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Podcast episode 157: The Return of Strategic Planning

Episode 157 of 50 Shades of Planning is available now via this link (or from Apple and Spotify).

Strategic planning is back.

What do we know?

We know that Policy PM1 of the revised draft NPPF anticipates the move towards national coverage of spatial development strategies, as promised by the end of the parliamentary term, and clarifies their role, content, and relationship to other tiers of the development plan. SDSs are intended to be high-level documents focused on genuinely strategic, cross-boundary issues, leaving detailed policy to other plans.

We know that the Planning and Infrastructure Act, the second SDS building block, gained royal assent last month and sets out the process by which authorities, be they Mayoral authorities, combined authorities or combined county authorities should prepare SDSs.

We know that the third SDS building block, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (which has reached the committee stage in the House of Lords), will confirm the structures and mechanisms of governance.

For much of the country, SDS geography is already settled. More than half of the population is led by Mayors, and across at least seven of the major cities, the preparation of SDSs is already underway. For much of the rest of the country though, including areas simultaneously undergoing local government re-organisation, the new strategic geographies are still to be resolved.

We also don’t know, beyond a commitment for it be standardised, what evidence base SDSs will be examined against and how, for example, they will be expected to align with Local Growth Plans.

With all of that going on and given what we know and what we don’t know, what have authorities been able whilst awaiting the consolidation of all three building blocks? Strategic planning is back, but what shape is it in right now?

These are the themes of a conversation that you are about to hear between old friends of the podcast Catriona Riddell and Mike Best, and new friends of the podcast Shaun Andrews, Graham Thomas and Louise Sloan.

Catriona, who leads the discussion, strategic planning doyenne, runs Catriona Riddell & Associates. Mike, you will know if you listened to episode 130, is now doing his own thing after more than twenty years at Turley. Shaun is Director of UK Planning Strategy at Prior & Partners; Graham is Head of Planning & Sustainable Development at Essex County Council, and Louise is Assistant Director Planning at Newcastle City Council and Assistant Director of Place at the North East Combined Authority.

In a conversation recorded online back in October last year that talked about SDS preparatory work; what the first SDSs might look like and their interface with local plans; infrastructure planning; capacity and skills within the planning profession; and how SDS identify strategic site priorities.





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