Podcast episode 113: The #Planaraks Awards 2023.

The latest 50 Shades of Planning episode is available here, or via Apple and Spotify.

This is the third of the festive 50 Shades triumvirate looking back at 2023. The first two some past contributors and I did by way of the 50 Shades Festive Christmas Quizzes. This third one sees the return of Zack Simons’ Planaraks Awards, which he again kindly agreed to reveal exclusively on the podcast.

In a conversation that we recorded on Planning Reform Day, just as Michael Gove had given a speech entitled ‘Falling back in love with the future’ and just before the NPPF emerged, we canter through some of the high points and low points of the year just gone (mostly low points) and Zack confers awards for, amongst other things, 'The Most Futile Reform of the Year', 'The Most Hopeless Reform of the Year' and 'The Worst Policy of the Year'. Positivity does not abound, but we do try to generate some.

Along the way we touch on many of the things that regular readers of Zack’s Planaraks Blog would expect us to, from amending consents, nutrient neutrality, application fees, the LURA, Green Belt and strategic planning.

I give another plug at the end of the episode for Oscar Easton’s Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge next month. Oscar, son of friend of the podcast Jonathan Easton, is seeking sponsorship for a very good cause, a link to which you will find in the description. Please do support Team Easton if you can.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/oscar-easton-1702480570488

Comments

Planning Reform Week

The first bit On the day that I started writing this the Prime Minister has confirmed in a move considered intellectually incoherent by some that hundreds of new oil and gas licenses will be granted in the UK, which signals that it is ‘Energy Week’ on the Government’s summer recess comms grid. A line appears to have been drawn from the role of an Ultra Low Emission Zone policy in securing a marginal win for the Conservatives in the Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election to the softening of commitments to a net zero energy strategy. Seven days ago the Prime Minister launched the grid’s ‘Planning Reform Week’ by announcing that the Government will meet its manifesto commitment to build 1 million homes over this parliament, which would represent “another important milestone in the government’s already successful housebuilding strategy”. It is notable given the ground that Labour has gained on housing in recent months that the first week of the parliamentary recess was devoted to tryin

Life on the Front Line

I like it when people get in touch with me to suggest topics for 50 Shades of Planning Podcast episodes because, firstly, it means that people are listening to it and also, and most importantly, it means I do not have to come up with ideas myself. I found this message from a team leader at a local authority striking and sobering though. In a subsequent conversation the person that sent this confided in me that their team is virtually in crisis mode. It is probably fair to say that the planning system is in crisis, but then it is also probably fair to say that the planning system is always in crisis… There is, of course, the issue of resources. Whilst according to a Planning magazine survey slightly more LPAs are predicting growth in planning department budgets (25%) rather than a contraction (22%), this has to be seen in the context of a 38% real-terms fall in net current expenditure on planning functions between 2010–11 and 2017–18. Beyond resources though the current crisis feels m

The Green Belt. What it is and why; what it isn't; and what it should be.

‘I began to see what a sacred cow the Green Belt has become’. Richard Crossman, Minister for Housing & Local Government, in 1964. The need for change The mere mention of the words Green Belt raise hackles. There are some who consider it’s present boundaries to be sacrosanct. According to recent Ipsos polling, six in ten people in England would retain it's current extent of Green Belt even if it restricts the country's ability to meet housing needs. There are some, including leader writers at The Economist , who would do away with it all together. Neither position is tenable, but there is a trend towards an entrenchment of these positions that makes sensible conversations about meeting housing needs almost impossible. The status quo is unsustainable, both literally and figuratively. The past In both planning and cultural terms, the notion of a ‘Green Belt’ goes back a long way. Long after Thomas More’s ‘ Utopia ’ and Elizabeth I’s ‘ Cordon Sanitaire ’ in 1580, the roots of

50 Shades of Planning

Search This Blog