The faces behind the system

As for developers, they are the sharp-suited villains of the piece, determined to cram high-density towers onto every green field.

These are the stereotypes and misconceptions that surround the people who have taken on the task of making our planning process work. While it may be the process itself that’s at fault, it is this cast of characters who often end up taking the blame. The Royal Town Planning Institute gathered together some of the people involved to talk about the problems as they see them – and see whether the different parties to the process could find any common ground. Josephine Smit took notes.

Deputy prime minister, regional assemblies, quangos, etc

A lot of key decisions about what gets built and where aren’t made locally. While the secretary of state continues to have the last word on the big decisions, the ODPM’s new planning framework has established a different approach to regional planning. Out have gone the old county council structure plans as regional assemblies are now responsible for strategic planning. The assemblies also produce the Regional Spatial Strategies that are replacing regional planning guidance. Last but not least, the government has created a series of quango-style delivery vehicles, some of which have planning powers. It doesn’t sound simple on paper, and it isn’t in practice.

Tate Any local government reorganisation has failed to benefit planning.

Hawkes The [fact that regional assemblies are producing the] regional spatial strategy has taken the decision-making away from local planning authorities. We now have a lot of quangos and they go along with government policy – there’s a concern that they’re involved in decision-making but are not elected.

McKee Planning is all about politics. There’s nothing wrong with delivery vehicles, but there must be the right weight of responsibility and decision-making at the right level. Each layer must have a discrete purpose and the further up you go it must become more strategic.

I envy planning officers because they are in ivory towers and don’t have to deal with the public. I do

Lisa Hawkes

Tate The RTPI has been campaigning for a national spatial strategy to deal with issues like the north/south divide and national infrastructure to have the big discussions about the shape of the country.

Fuller We need it, but it would have to have local buy-in.

McKee You would never get local buy-in for, say, a third runway at Heathrow Airport. But local people should know what is going on and should feel able to contribute. The one thing that justifies politicians being involved is that they are able to take those kind of decisions. The secretary of state should decide on the third runway – they can balance local interest against national interest.

Bevan The secretary of state’s higher reference point [for call-ins and referrals] is to do with strategic distance. In a lot of cases people are too close to the situation to make a decision that they have to make. It would be political suicide. So it is legitimate to refer to a strategic body that can take the tough decisions.

The arrangements for call-in and referral generally make sense. But does it make sense for the deputy prime minister to be making local decisions? There may be a better way of doing it. We’ve got a fudge solution at the moment because we don’t have another decision-making tier.

The local authority: Members and officers

The decision-making process for planning applications whereby local authority planning officers make their recommendation but the planning committee has the final say, is increasingly coming under question. That is because of the frequent incidences of committees disregarding their officers’ recommendations to approve and rejecting applications. So what should members be doing?

Hawkes In Swindon we have to accommodate 35,000 homes. A large development to a lot of councils is 500 homes – we’ve got sites of 4000 and 5000 homes so there are huge problems that we’re trying to reconcile. Members are often underrated. We know housing and infrastructure are needed – and that we can only ask developers to do so much. In some ways I envy planning officers because they are in ivory towers and don’t have to deal with the public. I do. Officers go on policy guidance, they look at guidance as if it were law, but to me it is guidance. If there are good reasons to go against the officer recommendation, then I have to.

In a lot of cases people are too close to the situation to make a decision that they have to make. It would be political suicide

Paul Bevan

Tate If politicians decide against, it is the duty of officers to get behind that.

Fuller But it is a frustration of housebuilders that a site can go forward with a recommendation to approve and then be rejected.

There’s the recent example of the 1300-unit site that was in the local plan, but was thrown out. That wastes 18 months and a lot of money, simply so that the local authority can say that they are the good guys [politically] because Mr Prescott made the final decision.

If a scheme meets all the policy criteria and is in the local plan, I don’t see why it has to go before members. I’d sooner see them reviewing built schemes to see whether they are delivering what they should deliver.

McKee Where councillors fly in the face of policy that they’ve adopted, there should be punitive damages against them. A charge can be brought against individuals if they behave “recklessly”, but few things get to that level. Costs aren’t awarded often enough against local authorities in decisions that they have made against policy.

Planners think they have the right to decide. But the only people who can decide that housing is more important than open space, for example, are the members. Planners have a process, a set of analytical techniques, but only the members can decide.

The developers

Developers directly bear the costs of the delays, constraints and inefficiencies of the planning process, and many are unhappy at having to do so. The quality of dialogue between developer and local planning authorities and councillors ranges from the healthy and creative to non-existent, but in between there are countless examples of mutual incomprehension.

We have to be clear about what the limits are to the power of the people in consultation

Terry Fuller

Hawkes I’ll meet any developer [prior to an application being submitted] to bring up local issues – as long as I am accompanied by an officer. To not allow pre-application conversations is destructive. We’ve had a 450-unit infill site – infill sites tend to be the most controversial sites because they are surrounded by homes – where a developer wanted to build a three- or four-storey building across the road from existing houses. To put towers opposite terraced housing was clearly unacceptable. If they’d consulted, they could have avoided that.

Bevan But I’d be concerned if the separation between executive and non-executive were lost. That’s a healthy test of decision-making. The recognition of planning committees as quasi-judicial bodies to ensure independence from the pressures of developers and local authorities is important to the soundness of decision-making.

Hawkes We have a development in Swindon where the developer has said that because they have hired a prestigious architect to do the design, they can’t afford to provide affordable housing. For that reason I’m encouraging an open book approach.

McKee We do it at Tilfen, but the problem is that nine out of 10 local authorities wouldn’t understand the books.

Fuller HBF policy is to be against it. It often results in arguments between the developer and the local authority that: the land value the developer is paying is too high, and that the developer’s profit margin is too high.

It is not for the local authority to decide on a developer’s profit margin – that varies from site to site, and return on capital employed is a significant factor.

The community voice

Almost every proposed development has its nimby residents who make their views heard through the planning process, but now local people are formally being given a voice. Community consultation is enshrined in the new planning legislation, but whether that will result in the community getting its own way is another matter.

There is a false perception that the outcome of community consultation is that what happens is what the community wants. It doesn’t work that way

Will Mckee

Fuller There’s a conflict between what the local populus want and what the policy says. In one area of the country, the locals wanted the greenbelt to be built on because they had got so much of it, but there was not a chance of it happening. The locals felt bad because they thought consultation would empower them. We have to be clear about what the limits are to the power of the people in the consultation.

McKee There is a false perception that the outcome of community consultation is that what happens is what the community wants. It doesn’t work that way, and that’s why we need politicians.

Bevan We shouldn’t take community engagement as an abrogation of responsibility to lead.

Bevan Another problem is that the community voice is not always unanimous. The South-east plan got very different views from a smaller scale Mori poll and from a self-completion questionnaire to 60,000 people.

We agree

This debate might have confirmed some of the stereotypes and misconceptions mentioned in our introduction, but there were patches of common ground. All thought that politicians had a role to play in the planning process, and there was one thing everyone wanted:

Hawkes We can’t make all the people happy, but we can demonstrate clarity of decision-making. I don’t care whether we have Section 106 or a tariff, as long as we have a system and we are all clear about what is expected.

McKee Transparency is so important.