British Planning Policy in Transition

Mark Tewdwr-Jones

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9781857284218
• eBook ISBN: 9781135365622
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

First Published in 1995. This book aims to consider the statutory planning policy system in Britain at the present time (1995) and predominantly takes as a starting point the development of the current processes in the period since 1989–90. The choice of time period for the study is deliberate and has been governed by two main issues. First, it coincides with the publication in 1989 of a government White Paper on the future of development plans. This paper had immense implications for the statutory planning system and effectively precipitated a new era for the future framework of planning policy. Secondly, 1990 marks the end of Margaret Thatcher's period as Prime Minister and, since we are discussing British planning policy within the context of changing political climates, it is appropriate to assess the statutory planning process under John Major's administration. The resultant essays which have been assembled therefore take the planning policy changes of the last five years as the focus of study and provide a context within which an in-depth analysis of inter-governmental planning relations may occur.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction: land-use planning policy after Thatcher

Mark Tewdwr-Jones

Introduction

The planning process operates in Britain as a predominantly administrative system. Planning agencies and organizations responsible for the management of the built and natural environment agree on policies and programmes to instigate change, promote sites and prepare for development. Fundamental to this administrative role of planning agencies in facilitating or “enabling” is: the preparation and implementation of policies, the allocation and organization of goals, and the mediation of conflicting interests by those organizations competing for the allocation of scarce resources.

The statutory planning policy process is therefore concerned with the preparation of land-use plans and the control of development. Although planning, broadly defined, is something much more than plan-making and policy control, Britain has experienced a planning framework devoted almost entirely to a quasi-legal administrative system concerned with policy and control. Since the implementation of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, when development plans and development control were first introduced in this country, successive governments have laid particular emphasis on the need to prepare land-use plans and ensure state control of the physical environment. These roles have been delegated to local government, with advice from central government and legal parameters established by courts of law. Even today, the main substance of the planning system is administered by governmental professional planning officers, either within forward planning teams (responsible for preparing planning policies) or development control teams (responsible for determining applications for planning permission by individuals and organizations).

Development plan preparation allows the community and those interested in physical change to participate in drafting policies of promotion or conservation. The resultant policies within development plans must be viewed therefore as an agreed set of principles to guide decision-makers on the future of the built and natural environment and as a means through which development opportunities are advertised to the private sector. Planning in Britain equates to physical land-use development, and the promotion and control of that development rests with government. Planning policy, consequently, is fundamental to the future social and economic wellbeing of any spatial area, since it is the essential nexus between the state’s requirement to review the need for physical change in an area while controlling unacceptable development and conserving the best quality landscapes.

Given that planning policy can affect the future economic prosperity of an area, it cannot be viewed as an independent statutory function of the state; it is inherent in all governmental activities. Government, either centrally or at the local level, certainly prepares policies, redrafts plans, negotiates with other interested parties, and liaises with developers. But planning policy is more than an administrative exercise: it is a product of a long process of bargaining, negotiation and political compromise, which encompasses the views and activities of a wide range of organizations, including central government, local planning authorities, statutory bodies, the market and the public. All these agencies influence the planning policy process in some respect at various stages of policy formulation and implementation. The extent of influence wielded by these different interest groups varies between governments and between different situations and groups within government. Policy planners will attempt to draft and implement the most appropriate policies for the administrative area they are responsible for, having taken into account the different opinions voiced, but ultimately a plan containing those policies can never be used as a blueprint; there will always be scope for amendments, for other factors to be taken into account, and for exceptions to the rule—a clear sign of the political component that is so intrinsic in the British planning process.

Planning policy is closely tied to the fields of public administration and politics. It operates as a means of negotiation between market choice (the desires of the individual) and political choice (the desires and actions of the state). The activity of selecting and amending policies as part of the formulation and implementation of plans can never be a technical problem-solving exercise undertaken by professional urban and regional managers possessing perfect knowledge and high skills with community backing. Planning policy marries the technical issues of physical land-use planning with behavioural actions and choices between different options. Policy planning, as a political process, encompasses both the technical and the ethical; values underlie decisions to an extent equal to technical characteristics. Given this relationship, it is inevitable that conflicts frequently occur, between different arms of the state, between interested organizations, and between individuals. If anything characterizes the turbulence of planning policy, it is the source of argumentation over land use.

Within this introductory chapter, I briefly outline the context for the chapters that follow, indicating the administrative framework of planning policy and the changing political actions that have affected the process over the past 15 years. It is not my intention here to provide a descriptive or analytical account of planning under two different administrations; that is something upon which the other contributors have focused. Rather, this chapter will “set the scene”.

The administrative system for land-use planning in Britain

The land-use planning process currently operating in Britain emerged following the enactment of parliamentary legislation in the early 1970s (for a review of the statutory planning system prior to 1971, see Cullingworth & Nadin 1994). In England and Wales, the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972 enacted a three-tier system of local authorities: 47 county councils and 333 district councils, with many community, town or parish councils at the lower level. All of these local authorities are autonomous organizations and, with exception to the parish or community councils, are responsible for a range of state services upon whom specific powers are conferred. The planning framework operated by these local authorities was introduced by the Town and Country Planning Act 1968, subsequently replaced by the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 to bring the system in line with the revised structure of local government. This legislation introduced new forms of development plans to be formulated and implemented by the county and district local government structure. County councils are required to prepare structure plans, broad strategic documents containing policies on a range of issues to apply across the county, whereas district councils were encouraged to prepare district plans, detailed forward planning and development control plans containing policies for specific land-use allocations. The district plans could comprise many different types of documents, including district plans, action area plans and subject plans, according to the needs and development pressures existing for each area. The successfulness of this two-tier planning framework has been analyzed in many studies of the time (e.g. Cross & Bristow 1983, Bruton & Nicholson 1987, Healey et al. 1985) and is not worth repeating here. However, by the mid-1980s, questions were beginning to be asked—predominantly by central government—of both the appropriateness of the planning system to deal with development pressures of the time, and of the local government structure operating the planning system. Thornley (1993) provides one of the most authoritative accounts of the political climate for landuse planning during the 1980s—under so-called “Thatcherism”— and details the changes experienced by the system as the Conservative Party in government “rolled back the frontiers of the state”, allowed the market to develop and enterprise to flourish.

During the 1980s, one of the most important reforms initiated by the Conservatives that affected the statutory planning framework was the abolition of the county councils in the seven largest metropolitan areas of England. Under the Local Government Act 1985, the metropolitan county councils for London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle and Leeds were abolished, and their statutory powers transferred to the lower tier authorities: the metropolitan districts and the London boroughs. The planning system was also transferred to the new authorities, with a new statutory system introduced for metropolitan planning. To replace the structure plan and district plan in each authority, a new development plan—unitary development plan—would gradually be introduced, comprising the functions of both former plans: strategic and detailed policies. Outside these metropolitan areas, the two-tier structure plan and district plan would remain in operation as the statutory planning system. The new planning arrangements within the metropolitan authorities after 1986 have been subject to assessment by analysts (e.g. Thew & Watson 1988), although some commentators have focused more on the resultant lack of strategic planning policy to operate across the former metropolitan county areas (Williams et al. 1992).

The local government system and associated statutory planning arrangements in Scotland also underwent reorganization in the early 1970s when a slightly modified administrative pattern emerged. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 created 9 regions, as opposed to “counties” south of the border, 53 districts and 3 island authorities, although only 49 of the local authorities in Scotland possess planning powers, mainly because of the high number of sparsely populated areas. Thus, within six regions, planning is divided between regions and districts; in the remaining three regions the districts possess no planning responsibilities; whereas in the three islands planning is carried out in a unitary local government structure.

Planning policy and Thatcherism

The effects of Thatcherism on the statutory planning system during the 1980s were widespread. The reforms, or deregulation of planning, not only affected the local governmental administrative framework and its duties but also the statutory planning system itself. Forward planning functions and development control powers of local authorities have been amended significantly following the passing of several Acts of Parliament, White Papers and government Circulars. In particular, the forward planning duties of urban authorities were removed in certain areas as the government introduced Enterprise Zones and Urban Development Corporations, which removed planning restrictions and allowed the market to regenerate urban areas such as Bristol, Cardiff, Sheffield, Liverpool and London Docklands without bureaucratic control (see Imrie & Thomas 1993a for a comprehensive review of the policies and effects of UDCs).

On the development control side of local authorities’ work, the reduction in control was almost as marked. In the mid-1980s, the government reduced the status of development plans in local authorities’ determination of planning applications. A White Paper, “Lifting the Burden” (HM Government 1985), was published which relegated development plans—and ultimately the policies within those plans—in favour of other material considerations, the most prominent of which was the encouragement to create employment. Following this paper in the two to three years to 1987, local authorities were unable to control development effectively in their areas, particularly for large scale housing initiatives and out-of-town retailing development. This period of time has become known as the “appeal-led” planning process, as developers often appealed to the Secretaries of State to overturn the unfavourable decisions of local authorities and allow their proposals to go ahead.

The planning system experienced further uncertainty upon the publication of a government Green Paper in 1986, The future of development plans (DoE/WO 1986). The Secretary of State for the Environment at the time, Nicholas Ridley, issued a consultation paper advocating the abolition of structure plans and their replacement with “county planning statements” and the introduction of district-wide unitary development plans, as had just been introduced to the metropolitan areas following the abolition of the metropolitan counties. The amount of criticism the proposals attracted was widespread, and further disillusioned the planning profession and local authority associations.

By 1987, local authorities were beginning to object to the undermining of local democracy in this respect and harassed the government to return to a local authority-led planning system. Additionally, the Planning Inspectorate–responsible for arranging and determining appeals to the Secretary of State–was coming under increasing pressure as the number of appeals against local authority decisions reached an all-time high. Simultaneously, the government received a great deal of criticism from Conservative voters in the rural south and their own members of parliament for not acting to control the possible development of new housing settlements in the South East. As a consequence of this pressure, the government acknowledged the problems operating within the statutory planning system and as a first step announced that, in future, where a development plan was up-to-date and relevant to the development needs of an area, it would be accorded enhanced weight as a decision-making tool, within both local authorities and at appeal, the Secretary of State at the time espousing “local choice” and the need for communities to determine the scope for future development within their own localities.

Although this may have marked a watershed for the Conservatives’ policy towards statutory planning, it did not halt additional reforms and proposals to amend the planning framework further. The 1986 Green Paper’s proposals were carried through into The future of development plans White Paper of January 1989 (HM Government 1989), which again proposed the abolition of structure plans. But by the winter of the same year, the government’s enthusiasm towards radical planning reform was diminishing. The replacement of Nicholas Ridley as Environment Secretary with Chris Patten resulted in a change in direction for Conservative policy towards planning. In the autumn of 1989, Patten announced that the most controversial element of the White Paper’s proposals—to abolish structure plans— had been scrapped, but reiterated that further legislation was required. The 1988–9 period was also notable for the government’s embrace of “green politics”, as the major political parties developed policies for environmental protection (McCormick 1991). Environmental issues, which can be effectively co-ordinated only by the state, was seen by the government as an ideal means through which popular support could be accumulated, and recognized that action on green issues could only be secured with the support of local government. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 set the seal on a move towards state concern for green issues, and indirectly had the effect of bolstering the functions of local authorities as guardians of the environment.

Planning policy during the Major administration

The renaissance of planning policy, or at least the bolstering of local planning authorities’ functions, had already occurred in the form of scrapping the White Paper’s proposals, and concern for the environment by the time Margaret Thatcher was deposed as leader of the Conservative Party in the autumn of 1990. Consolidating legislation to replace the 1971 Town and Country Planning Act was introduced through parliament. The 1971 Act had been severely hampered by many amendments up to 1990, mainly as a consequence of legislation but also as a cause of changing statutory procedures as detailed in White Papers, Circulars and other statutory instruments. Given the plethora of documentation existing, legislation was required to bring together all these different amendments into one set of planning acts. In 1990, therefore, the government legislated for consolidation of the town and country planning statutes, encompassing all the revisions and amendments to the planning system that had occurred in the previous 20 years. Rather than one parliamentary act, however, the consolidating legislation was divided between three bills: the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, detailing the principle legal requirements on planning policy; the Planning (Conservation Areas and Listed Buildings) Act 1990, which focused on the built heritage, and the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990, which covers pollution and waste material. Although Chris Patten had stated that further legislation was required, this was not what he had in mind, and the remainder of the 1989 White Paper’s proposals remained on the table for discussion for the time being. Therefore, the change in government policy towards the statutory planning system was already under way in 1989, over one year before Mrs Thatcher left office, although this had not been enacted in legislative changes. The pace of change and modified policy stance of the government towards the planning framework was more marked, however, following John Major’s appointment as Prime Minister and Michael Heseltine’s reappointment as Secretary of State for the Environment.

The first principal change occurred in the form of amending the administrative framework of statutory planning. Following the government’s decision to strategically review local government, following the decision to abandon the community charge or “poll tax” and increase public sector accountability, Michael Heseltine announced in the autumn of 1990 that a comprehensive review would be undertaken of local government structure and functions in each of the three countries of Britain. The exact reasons why the government announced the impending reorganization of local authorities remain a point of speculation, a decision that has been described as “against all reasonable expectation, and perhaps against reason itself.” (Young 1994:83).

The reorganization of local government would proceed separately in each of the three countries: England, Wales and Scotland. In England, the Secretary of State announced the establishment of an independent Local Government Commission to consider local government reform and the associated planning framework in separate regions of the country, whereas in Wales and Scotland, reorganization would be pursued by the Secretaries of State and the relevant government departments. Planning as an administrative function of local government would be directly affected by the reform.

Meanwhile, the government announced that the long-promised legislation for the future of the planning system would be tabled for parliamentary time in the 1990– 91 session. The resultant statute, the Plannin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Chapter 1 Introduction: land-use planning policy after Thatcher
• Part One: The statutory planning policy framework
• Part Two: Changing institutional and legal frameworks
• Part Three: Constraints and opportunities in the policy process
• References