Sam Stafford's Blog

I cannot remember exactly why, I may have been in a flap about a councillor or consultant giving me a hard time, but I remember being told by my principle officer and team leader to relax. ‘It’s only a game’, he said. Now. Let’s be clear. Planning is clearly not a game. Late Victorian intervention into a laissez-faire market on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged was not a game. The need to rebuild the country after the great wars and to build homes for heroes was not a game. Looking back on my time in development control with ten years more experience myself I think that my former colleague was expressing a world-weary, cynical view that when you strip back the noble traditions of the profession and look narrowly at the ability of one person to get anything done, you have to play ‘the game’. I was on the panel at a ‘Movers & Shakers’ breakfast seminar recently (check me out) and was asked what I would like to see in the Autumn Statement and much-trailed Housing White Pap...

How does one go about spatial planning at the city-region or sub-regional level in an era when there is no legislative and policy basis to do so? The answer, based upon the nascent Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) that is being prepared by AGMA / GMCA, is perhaps unsurprisingly 'with great difficulty'. Progress with  local plans  speaks to the difficulty of even this enterprise. Evidence needs to be prepared, neighbouring authorities need to be engaged, the public needs to be consulted, the political party in control (if there is one - pity the Head of Policy in authorities with no overall control) needs to be supportive, and then finally, at the business end of the process, an inspector needs to hear more supportive voices around the examination table than there are dissenting ones. The GMSF needs to harvest evidence from and on behalf of ten LPAs; it's neighbouring authorities account for a good proportion of the entire North West region; it's local...

Where to start with the news that “homeowners in countryside villages and towns could be given cash payments to offset disruptive developments in their communities”, which was reported in the Telegraph . The concept triggers so many thoughts and feelings. .. The cynically-minded would highlight how little new there is under the sun, and that if you stand still long enough the world will come back around to meet you. Who remembers, for example, the ‘ Boles Bung ’. Former Planning Minister Nick Boles has floated this idea before and it got as far as a share of CIL being directed to parish councils with a neighbourhood plan in place, but not as far as payments directly households. It is easy to see the attraction to Tory wonks of announcements like this every now and then (when new ministers are in post, for example) because it is a policy that simultaneously appeals to both radical reformists and core Telegraph-reading voters. It is floated, it attracts the interest of both wings o...

I wrote this last year about 'Devolution & The Birmingham Shortfall' : The Birmingham Development Plan (BDP) will ultimately establish the scale of housing need as the first step towards achieving an effective mechanism between LPAs in the housing market area, but ultimately that mechanism will not be able to go much further than a commitment on behalf of neighbouring LPAs to either review already adopted plans or have regard to the Birmingham shortfall and the ongoing Duty-to-Cooperate in the preparation of new plans, plus of course a commitment by Birmingham City Council itself to review the BDP if the expected rate of progress is not being achieved. Let’s have a look at what’s changed. The BDP has not been adopted (it remains on hold following DCLG intervention) and an agreement has not yet been reached on the distribution of the shortfall across Birmingham’s neighbours. This was expected (though discussions between LPAs are being held behind closed doors so it...

A wise man once said that neighbourhood plans (NPs) are the future and if today’s present represents that future then that prophecy has already come to pass. From inception in the 2011 Localism Act there are now, according to the Government,  193 NPs  approved at referendum and nearly 2,000 groups involved, covering around ten million people. If those rates of participation continue neighbourhood plans will be today’s future as well as yesterday’s. This is a good thing. Open Source Planning (2010) stated that “the creation of an open source planning system means that local people in each neighbourhood … will be able to specify what kind of development and use of land they want to see in their area. … a fundamental and long overdue rebalancing of power ….”. Public participation in planning is a good thing. A community identifying the best sites within and around it for development is a good thing.  How though do local people identify how much development is rig...

“It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at”, said the Manc Mystic, Ian Brown, in a warning, presumably, against allowing geographical ties to become barriers along life’s journey of self-discovery. That is all well and good for musicians with the m eans to move to North London and the time to read books about journeys of self-discovery, but, for most people, it is where you a re from that matters. Imagine, if you will, the ‘So, where do you come from?’ conversation at conferences and seminars whilst queuing for the buffet lunch. I would wager that the majority of people from eight of the ten Greater Manchester authorities would identify themselves as coming from their borough, rather than Manchester (the exceptions probably being Trafford and Tameside). It is hard to imagine anybody from the part of the West Midlands that is not Birmingham describing themselves as coming from Birmingham. University aside, I have only ever lived in boroughs that exist not as places but as...

"Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?" asked Blackadder . "Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron". As well as being a light-hearted way to start a blog this could also be a light-hearted way to start a conversation with Eric Pickles, which, all being well, I may get the chance to do one day, because I would very much like to ask him if he sees the irony inherent in the Housing & Planning Bill (H&PB) and it's objective of ensuring that all councils have local plans in place by 2017. Back in July 2010, Readers will recall, within months of becoming the Coalition Government's Secretary of State (SoS) for Communities & Local Government, Mr Pickles revoked Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs) on the basis that they represented ' Soviet-style planning ' and 'Stalinist top-down regional targets' that must go in favour of 'more local decision-making'. Little can Mr Pickles have imagined...