You might have seen that friend of the 50 Shades of Planning podcast Catriona Riddell's latest column for Planning was called 'How planning could work in 2036 (if the new system is allowed to bed down)'.
"High speed railways, electricity lines and reservoirs, plus a network of new towns offering plentiful affordable housing, will be enabled in the next decade by the reformed planning system, says our columnist."
"2036 is looking bright, thanks to the decisions made in 2026!" was Catriona's final line.
What if those decisions are not made though?
An alternative take on what we might be dealing with in ten years time was shared by a mutual friend of Catriona and I in a WhatsApp group to which we are both part and the author of that alternative take was agreeable to me sharing it anonymously on here.
In 2036 it has been accepted that the plan-led system was a myth. The 30-month plan-making system was a disaster due to pesky things like needing to achieve political and community consensus. The resulting torrent of Ministerial interventions just clogged up the Planning Inspectorate and distracted them from dealing with planning appeals.
Of which there were many because Local Government Reorganisation had thrown LPAs into chaos and there had been a mass exit of public sector planners. All additional resources gained from increased planning fees went into paying for the transition to unitaries and then to propping up social services because the fee income wasn’t ring-fenced.
The new strategic authorities never got their mayors because there was too high a risk that they would be of a different political colour than the Government. The strategic development strategies were mired down in arguments over the apportionment of housing numbers and nobody had the confidence to invest in anything.
National Decision Making Policies remained non-statutory because no-one wanted to test their environmental impact through SEA and Government had failed in all its attempts to get rid of environmental protections whilst keeping to it’s legal duty not to reduce them. It’s fine though because there are no up-to-date development plans anyway so they are better than nothing.
There is no National Plan because that would require national Government to actually take responsibility for where growth should go, and that’s not the way to win General Elections.
New towns never happened, although there are a large number of hideous urban extensions badged as new towns, but without the vision or innovation - just cookie cutter replica housing estates churned out by the 5 remaining house builders.
No new infrastructure accompanied these urban extensions because the providers didn’t know that the development was coming due to the lack of SDS and Local Plans. No new reservoirs have been built and drinking water is tankered in from Wales and Scotland. Waste is removed by other tankers because all the WWTW are at capacity.
The Lower Thames Crossing has been shelved indefinitely due to being even more over budget than HS2.
The National Scheme of Delegation resulted in a complete breakdown in Member/officer relations as Chief Planners tried to enforce the regulations and stop inappropriate applications being reported to Committee. Councils found it difficult to recruit or retain Chief Planners and got further into debt by paying for interims.
Leadership at the top is unstable with planning ministers having a maximum of a five month tenure.
I am still working after 46 years of planning because they can’t afford to retire having spent all their money getting their children onto the housing ladder. There are no retirement homes anyway because there are no local plans to allocate any.
2036 is looking dismal thanks to the decisions not carried through in 2026.
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