Planning misses the scrutiny of neutral observers

Just occasionally, a contentious and relatively large-scale application created enough drama to arouse hacks from sleep-inducing boredom. The vast majority of the proceedings were of the watching-paint-dry variety.

This month's Camden meeting on the King's Cross development plans took two marathon evening sessions to come to a resolution. It should have generated widespread interest: Roger Madelin's £2bn scheme on 67 acres of brownfield land is the last major development of vacant land in central London. The creation of a bespoke London district around the capital's busiest transportation hub has to be of interest beyond the residents and business groups of today's King's Cross.

Not so. Most Londoners probably became aware of it when national newspapers informed them that the decision had been taken to grant permission to Madelin's Argent. Instead, public interest was confined to the King's Cross Railway Lands Group, set up in 1987 to fight Godfrey Bradman's brazenly office-led plans and continuing the struggle when Argent was appointed development partner to London & Continental Railways in 2000.

Of the many things that are wrong with the planning system, this one is up there with the worst. For nearly 20 years, the public's opinion of one of Europe's biggest development proposals has been expressed through one community body. In that time, economic cycles have changed, so have governments and ownership of the land in question. But the King's Cross RLG has remained steadfastly opposed to all plans for the development of the land except their own.

Madelin likes to describe the plans as "London's scheme". But for the past six years, he has been required to sell his plans to just three groups - the dozen or so members of Camden's planning committee, the council's planners and the Railway Lands Group.

There are many admirable qualities on both sides. Madelin has shown patience and stickability, not qualities that necessarily demand acceptance for his plans but still demonstrate faith in his ideas. The RLG promoted a sustainable community agenda long before John Prescott came along. But as with several large-scale schemes, the parties involved have been depicted as protagonists, the outcome a victory for one side, a defeat for the other. What has been missing is the input of neutral observers, those with an interest that is not so vested and who would have looked at the plans in a wider London context.

The council itself appears to have been caught in a bind, the natural empathy of councillors towards their communities offset by the fear of being seen as reactionaries more interested in keeping derelict land derelict than promoting regeneration. The 9-6 vote in favour of the idea reflected the dilemma.

For nearly 20 years, the public’s opinion of one of Europe’s biggest development proposals has been expressed through one community body, the Railway Lands Group

According to one consulting group, this three-way relationship is about to be tested. The Saint Consulting Group is bringing to the UK an approach to development tried out in the US for several years. In simple terms, it amounts to encouraging developers to rack up support for their ideas, challenging the natural antithetical leaning of communities to developers.

A poll by the consultants showed that in the UK, 84% believed their community was overdeveloped and should be left untouched, while 19% had at some point actively opposed a planning application.

One could argue that garnering support is something developers should do automatically. If the scheme is so good, so beneficial, the silent majority will speak up. But at the very least, asking members of the public to sign up to schemes may encourage a more realistic approach to planning, whereby the wider value of schemes and the benefits/disadvantages to communities beyond the immediate residents and businesses are examined more closely than usual.

If that doesn't work, we may have to conclude that the scrutiny of such grand schemes begins and ends with the regional body responsible, although the Greater London Authority is alone among English bodies with the clout and legitimacy to bear such responsibility.

It is in no one's interest that six years after Argent launched its plans, we may only now be getting the involvement of the mayor of London and the government on the King's Cross plans, a scheme of economic interest to the capital and the UK as a whole. Surely, it would have been better to have their involvement, particularly Ken Livingstone's, much earlier on.

That is not to argue that the involvement of local planning members in major schemes should be withdrawn. But since most such schemes are inevitably called in for scrutiny by the ODPM, better surely to run local and regional/national enquiries concurrently.

That way, we could have lopped off a couple of the six years Madelin has waited for the King's Cross decision, reached a more rounded view of the proposals and generated wider interest in the future of such a vital part of the capital.