Many respected planners assume that whatever changes the new government introduces to expedite new homes, infrastructure and economic growth must be delivered through the local plan system. But it is also possible local plans are the problem and not part of the solution. For example Catriona Riddell, who is an expert on local plans and rightly a vocal advocate of a strategic planning system believes the necessary changes should be delivered in this way. My attention was caught by her sensible point in a LinkedIn comment she posted about two weeks ago about the failings of the Elmbridge, (that is Esher to most of us), draft Local Plan Examination in Public update (elmbridge.gov.uk). She says
”The plan making system requires the submission of plans that are a final product and the version the council expects to get out the other end of the Examination process. The engagement process and technical evidence base expose choices in this for the councils but ultimately they still have to be found sound.”.
Well the last time I was invited to give expert evidence at an EiP was on employment policies , at the Berkshire Structure Plan EIP in 1984. It is so far away all I will say is that I found the whole circus frustrating but informative. Riddell knows what she is talking about when it comes to process,. So her plain concerns about Elmbridge’s process struck me with force, so much so yesterday I made this Comment on Linkedin in my knee-jerk reply. Needless to say I am not expecting many ‘Likes’!
‘Does’nt this nonsense in Elmbridge and the farcical nonsense in Oxfordshire show that the current planning system is broken? So why keep trying to mend it with fixes which rely on commercially driven actors to deliver? They won’t. High demand areas with plenty of policy constraints have a real problem. Where do the homes go? But there is nothing new here. New homes policy omissions started in the 1970’s. National, regional, and local long term spatial policies delivered by civic leaders who reject political activists are needed. This truth will not change. To replace local myopia with spatial realism locally they will need some short term protection from the conflict driven Nimbies. Let the current round of local plans play out, and civic controlled development corporations then take over in the next decade. Funding will be fine as the valuation levers which control open market value can be exploited by the community for the community. First step is Starmer has to sign up the new Tory leader and Mr Davey the LD leader. Is this impossible.”
It has taken me sometime to reach the unforeseen conclusion that local plans are the problem, and their eventual removal is necessary to restart growth. They have become the mouthpiece of opponents of change. They are the framework which blocks serious long term visions. As they rely spatially on the haphazard call for sites system. Local plans have become like the board game, Snakes and Ladders. The veteran board game players, for example local land owners, local activists and misguided conservationists climb the ladders to achieve their purposes, whilst the disenfranchised, the first time buyers and the too young to vote and too inexperienced to know better are pushed back down the snakes!
Again the core of the supply problem is local opposition to local change, regardless of the facts. . Ideally this opposition is carefully turned into growth welcoming policies with good communications over sustained periods, built on cross-party support. But increasingly I doubt that the necessary wise foresight exists. Within the planning industry there is a well-intentioned callow belief that rational argument based on facts will win the argument. If you think that look at attitudes of local leaders in South Oxfordshire. In my last blog on 19 October 2024, ‘Infrastructure opponents too’ I used the example of six South Oxfordshire parish councils trying to pressurise Reading Borough Council’s transport policy advocating a third bridge across the Thames to ease traffic congestion in the town and remove traffic passing through Reading. . South Oxfordshire has opposed a new bridge for a generation. Like many I hoped, naively too, that good judgement and a firm rejection of adolescent attitudes would be taking root as the nation seeks to grow and pay for the public services needed. So I was fascinated by a report in the Reading Chronicle by James Aldridge (21 October 2024) of a debate on BBC Radio Oxfordshire on 18 October between Cllr John Ennis (Labour, Southcote) Reading’s lead on transport and Cllr Mike Giles (Liberal Democrats, Sonning Common) about a third bridge. Cllr Ennis pressed Cllr Giles on what alternatives could be presented to the car. He replied that solutions are needed that do not lead to ‘ecological harm’ which he believes a third bridge would create. He added. . “I ‘m afraid Reading council is selling people down the river by saying this bridge project would cut congestion”.Remember this tussle started about 30 years ago! I wonder if he or any of his supporters use the new Elizabeth Line?
Look too at the very recent decision by South Oxfordshire council, one of only two of six local councils, to block Oxford council’s attempts to export some of the Oxford housing overspill into adjoining council’s areas despite the fact that the City of Oxford has little suitable land for building and there is opposition to building upwards in the City too. Where exactly do the South Oxfordshire councillors think the next generation, the homeless, and those relying on council social housing will live tomorrow? It looks as if they do not care.
I could go on and examine the dilemma Windsor and Maidenhead Council face, as 87% of their area is green belt ( and flat and private too, but the different colour looks good on maps) ) in accommodating their own housing growth and Slough’s housing overspill. Standec engineers did a good report on the spatial options two years ago for them. It is now well buried. The new council do not want to hear the truth if is unpalatable,
By abolishing local plans, or simply letting these plans wither when they expire and replacing failed ideological based political leadership with civic corporate leadership which sees direct financial incentives by complying with government national growth policies this impasse might be broken. This Labour government face some big calls. And not all of them are their gift. That is why I am fearful.
Ian Campbell
22 October 2024
