According to TCPA’s director of policy, Hugh Ellis , who is opposed to the national scheme of delegation, said when giving evidence to the second sitting of the Planning and infrastructure Bill on 24 April 2025 removing ‘democratic opportunities in the cause of speeding up the process is utterly counterproductive’ because ‘People are not the cause of delay, their voice in planning is due process’. What about the policy objectives? Isn’t this what matters? Is due process more important than the objective!
But Victoria Hills, CEO of the Royal Town Planning Institute, addressing the same public bill committee panel said the RPTI welcome the proposed scheme of delegation saying where ‘very robust considerations of the principles of development …..(exist, it is) ……’perfectly possible that suitably qualified chief planning officers can work out whether something is in conformity with a plan’. At least she us trying to make due process work. Whilst ignoring the policy objectives too. . Neither seem to care, or give a thought to the kids without affordable homes.
If there are two such high profile, respected leaders of the spatial industry who still do not understand why the planning system is not trusted; house prices are far too high; economic growth is too low; local roads are increasingly congested; the glorious rural countryside surrounding England’s major urban centres is sterile and 90% is closed off to the public: and instead they argue about due process I feel like crying.
Let me be plain. There is a fundamental governance issue at stake here. They both seem to ignore it.The government seeks their help. But when the causes of decades of housing policy failure is up for debate, the core conflict between national policy versus local fear of change, they both ignore it. Which must mean neither considers that the these symptoms of spatial policy failure are relevant. Or worse, they do not understand why the system fails.
Hill wants a statutory chief planning officer in every local authority. Is this all her answer? From where does the vision for the future come? Whilst Ellis says giving communities a powerful voice in decision making is not anti-development, it is about building legitimacy, consent and certainty first development. Is it really? What about this piece of ancient local spatial honesty from Hampshire County Council in 1991…..
“Accommodating market demand into the planning process presents major difficulties. The County Council has rejected a demand-led approach to housing provision. There is a fundamental conflict between the demand for people to live in an attractive, accessible area and the ability to preserve that attractiveness if the demand is met. Accordingly, no attempt has been made to relate the provision of housing over the next ten years to the perceived requirements of the house building industry in general or of the individual builders”. (Para.21; Hampshire’s Response to the Structure Plan EIP, October 1991).
Poor Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister.. She is no expert of spatial policy failure. How could she be if these two industry experts overlook the objective? Wondering why planners are not held in high regard by the public? Perhaps these mind-sets provide a clue?
Ian Campbell
12 May
