intelligence, it is indeed a huge validation to be told that the boffins are in agreement with your analysis) and my New Best Friend, Leonora Rozee (another Big Banana at RTPI and - until recently - senior gal at the Planning Inspectorate) can write any time.

I've already nicked her "It has never been more important to have a robust, effective and confident planning system than now when we face national and global economic, social and environmental challenges on an epic scale. Planners need to step up to the plate and demonstrate their willingness to make the systems we have been given work" for a speech I'm giving in the new year.

Wonderful stuff from a genuine leader in her field (and sorry, Leonora, no royalties will be forthcoming; this is the blogosphere after all).

A cri de coeur for stability is definitely in vogue in our industry. And another cri de coeur must be to, please, get real.

Recognising the much smaller public purse for regeneration going forward, we will certainly need to forego our preoccupation with scale: much of the Grand Projets type of regeneration seen over the last decade or more is detached from community delivery and benefits.

Blimey, everyone is just so twitchy in fin de siècle Britain!

Last week I reported my own perceived disconnect between the hugely-top-down draft National Policy Statements (NPS's) for energy and ports (under this government's framework for energy) and the realpolitik of the actual temperature on the ground.

This is pretty well borne out by the Conservative's Shadow Energy Minister Greg Clark MP indicating his support for the concept of NPS's to speed up the planning process for major infrastructure projects, whilst remaining committed to abolishing the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) as the determining body.

How on earth can we have it both ways, do you think?

As is my wont, when I got the chance a few days ago, I quizzed a senior spokesperson (Conservative) from the LGA last week about whether the Conservatives were genuinely serious about empowering local authorities.

Close observers will know that I have decided to be encouraged by the advent of the concept of "localism" which is around everywhere but is most attenuated in current Conservative thinking. As far as I can make out, localism just means "bottom-up" or "community-led" endeavour. And, for nearly 20 years, the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) has existed to celebrate a bottom-up approach and to connect and share best practice with those who are effecting real change on the ground; change which radically improves people's lives.  

This is most vividly illustrated by the BURA Awards Scheme for Community-Inspired Regeneration, a programme run for us by the adorable Dan Sequerra, a veritable guru (some of you may have known Dan when he was a senior officer in Sheffield - the bloke is a leg-end).  

Awards are conferred for a vast range of projects, all with a localist tang, whether it be a group of pensioners pulling on their Marigolds and cleaning up a half-mile stretch of canal or some feisty, single mums setting up a much-needed child care resource in the outskirts of a northern conurbation. This is all bottom-up stuff, makes a real impact on real people's lives, and is rarely dependent on vast sums of grant funding.

"Localism" seems to seek to do nothing more or less than support the local - villages and towns (aka "sustainable communities") - and anyone who cares about bettering the lives of real people, has to welcome a return to viewing life on a human scale. 

A friend of mine has sent me the attached (rather charming, don't you think?) image and says it is an illustration of "tick-box planning". I'm really not at all clear what he intends by this, but it made the Loud Lanky Lad (aka, my son Bruno, 16 years old) laugh anyway...

It would seem that everyone (including the CBI, should we be encouraged? Well, clearly: YES) is piling in on the row about Caroline Spelman writing to local authorities in SW England authorising them to stay their hand on consenting development schemes until after the general election.

The technical basis for this is, apparently, that their RSS (regional spatial strategy) is still going through due process and that RSSs of other areas were mired in legal challenges... Bob Neill (shadow minister for planning and local government) is on record as saying: "A Conservative government will scrap this whole bureaucratic and undemocratic tier of regional planning, and put local people back in the driving seat." 

Well fine, as far as it goes, but ("Emperor wears no clothes" moment) our industry is on its knees - and our industry underpins the economy. And to say that this has not been well received by my peers in the property and generation industry, would be something of an understatement.

I was complaining - on an email (I should know better really) - to Scary Ange the other day that I had a bit of a hangover, she emailed back telling me about a new club that she has formed: "Welcome!" her email read, "welcome to my recently founded members' club - BD. There are various levels of membership BD, OBD, MBD." Well! I went back to her, totally mystified by this of course, and then she sent back the explanation:

BDs: Binge Drinkers

OBDs: Occasional Binge Drinker

MBDs: Major Binge Drinker

At which point all became crystal clear. Her club has only been founded in the last four weeks but has already gathered quite a few members and, indeed, at every level. Well, she does work for a shed load (collective noun) of surveyors I guess. And this from a woman who has a simply enormous basket of shoes under her desk; none of which you could ever possibly wear when drunk (and I would struggle when sober).

Anyway, I conquered the hangover to rock up to a Place West London Steering Group chaired by the very wonderful Richard Barnes (pictured, right), deputy mayor of London. Blimey, he was on such good form! He burst into the room apologising for being late (a whole two minutes) saying that he had been waylaid in the foyer of the building by a previous deputy mayor of London who was, er, visiting his lawyer. How we roared! And then we had a lively debate around the Place West London event being held at Chelsea Football Ground. It was a great meeting but where was my OBF (as opposed to OBD), John Izett from JLL we ask?  

Grant Shapps made rather a splendid speech at the RIBA yesterday (alright, alright, so I admit I wasn't actually there but I received a copy - independently - from three of my best moles!). He began by 'fessing up his political apprenticeship as a candidate in the council elections for the Borough of Brent in 1994 (which, needless to say, is very Handy-Harry since I am hoping he will come to our assistance in South Kilburn!).

In 1994, the ward that Mr Shapps's was contesting was dominated by the Chalkhill Estate, which (just like the South Kilburn Estate) was built in the late 60's and comprised of the notorious "Bison Blocks" (or dirty great slabs of concrete, to you and me). The design of the Chalkhill Estate was based on that of Park Hill in Sheffield (Park Hill was back on the telly yet again last night, did you see?). The blocks were linked by 'Walkways in the Sky'.

                                                 Park Hill, Sheffield

Mr Shapps tells a charming story thus: "One day I came across an elderly man who had lived in his sixth floor Chalkhill flat since it was built. 'The milk float used to come up in that lift and then drive along this 'Walkway in the Sky' to deliver bottles to my front door,' he explained as we chatted in the draughty walkway outside his flat. And there it was. For the briefest of moments I fleetingly recognised what the architect of the Chalkhill Estate must have had in mind as he sketched out his utopia in the sky."

Hindsight is an exact science and one of the things that the more puritan element of the urban regeneration lobby sometimes forget is that some of these mistakes - on a monumental scale admittedly - but mistakes, honestly made, were by people who knew no better. In our current climate of political correctness and litigation and paranoia it is almost impossible these days to publicly admit you made a mistake, and that is indeed a most terrible shame.

One of my field operatives (I have spies EVERYWHERE) reports to me that there has been a furore in Italy over young lovers attaching padlocks to street furniture and throwing away the keys.

This raises an interesting question about our engagement with our environment and, by extension, whose public realm it is and how it is managed. Like many others, I have been wrestling with this for many years.

On the same theme, a sign was spotted this morning, presumed written by a child (it may have been a rather wide-eyed adult of course) attached to a tree in Finsbury Park. It said "Please don't let your dog poop here. We have planted flowers". It was just a normal tree in the pavement that someone had laid claim to over the dog walkers.

Again, an interesting illustration of conflict in use in the public realm. And one with which I was rather sympathetic (being not great on dogs - or, at least, not great on dogs in cities - but that isn't the point).

This reminded me of the time when I was running the Business Improvement District in Paddington (not greatly assisted, of course, by the government giving us the wrong legislation - taxing (very unwilling) occupiers rather than (perfectly willing) land owners).

That mad Danish urbaniste, Eric Sorenson (then acting for St Mary's NHS Trust) and me (on behalf of Paddington developers) had been attempting to mitigate the sense of stepping out of the First World (the brand new Padders with high finishes and immaculately managed public realm) into the Third World (Praed Street with its gum clogged pavement, phone boxes full of prostitutes' cards, dodgy "bureaux de change" et al).

Well, we had been battling with Westminster council over ONE JUNCTION in Praed street for two years and, weary and punch drunk from the enervating struggle we retreated to the Gyngleboy Wine Bar one evening to lick our wounds.