Neighbourhood Planning - the case of Bermondsey

Yesterday saw the announcement of 17 communities that have been chosen by the Government to be Neighbourhood Planning Vanguards.  In line with the planning reforms expected in the Localism Bill, neighbourhoods will play a greater role in formulating planning policy.  The 17 vanguards will therefore be eligible for £20,000 from DCLG to help organise themselves into a recognised body and begin work on a Neighbourhood Plan.

Life before Google Maps

How local is too local

Apart from identifying the vanguards and allocating the cash, DCLG has purposefully resisted issuing too much guidance on how the neighbourhood planning process should operate.  In the spirit of localism, it is now up to Local Authorities and the relevant communities to chart their own course.  This is a welcome change.  The planning profession has been shaped too much by over prescriptive rules and regulations from national, regional and local government.  This has led to a loss of creativity in the planning sector where professionals are too eager to dive into Circulars and PPS' to decide what is best for a neighbourhood.  By shifting the onus onto neighbourhoods, Local Authority planners will be tested to understand the aspirations of local residents and not just the generic results of technical reports produced ad nauseam by outside consultants.  

Mistakes will be made as the 17 vanguards pilot neighbourhood planning.  But this should be expected. Planning is a messy and political minefield - just like life itself.  However, I am confident that in some instances a neighbourhood will show true inspiration and allow a forum that engages with those members that have previously not connected with planning.

Working in the City

The Shard viewed from St Thomas Street

Of the 17 vanguards named by Greg Clark MP, one stands out. Bermondsey.  Whilst the majority of the neighbourhoods chosen fit with the parish council model often evoked by Eric Pickles MP, Bermondsey is an inner London neighbourhood characterised as much by large social housing estates as by the Shard.  From an initial inspection it appears that the neighbourhood forum is already up and running and has clealry set a timetable for the production of a Neighboruhood Plan.

However, from reading the Localism Bill and hearing Eric Pickles MP speak (see here), I often have the impression that Conservative planning policy is based on the rural idyll with a parish council, village hall and local pub.  This scale of settlement allows a neighbourhood to come together and make minor decisions on the use of the village green or the preservation of the local post office.  Yet Bermondsey is nothing like this and falls within a recognised Opportunity Area (see the London Plan) where existing planning policy promotes regeneration, economic growth and tall buildings.  The area surrounding London Bridge is one of London's fastest changing cityscapes with the Shard, London Bridge station redevelopment, the 32-storey Quill and other iconic developments in the pipeline.  This is an area which neccessatates strategic planning - with strong input from the Mayor and the Greater London Authority.

But the strategic nature of London Bridge and Bermondsey should not exclude the local residents.  It just means that neighboruhood planning in this area is sure to create more tensions compared to vanguards in Banbury or Dawlish.  Property developers require certainty in planning policy so that investment can be guaranteed and schemes can be designed appropriately.  In the case of Bermondsey it is unclear how the forthcoming Neighbourhood Plan will sit alongside the existing draft Supplementary Planning Document which encourages tall buildings and considerable development opportunities.  The Localism Bill makes clear that Neighbourhood Plans cannot be anti-development, but they can shift the emphasis of planning policy.  It will be interesting to see how the case of Bermondsey develops over the coming months and whether the parish Council model of neighbourhood planning is suitable for an inner city environment.  The Musing Urbanist will be keeping a keen eye on Bermondsey to see how this episode of neighbourhood planning sits within the existing and proposed planning regime.

 

No short term answers in planning reform

It was no surprise that planning played a noticeable part in last week's Budget. In the weeks leading up to George Osbourne's announcement, a number of ministers, including the PM himself, had identified the planning system as a drag on growth that was ripe for reform. The language used by Osborne, Pickles, Cable et al typifies the Coalition's approach to the public services, where town hall bureaucracy is supposedly stifling economic growth.



The Budget therefore included a number of measures to reform the planning system and align it with the new growth agenda. This included:

- a presumption in favour of 'sustainable development'
- a new National Planning Policy Framework
- changes to permitted development rights, including the ability to change offices to residential use without planning permission.
- prioritising growth and jobs in local planning policies
- land auctions
- involving businesses in the shaping of Neighbourhood Plans
- 21 Enterprise Zones where planning restrictions would be removed

Despite the rhetoric, none of this is radically new and has appeared in a previous Green Paper on Planning written by the Conservatives when in Opposition. Much has since been written in reaction to the announcements and I direct you to excellent articles by Jamie Carpenter (here) and the Centre for Cities (here).

Overall, I am positive about any initiative to align planning with economic aspirations and, if undertaken correctly, the Enterprise Zones can help new initiatives be trialed (as I have discussed previously - see here). The Royal Docks in London will be a good test case. Over the last 15-20 years the area has seen significant development, with commercial schemes, the Excel Centre and a number of Ballymore-led residential towers. The onus is therefore less on physical improvements and more on business incentives and attracting jobs. Whether this just shifts existing jobs from elsewhere will be interesting to see.


My main gripe with the Budget is the unrealistic timetable for these reforms. The presumption in favour of 'sustainable development' was originally suggested in the Conservative Green Paper but failed to make it into the Localism Bill. Why has this policy been discarded but now held up to be the saving grace for economic growth? If it is to be re-inserted into the Localism Bill, this will take time and further debate in the House of Commons. Furthermore, the policy in favour of sustainable development must be aligned with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Nobody has yet seen the NPPF, so it is unrealistic to see this being adopted before the end of 2011. So, for both the Localism Bill to be adopted and the NPPF to be in force, it will be a further 18 months at least. In the meantime the Government will be under pressure to increase growth above 2%, reduce unemployment and build more homes. It is hard to see if any of the Budget announcements can make any difference in the short term. Whilst I commend the proposed reforms, why weren't they made Government policy 18 months ago?

The Pitfalls of Localism - an agenda for 2011

With the Localism Bill finally sneaking onto the parliamentary agenda before the Christmas break, we can now look forward to how localism will evolve in 2011. This has become the defining principle of the Coalition Government and Pickles, Shapps et al have been wheeled out to extol the shift in power from central Government to local communities. Up until the now the Tories have been able to talk in generalities and avoid the policy detail. This has to end. References to the ‘Big Society’ and ‘Neighbourhood Planning’ have been defined more by what they are not as opposed to what they truly are. This article in The Economist excellently sets out how the direction of travel is clear but the details of the journey are both lacking and potentially unworkable.

The benefits of local empowerment are easy to describe on the election campaign trail. Faceless bureaucrats can be painted as bogey-men wasting taxpayers money and communities can save the day by making more informed decisions. But I see two problems. Firstly, how powerful can localism be without true fiscal autonomy? Cities can only make independent decisions if they raise their own taxes and then choose how to spend the money. If regional cities are to have elected Mayors then they also need greater independence from the Treasury. Cities such as Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester require the power to make decisions on economic development, including control over business rates. With the removal of Regional Development Agencies and the cuts in public sector assistance to local businesses, Local Authorities must have the tools to be bold enough in their strategy for economic development. Localism without fiscal autonomy is a bugger’s muddle.

The second problem I see is the tendency of political parties to suddenly realise the benefits of central power once in Government. Giving away power to local people is easy to support when in opposition, but when in Government politicians quickly see the pitfalls of trusting local people over central departments. One reason is that unsuccessful local policies easily rebound up to the national level. To avoid this occurring local governments are therefore kept on a tighter leash, both through centrally controlled budgets and policy. For localism to work the Government must accept the risks in devolving power. It will involve unwelcome stories of local authorities who depart from what the Tories may naturally advocate. But, and more importantly, localism could include inspiring stories of where Local Authorities have grasped independence to involve the community on how public services should be operated.

Urban planning will be a key test area and I have no doubt some Local Authorities will resist any attempt to build more homes locally. This should be expected. It therefore leaves a clear opportunity for other towns and cities to welcome new development and reap the benefits. Until now architects, planners and politicians have been weak on selling the benefits of development, in particular housing. This must change, as outlined in a recent editorial in the Architects’ Journal. Again, this will be risky and it will take time for development levels to pick up to match demand. But hopefully it will encourage some cities to gain greater individual identity and avoid the ‘urban renaissance’ path which has characterised urban redevelopment since 1997 (and excellently critiqued in this book by Owen Hatherley).

Clearly there are risks, but politicians must overcome their safety-first instincts to avoid the centralising forces once again scuppering the potential of localism and local empowerment.

Path to nowhere?

Two big stories in the news this week centred on housing in the UK. Firstly, the Government signaled it would scrap the remaining phases of the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder scheme (here). This was a policy much trumpeted by John Prescott in the early days of New Labour as a way to regenerate huge swathes of Northern cities. The Pathfinder scheme identified 9 areas where the housing market had seemingly failed and large-scale government intervention was required to kick-start it. The scheme was specifically tied to the North of England and neighbourhoods struggling to cope with the loss of manufacturing employment.

The normal practice was for the Council to produce a map to identify those premises earmarked for demolition, usually red-brick terraces. Owners would then be compensated and plans drawn up for the replacement housing. But the process rarely went smoothly and Council (and national Government) delays often left residents in limbo - unsure whether to invest in their home or not (see here). Some people moved out the area, whilst others (and often the most vulnerable) were left isolated in a community devoid of life and services.

However, this should not be a reason to finish the Pathfinder scheme through to the conclusion. I agree with Owen Hatherley, writing in The Guardian, that the scheme acts as gentrification and fails to serve the original working-class communities. Large-scale demolition and Government incentives have allowed developers to enter these neighbourhoods to produce housing far too expensive to the local community. The impact is that the local community is split up and dispersed across the city as they search for replacement accommodation, as described by Anna Minton in her excellent book Ground Control. The Pathfinder scheme was too quick to condemn neighbourhoods as blighted and the Government must look closer into whether the existing stock could be refurbished first.


The other housing story in the news was the decision by the High Court to quash the move taken by Eric Pickles MP to revoke Regional Spatial Strategies. In layman's terms, Labour imposed housing targets on Councils whilst the Conservatives want to scrap the targets and allow Councils to decide their own housing levels, as part of the drive towards localism. Therefore not long into his job as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Pickles revoked the regional tier of planning. However, he didn't. Because to revoke regional planning requires primary legislation, as stated by the High Court last week.


The end result? Planning, like the Pathfinder residents, is once again in limbo. Should Councils use the old targets or devise their own (lower) targets?

This episode raises two points about the Government's approach to housing. Firstly, Pickles has an arrogance towards the planning profession where he thinks he can make major changes without going through the due process. Secondly, housing targets will be scrapped eventually and many Councils across the country will use this as an excuse to stop any house building in their area. Most local Councillors are elected on the basis of promising less development. So, will the incentivised approach favoured by the Conservatives work instead? The Localism Bill is due out next week so stay tuned for a review. In the meantime, get your planning applications submitted now, who knows when things will change again!!