The new. Government has indicated a desire for reform and has provided a series of ideas that will be ... localism as a theme within a reinvigorated spatial.
the future of spatial planning –
why less may be more The Conservative Party’s Open Source Planning Policy Green Paper has been embraced by the coalition Government, leading to the abolition of regional planning and concern that the era of English-style spatial planning may be over. But rather than rush to its defence, it’s time for an honest appraisal, argue Phil Allmendinger and Graham Haughton Planning finds itself at the cusp of change. The new Government has indicated a desire for reform and has provided a series of ideas that will be worked up into a Planning Bill. However, experience tells us that legislative change provides only one influence upon practice. Despite the widespread view to the contrary, the notion of spatial planning had no legislative origins but largely emerged through changes in national planning policy. As Lynda Addison’s recent article in this journal1 rightly points out, it would be difficult to find anyone who felt that English spatial planning had been a success. We would argue that English spatial planning is distinct from that in other parts of Europe, having become very closely allied to New Labour’s neoliberal project, established to help reconcile some of the contradictions of the political decision to base national growth around taxation and employment derived from high growth in financial services in London and the South East. Experience of spatial planning elsewhere in the UK and Ireland has been more innovative,2 while experience in mainland Europe bears only passing resemblance to the English spatial planning project. So what should the new Government do when deliberating the future direction of planning? One approach would be to link the commitment to localism as a theme within a reinvigorated spatial 326
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planning. Lynda Addison calls for keeping the spatial planning approach and focusing on making it work better, arguing strongly against ‘going back to the ‘old’ system (or a different more restrictive one)’. This paints a bleak but not entirely open picture of the alternatives to spatial planning. While we find much to agree with in Lynda’s criticisms of spatial planning and how to address them, another approach would be to have a more thorough debate about spatial planning before opposing more fundamental changes to the planning system.3 Naturally, there is a reluctance in some quarters to abandon spatial planning: it is supported by planners just as road-building is supported by civil engineers. There has long been an argument that the problems of our towns and cities can be solved if only we plan more: the argument went that poorquality environments, lack of transport choice, etc. were not caused by planning, but by the wrong kind of planning. The opportunity to address the ‘planning deficit’ through the creation of something which was branded ‘spatial planning’ arose through a unique alignment of factors. The replacement of the deregulatory-minded Stephen Byers and Lord Falconer with the more sympathetic John Prescott in 2002 allowed the argument to be made that ‘spatial planning’ could be supportive of, and indeed
be akin to, New Labour’s ‘Third Way’. The Treasuryled attacks upon planning had been driving the agenda for planning until that point. ‘Spatial planning’, with its emphasis on improved co-ordination and consultation promised ‘win-winwin’ outcomes of economic competitiveness, environmental stewardship and social inclusion. This was achieved by a rhetorical sleight of hand through the deployment of phrases such as ‘sustainable development’, ‘urban renaissance’ and ‘sustainable communities’ that everyone could sign up to (who could be for ‘unsustainable development’?). New Labour, New Planning. The legislation changed comparatively little, but the purpose of planning in effect became a form of ‘Third Way’ spatial governance. When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. Planners and others were provided with the opportunity to show that what they had been arguing for could deliver. The result has been sobering and, ultimately, damaging for the future of planning. So, why has spatial planning failed? First, the underlying tensions around the role of planning have not disappeared, and the notion that planning is a ‘burden on business’ remains prevalent. It was no coincidence that the 2004 Act was accompanied in the same year by the Final Report of the Barker Review of Housing Supply. The advocates of spatial planning, it seemed, had won a skirmish in the battle between different visions for planning, arguing that the new approach could support development, so pro-development re-regulation rather than deregulation became the order of the day. While the economy grew and demand for development was high, alternative views took a back seat. Once development began to stall, the era of spatial planning looked problematic and doomed, with little to offer once the faultlines of the growthled approach were exposed. ‘Win-win-win’ proved much more elusive when both private and public investment funding were in much shorter supply. Second, the mechanisms through which spatial planning was to be delivered were inappropriate. Rather than being the embodiment of spatial planning, the new system of development plans originally aired in the 2001 Green Paper and finally introduced in the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act was actually intended to speed up and simplify plan-making and planning. The view that the 2004 Act somehow heralded spatial planning is a misreading of history. Let’s be clear about this: Local Development Frameworks do not equate to spatial planning. Introducing a new system of development planning with a new approach to planning led to confusion and delay, particularly when many local planning authorities were underresourcing plan-making.
Third, the New Labour Government focused on the wrong target. Coupling spatial planning to the 2004 Act ignored the other stream of planning – development control. Vague, ‘feel good’ notions such as sustainable development can always be supported in abstract terms, so it was not until specific development proposals emerged that the full complexities and contradictions of the new approach became clear. The new system largely failed to cut through the resulting confusion, so hopes of speeding up planning processes ground to a halt. The resultant rebranding of development control into development management in 2009 was too late in emphasising the need for local planning authorities to be proactive and focus upon delivery.
‘Rather than being concerned with reconciling divergent and deeply-held views about development and change in the public interest, planning – or, more accurately, the development plan part of it – became concerned with the management of growth’ Fourth, under the spatial approach the role of planning shifted. Rather than being concerned with reconciling divergent and deeply-held views about development and change in the public interest, planning – or, more accurately, the development plan part of it – became concerned with the management of growth. While subtle, this shift was profound. Planners were expected to a deliver a multitude of objectives through growth. Those who questioned the need for growth were marginalised within planning debates, as planners co-aligned with their preferred pro-growth governance partners. Target-driven development has led to an unhealthy emphasis on density, brownfield use and housing number targets, generating some poorquality development, evident in the particular problems of high vacancy and price falls now seen in most city centre apartment markets. Spatial planning has so far not only failed to address the vital quality issues in development, but has distorted the relationship between demand and supply in the housing market, with too few familysized homes being built and not enough new homes meeting the needs of elderly people.4 So while the new system highlighted the importance of improved consultation with stakeholders, the reality proved to be a focus on Town & Country Planning July/August 2010
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improved joint working with those stakeholders who were prepared to agree (publicly at least) around a particular strategy. With planning promoting high growth, where were those who had different views or interpretations of ‘sustainable development’ to go? And when growth faltered and development became more problematic, what was to become of those who had only reluctantly signed up to agreed strategies? Agreements over planning obligations soon exposed underlying tensions, with evidence emerging of developers demanding changes to them or in some cases walking away from sites.4 In addition to disenchantment with planning, one popular route has been recourse to Judicial Review to try to give alternative voices a genuine hearing. Fifth, there is a large clue to why spatial planning failed in Lynda Addison’s defence of it. Phrases such as ‘delivery partners’, ‘stakeholder communities’ and ‘management of space’ echo the increasing management-inspired shift within planning and provide good business for consultants. The issue isn’t that nobody knows what these phrases mean, but that everybody thinks they mean something different. How can the consensus-based foundations of spatial planning be delivered from such a fragmented starting point? There is still no easy or agreed way to explain what spatial planning is. And if you cannot communicate what spatial planning is about – as process and outcome – then it’s surely doomed.
‘Planning is in desperate need of both critical debate on existing approaches and a search for new ideas – we should not be seeking to foreclose debate... There may well be more progressive alternatives to both land use planning and spatial planning’ Rather than attempting to resuscitate spatial planning, one should actually ask: ‘What could the new system achieve that the ‘old’ system could not?’ The answer, looking at the practices of local planning authorities, is ‘not a lot’. Planners were creating spatial plans – integrating and co-ordinating different policy sectors at different scales – in Local Plans and Structure Plans. This is not an argument for a return to that system. However, to present spatial planning as some sort of natural and better evolution from ‘land use planning’ is not accurate. 328
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Nor is it helpful to portray criticisms of spatial planning as likely to lead to regressive change – a rhetorical tactic for shoring up the faltering spatial planning project and denying the opportunity for debate over potentially more progressive approaches emerging outside the umbrella of spatial planning. The mythical ‘land use planning’ is a useful but actually quite misleading shorthand against which to present the supposedly more sophisticated spatial approach. This is essentially useful as a rhetorical tactic to justify the resourcehungry post-2004 system, but is not helpful in thinking through what a genuinely new approach to planning might look like. We are where we are not simply because of some ideological antagonism on the part of the Government towards planning, but because the failure of the English spatial planning project to date has provided the evidence and opportunity for introducing radical reforms. The proposals contained in the Government’s Open Source Planning are a mess. But they are a mess that draws justification from the failures of spatial planning. To try to resurrect it could be damaging to the existence of planning and could serve to confirm the view that planners are out of touch. It is clear that there is considerable room for manoeuvre in the Government’s proposals, which the profession should positively seek to influence. But the message that, as far as planning and regulation generally are concerned, less is more, should not necessarily be seen solely as a threat. Planning is in desperate need of both critical debate on existing approaches and a search for new ideas – we should not be seeking to foreclose debate around simply tweaking ‘spatial planning’ and convincing others that this approach is best for them. There may well be more progressive alternatives to both land use planning and spatial planning – the battle for ideas is not between these two schools alone. ● Phil Allmendinger is Professor of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge, and Graham Haughton is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Hull. The views expressed here are personal.
Notes 1 L. Addison: ‘Why we need to make spatial planning work’. Town & Country Planning, 2010, Vol. 79, May, 221-5 2 G. Haughton, P. Allmendinger, D. Counsell and G. Vigar: The New Spatial Planning: Soft Spaces, Fuzzy Boundaries and Territorial Management. Routledge, 2009 3 We have tried to open up this debate elsewhere – see P. Allmendinger and G. Haughton: ‘Commentary. Critical reflections on spatial planning’. Environment & Planning A, 2009, Vol. 41 (11), 2544-9 4 Housing in the South East. HC403. House of Commons South East Regional Committee. The Stationery Office, 2010. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmseast.htm
