The test of first-rate intelligence, so F. Scott Fitzgerald said, is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. This came to mind when going through the Levelling Up White Paper because it does pose the same challenge.
On the one hand the White Paper’s twelve bold, national missions are to be achieved by 2030. On the other hand forty different schemes or bodies were introduced to boost local or regional growth between 1975 and 2015, which equates to roughly one a year.
On the one hand levelling up has been, ‘from day one’, the defining mission of this government. On the other hand the White Paper was 856 days in the making and might only have been published when it finally was to distract from ‘Partygate’.
On the one hand City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements, with an investment package of £5.7bn for eight English city regions, will transform local transport networks through London-style integrated settlements. On the other hand not only is Transport for the North not even mentioned in the document it is actually having it’s funding cut by 37%.
On the one hand devolution and local leadership are fundamental to levelling up. On the other hand there is no transformative institutional reform; city and regional leaders will still wield nowhere near the financial and political clout enjoyed by their counterparts across Europe; and the government will still control how many magazines a local authority will be able to publish.
On the one hand one wants to believe that this White Paper is really, really important. On the other hand one suspects that it probably will not be.
The planning community, eighteen months into a post-Planning White Paper hiatus of it’s own (preceded of course by an eighteen month pre-Planning White Paper hiatus), has been legitimately very keen for clues in the White Paper as to what the new Secretary of State, Michael Gove, might be thinking on that score.
On the one hand ‘a strong planning system is vital to level up communities across the country and give them a say in how their land is used and where beautiful, sustainable houses are built’, which is encouraging. On the other hand of the one page dedicated to planning reform there are mere tokenistic references to ‘Project Speed’ (permitted development rights for things like schools and colleges), the Build Better Build Beautiful Commission, the National Model Design Code, the Office for Place (remember that?) and digitisation.
For planners with a particular interest in local plan coverage, and the three main reasons for slow local plan progress, there are perhaps, on the one hand, a few bread crumbs that might have been left deliberately as a trail to follow.
Reason 1 is housing numbers.
By extending opportunities across the UK we can relieve pressures on public services, housing and green fields in the South East, and levelling-up can improve well-being in the South East by improving productivity in the North and Midlands.
For ‘improve well-being’ in the South East one might read ‘improve the short-term electability of Conservative candidates in South East’, but leader of a South Eastern authority contemplating the publication of a draft local plan after the local elections might be inclined to delay matters a little longer to see whether this ‘relief’ manifests itself in the next iteration of the standard method.
On a related note, it certainly seems likely that the role of Homes England will be reimagined again and, with funding no longer subject to the ‘80/20 rule’ that saw 80% of housing funds targeted in areas of the lowest affordability, it will perhaps become as interventionist on brownfield sites in the north as it has been on greenfield sites in the south.
On the one hand the White Paper’s twelve bold, national missions are to be achieved by 2030. On the other hand forty different schemes or bodies were introduced to boost local or regional growth between 1975 and 2015, which equates to roughly one a year.
On the one hand levelling up has been, ‘from day one’, the defining mission of this government. On the other hand the White Paper was 856 days in the making and might only have been published when it finally was to distract from ‘Partygate’.
On the one hand City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements, with an investment package of £5.7bn for eight English city regions, will transform local transport networks through London-style integrated settlements. On the other hand not only is Transport for the North not even mentioned in the document it is actually having it’s funding cut by 37%.
On the one hand devolution and local leadership are fundamental to levelling up. On the other hand there is no transformative institutional reform; city and regional leaders will still wield nowhere near the financial and political clout enjoyed by their counterparts across Europe; and the government will still control how many magazines a local authority will be able to publish.
On the one hand one wants to believe that this White Paper is really, really important. On the other hand one suspects that it probably will not be.
The planning community, eighteen months into a post-Planning White Paper hiatus of it’s own (preceded of course by an eighteen month pre-Planning White Paper hiatus), has been legitimately very keen for clues in the White Paper as to what the new Secretary of State, Michael Gove, might be thinking on that score.
On the one hand ‘a strong planning system is vital to level up communities across the country and give them a say in how their land is used and where beautiful, sustainable houses are built’, which is encouraging. On the other hand of the one page dedicated to planning reform there are mere tokenistic references to ‘Project Speed’ (permitted development rights for things like schools and colleges), the Build Better Build Beautiful Commission, the National Model Design Code, the Office for Place (remember that?) and digitisation.
For planners with a particular interest in local plan coverage, and the three main reasons for slow local plan progress, there are perhaps, on the one hand, a few bread crumbs that might have been left deliberately as a trail to follow.
Reason 1 is housing numbers.
By extending opportunities across the UK we can relieve pressures on public services, housing and green fields in the South East, and levelling-up can improve well-being in the South East by improving productivity in the North and Midlands.
For ‘improve well-being’ in the South East one might read ‘improve the short-term electability of Conservative candidates in South East’, but leader of a South Eastern authority contemplating the publication of a draft local plan after the local elections might be inclined to delay matters a little longer to see whether this ‘relief’ manifests itself in the next iteration of the standard method.
On a related note, it certainly seems likely that the role of Homes England will be reimagined again and, with funding no longer subject to the ‘80/20 rule’ that saw 80% of housing funds targeted in areas of the lowest affordability, it will perhaps become as interventionist on brownfield sites in the north as it has been on greenfield sites in the south.
Reason 2 is Green Belt.
Ensuring natural beauty is accessible to all will be central to our planning system, with improved Green Belts around towns and cities.
What are we to make of the word ‘improved’? It cannot mean larger or surely larger would have been the word used? There is reference to ‘further greening the Green Belt in England’, which might mean improving biodiversity or landscape value, but then biodiversity and landscape value are unrelated to the purposes of Green Belt. It might be related to the compensatory improvement provisions within the NPPF (which in this author’s humble opinion are not invoked anywhere near enough), but these are predicated upon an acceptance that some Green Belt will be lost, which is surely not in the spirit of what is being intended here.
Ensuring natural beauty is accessible to all will be central to our planning system, with improved Green Belts around towns and cities.
What are we to make of the word ‘improved’? It cannot mean larger or surely larger would have been the word used? There is reference to ‘further greening the Green Belt in England’, which might mean improving biodiversity or landscape value, but then biodiversity and landscape value are unrelated to the purposes of Green Belt. It might be related to the compensatory improvement provisions within the NPPF (which in this author’s humble opinion are not invoked anywhere near enough), but these are predicated upon an acceptance that some Green Belt will be lost, which is surely not in the spirit of what is being intended here.
Reason 3 is cross-boundary issues.
A well-directed spatial strategy would address two market failures at source – the first affecting left-behind places, the second affecting well-performing places. By correcting these market failures, potential opportunities and growth are unleashed in places affected by these market failures. In other words, by addressing place-based market failures, place-based strategies can grow the pie. They are about unleashing opportunity and boosting allocative efficiency, not redistribution between places per se. That is the essence of levelling up.
Is it not a little odd that, seven years after Eric Pickles departed Marsham Street, the words ‘strategic planning’ dare not be mentioned in even a White Paper let alone anything more substantive? The author(s) of the Paper got as far as a ‘systems’ approach and ‘hard-wired spatial considerations’, but then either did not make what is not even a great leap to including planning within the ‘devolution framework’ menu of options for local areas to build their own deals from, or did join those dots and was told to unjoin them because strategic planning remains taboo. Either scenario is perplexing.
On the other hand, of course, starved of any more substantive news of the planning reform agenda on which to feed, one may be reading far too much into what might just be a few bread crumbs.
A well-directed spatial strategy would address two market failures at source – the first affecting left-behind places, the second affecting well-performing places. By correcting these market failures, potential opportunities and growth are unleashed in places affected by these market failures. In other words, by addressing place-based market failures, place-based strategies can grow the pie. They are about unleashing opportunity and boosting allocative efficiency, not redistribution between places per se. That is the essence of levelling up.
Is it not a little odd that, seven years after Eric Pickles departed Marsham Street, the words ‘strategic planning’ dare not be mentioned in even a White Paper let alone anything more substantive? The author(s) of the Paper got as far as a ‘systems’ approach and ‘hard-wired spatial considerations’, but then either did not make what is not even a great leap to including planning within the ‘devolution framework’ menu of options for local areas to build their own deals from, or did join those dots and was told to unjoin them because strategic planning remains taboo. Either scenario is perplexing.
On the other hand, of course, starved of any more substantive news of the planning reform agenda on which to feed, one may be reading far too much into what might just be a few bread crumbs.
Going back to the White Paper, as Marge Simpson says to Homer as he lampoons Flanders’ coaching of a pee wee football team "it's very easy to criticise”. “Fun too”, says Homer.
It is easy to lampoon the White Paper for what it is not and it is easy to make fun of Levelling Up for whatever it is (which, of course, according to Dominic Cummings is not actually anything).
There is though perhaps a parallel for planners here with the ‘beauty’ agenda that so intoxicated the previous Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick. Mr Jenrick wanted to promote beauty, but every sensible built environment professional wanted to talk about good design. In the end, Jenrick is also now on the other side of Marsham Street’s revolving door, but we have a National Model Design Code, which is not a bad outcome. If getting regional inequalities and regional policy back on the government agenda means planners having to mentally mute the words ‘Levelling Up’ for another couple of years then that is really no hardship is it?
On the one hand it is of course true that most pronouncements are entirely underwhelming and that rhetoric runs far ahead of reality. The White Paper does not represent a ‘complete Government system change’. It is equally true that the White Paper comes after a decade of severe cuts, many concentrated on precisely the areas that are now meant to be levelled up.
On the other hand though the White Paper is a serious attempt to understand the long-term, systemic issues contributing to the UK’s status as one of the world’s most regionally-unequal developed nations. The paper does state that improving productivity and prosperity in underperforming areas should be a central mission of government and, putting politics and cynicism aside, that is surely a good thing and we as a planning profession must use that to our onward advantage.
The challenge is to hold those two ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It is easy to lampoon the White Paper for what it is not and it is easy to make fun of Levelling Up for whatever it is (which, of course, according to Dominic Cummings is not actually anything).
There is though perhaps a parallel for planners here with the ‘beauty’ agenda that so intoxicated the previous Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick. Mr Jenrick wanted to promote beauty, but every sensible built environment professional wanted to talk about good design. In the end, Jenrick is also now on the other side of Marsham Street’s revolving door, but we have a National Model Design Code, which is not a bad outcome. If getting regional inequalities and regional policy back on the government agenda means planners having to mentally mute the words ‘Levelling Up’ for another couple of years then that is really no hardship is it?
On the one hand it is of course true that most pronouncements are entirely underwhelming and that rhetoric runs far ahead of reality. The White Paper does not represent a ‘complete Government system change’. It is equally true that the White Paper comes after a decade of severe cuts, many concentrated on precisely the areas that are now meant to be levelled up.
On the other hand though the White Paper is a serious attempt to understand the long-term, systemic issues contributing to the UK’s status as one of the world’s most regionally-unequal developed nations. The paper does state that improving productivity and prosperity in underperforming areas should be a central mission of government and, putting politics and cynicism aside, that is surely a good thing and we as a planning profession must use that to our onward advantage.
The challenge is to hold those two ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
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