Abstract
Janice Morphet is a prolific and insightful commentator on developments in British and European spatial planning. This book offers a timely review of the evolution of UK planning systems as they mature and diverge in the context of devolution. She explains the concept of spatial planning and its European origins and traces its introduction to UK planning practice since the turn of the century when professional bodies such as the Royal Town Planning Institute explicitly adopted the concept into its aims and objectives. She covers spatial planning from community level (neighbourhood planning), town and country planning (local and strategic), up to national infrastructure planning while also addressing some of the key challenges currently facing planners. The lack of national scale planning in England which, unlike other parts of the UK, has failed to achieve a joined-up approach to the different levels of the planning system and provide a strategic overview of future development, is well documented.
In Part I Morphet provides a commentary on the political and economic context of changes in the planning system and particularly the greater emphasis that has been placed on local engagement, notably in England through Neighbourhood Planning, a product of Big Society thinking during the Coalition Government and equally the same government’s aversion to English regional planning and its hasty decision to abolish the useful work that had been achieved. Ever since there have been attempts to replace that level of planning and the result has been an uneven patchwork of bodies producing plans of different status and degrees of democratic accountability. At the same time, the ability of local authority planning departments to produce up-to-date local plans has diminished and coverage of plans in England remains disappointingly low. Similarly, she documents the debilitating impact that austerity has had on the capacity of local government to produce plans as well as the various mechanisms introduced to attempt to ensure delivery of outcomes such as assessments of housing need, infrastructure provision, tests of soundness and viability.
Part II on different scales of planning commences with a chapter on National Infrastructure Planning. This is welcome as for many planners the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) regime is little known while for others there are overlapping legislative processes at work in their areas of interest. The 2008 Planning Act applies only to England and Wales and has gone through some development in practice since its inception. However, as a process that has been supported across the political divide it has benefitted from consistency of application for the best part of ten years. Its strengths are in the delivery of major projects from roads to offshore wind farms (operating across the marine/terrestrial divide) and one nuclear power station (so far) and their examination on a predictable prescribed timetable. The process is transparent, all documents are publicly available, and involves significant amounts of early public engagement. The author observes that NPSs do not have a spatial dimension (with some exceptions) and that the National Infrastructure Commission plans should be the mechanism by which these policies provide a basis for a national spatial plan as has been achieved in other UK administrations.
In relation to Neighbourhood Plans (NPs) the author is ambivalent. She doesn’t find evidence to support the ambition that NPs deliver more housing although they may ease the process of gaining permission. One of the incentives for local communities to engage in NPs is to gain some control over anticipated residential development and to benefit from the 25 per cent of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) that areas with a made plan attract. As a consequence, the localities which have been most active in NP production are suburban/rural parishes with significant local plan allocations in the economically buoyant parts of the country. The benefits of made plans are that they become part of the statutory development plan, influencing impacts on the community and may help deliver important infrastructure. Less positive is the extent to which LAs can offer support, as is their obligation, and the potential diversion of significant professional resources and funds from crucial infrastructure delivery to local wish lists of lesser importance.
The chapter on Planning in Scotland emphasises its distinctive and pioneering approach to national planning, incorporating environment and national infrastructure in the National Planning Framework (NPF), which has gone through three iterations in a decade. The NPF highlights city regions and has a strong strategic and economic focus. The planning of economic development and utilities is carried through to the regions and local levels in Strategic and Local Development Plans (LDPs). Community Planning in Scotland differs from England in that its focus is on smaller areas in need of improvement. The author also reflects on the latest review of planning policy in the country that remains unresolved.
Devolution of planning powers to Wales has been slower and less comprehensive than in Scotland but, despite that, national distinctiveness has emerged. At a national level, Wales produced the Wales Spatial Plan (WSP), now to be replaced by the National Development Framework (NDP). Its focus is on sustainability and is a spatial expression of the policies and programmes of the National Assembly. The NDP includes the identification of Developments of National Significance, similar to Scotland. There has been slow progress in developing sub-national plans, not helped by many changes to the designation of city regions. Local Development Plans take a similar form to those in England but are better linked to the plans of wider public-sector providers. At the community planning level, Place Plans take the form of Supplementary Planning Guidance.
In Northern Ireland, planning devolution has been heavily influenced by the peace process, so the practical results have been realised more slowly. However, the administration was at the forefront of strategic planning in producing its Regional Development Strategy (RDS) in 2001. A document strongly influenced by European planning perspectives it was subsequently updated in 2012 identifying economic areas in both Northern Ireland and cross-border. Unlike the Scottish NDF it did not link to infrastructure planning but provides the framework for LDPs with which it must conform since the Planning Act of 2011. The Belfast to Dublin mega-region is a functioning economic area and fast growing but its future, and of those of the cross-border councils set up to support planned growth, will be uncertain in a post-Brexit Ireland. Preparation for LDPs has stalled since the 1970s, but the recent reformation of Local Planning Authorities has reinvigorated planning at that level. LDPs must not only conform to the RDS but also take account of local community plans.
Part III considers Emerging Challenges, recent socio-economic developments that require new approaches or at least new understanding among planners. Public health is a topic that played a significant role in establishing the need for better planning over a century ago, but in recent years it has received scant attention in local plans. However, concepts of sustainable development are closely linked to concerns over public health. Morphet itemises the various aspects of health that interact with planning such as obesity, smoking, addiction to drugs, gambling and pollution. While local plan policies for health are rare, the idea of health impact assessments is becoming more prevalent. This, in turn, leads to consideration of the needs of different sectors of the population.
The second chapter in this section develops the health theme in focusing on planning and older people. The author identifies that there is relatively little planning policy aimed at the needs of older people and the challenges of an ageing society, more prevalent in some parts of the UK than others. She categorises six periods of older age from ‘pre-retirement’ to ‘cared for’ and considers the need for policies for older people in work, housing/downsizing, caring, design, transport, tourism/leisure and dementia. There are international comparisons particularly in approaches to care. Relatively new demands have been placed on the planning system including a demand for specially designed care homes and supported living. The author highlights some good practice in local plans, from Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) and NPs.
The final chapter is appropriately focused on the future and is speculative. In it the author explores the development of Smart Cities and fundamentally what kind of cities we want and planning’s role will be in achieving these. What is the role of regulation in respect of innovations such as Airbnb and autonomous vehicles? Technology has had and will continue to have implications for the design and retrofitting of buildings, addressing climate change and flooding, the economy and employment. Smart Cities can also aid planning through the provision of big data, monitoring and contributing to achievement of sustainability goals. There will be impacts on consumption, service delivery and infrastructure delivery. Most significant in the context of planning these consequences will all impact on land use/space requirements and urban governance.
Morphet is not averse to offering her own solutions, most particularly to the housing crisis. She speculates that the future for plan making may lie in establishing comprehensive coverage of strategic plans supported by neighbourhood plans set within a national spatial plan. The timing of the book’s publication in the pre-Brexit era leads to some speculation as to the future but given that that political conundrum is unlikely to be fully resolved for some years, not even highly qualified spatial planners can be expected to identify its outcomes.
This book is an essential read for students of the UK’s spatial planning systems but would benefit reflective practitioners at all levels, especially in central government where the need for a coherent framework and joined-up thinking is paramount. The author has succeeded in knitting together the disparate strands of spatial planning in the UK into one coherent narrative.