Ask-a-planorak #4 - Catriona Riddell

Catriona Riddell is a #planorak of the highest order!  Now director of her own consultancy, she was previously the Director of Planning at the South East England Regional Assembly, responsible for the South East Plan. She is also the national Strategic Planning Specialist for the Planning Officers' Society, Vice Chair of the Town and Country Planning Association, a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute's England Policy Panel.

Who better to turn to for reflections on the recent run of failed local plan examinations, together with increasing calls for some manner of return to more strategic planning.

Catriona answers 10 questions on what we’re getting right about plan-making and (I fear it’s a longer list!), the things we need to change.

1.          What – if there is there anything! – about the current system for examining local plans do you think is working well?

I’m not sure there is anything in the current process that I think works particularly well. Local plans submitted for examination are supposed to be the final version, the plan that the local authority wants to adopt after years of preparation, yet most plans come out the other end of the examination process looking very different to the version that went in. This evidence alone suggests there is something fundamentally wrong with the system.

2.          You’ve talked about the need to return to the more “visionary” plans of the 1990s. What’s the biggest bar to that kind of ambition and vision feeding its way into plan-making?

Development plans are supposed to guide transformation of a place over a long period, with a clearly articulated narrative of what the endgame (the vision) should look like. Vision-led plans rely on a range of interventions (e.g. policies, funding) to deliver them, acknowledging that these will be different over the plan-period as they adapt to the changing context and external influences. Our current experience with the impact of Covid-19 on future place-making is a clear example of this. The vision won’t necessarily change over time in response to these impacts, but the way it is delivered will.

In my view, the Localism /NPPF planning system introduced two main barriers to vision-led plan-making. Firstly, it abolished regional planning without replacing it with an effective alternative strategic planning mechanism to deliver a place-based vision across administrative boundaries. Secondly, it introduced a risk-adverse approach to plan-making by placing significant weight on deliverability. This is not conducive to long-term planning where there is often a high degree of uncertainty around funding and other delivery issues beyond a 5-10 year period, where implementing the vision will need to be responsive to the changing context and where  innovative solutions to delivery are often needed. A clear vision shared by key partners, with robust governance and risk management processes in place, should count for much more than it currently does.

3.          The North Essex plan was recently found unsound, including on the basis that two of its garden communities had not been shown to be viable. What is your view on how garden communities are being dealt with through the local plan process?

I fully support the concept of garden communities and believe if done right, they could make a valuable contribution to meeting our long-term housing needs. However, I believe the theory is being misapplied in practice and the current round of local plans will lead to an unsustainable pattern of growth across the country. Many of the proposed garden communities are small scale, are not part of an overall strategic vision for an area and are often located in the least (politically) contentious locations, rather than in the most sustainable locations. This is resulting in the re-prioritisation of essential funding, particularly strategic infrastructure funding, away from existing urban areas where most people will continue to live and work. Ironically, the two places where there was an attempt to deliver garden communities within the context of a wider (vision-led) spatial strategy recently failed at examination (West of England and North Essex). Not a great testament to the system or the Government’s support for garden communities, sadly!

4.          How should communities be engaged with through the local plan process – are we getting it right?

Community engagement is an essential part of place-making but I think we have lost our way in terms of why it is done in the first place – it is not a tick box exercise. The Localism Act unfairly introduced a high level of expectation from communities around how much control they had in planning, particularly plan-making. If engagement is to be meaningful, we need to get back to a place where there is a more open, transparent and honest dialogue with communities about what they can and cannot influence -some decisions will always have to be made in the interests of the greater good and some decisions will not be in the gift of local authorities. We also need more proactive engagement throughout the plan-making process from the start, rather than focused on two regulatory stages. Although this will inevitably need more resources, the upfront investment should help reduce overall costs in the long term if it results in more support from local communities.

5.          You’ve talked about the need to boost “strategic planning capacity at all tiers of local government”. If you were in charge at MHCLG for the day, what would be your first item of business?

My first priority would be to ensure that every part of England had a fully resourced, multi-disciplined strategic planning team, whether it is based within counties, city regions or growth boards. Strategic planners are the ring-masters of plan-making, ensuring that long term spatial priorities are aligned with economic, environment and infrastructure priorities, a role that is essential given the increasing number of organisations and bodies involved in delivering place-based growth. Of course this would also mean that we need to build a new generation of strategic planners, given the significant loss in capacity over the last 10 years.

6.          You’ve also written about the need for more planners in senior positions at local planning authorities. Why is that important?

Over the last 10 years planning has been seen by many (including Government) as a regulatory function within local government.  Planning decisions impact on almost every aspect of a local authority’s responsibilities and therefore having someone with a clear planning remit at the top table in order to influence and inform decisions and priorities is essential. However, I don’t think this necessarily has to be a qualified planner – some of the best place leaders I know are not planners - but they do need to know enough about the role of planning (in its widest sense), be able to manage the risks of political decision-making within the context of a legal system, and be in a position to champion the professionals within the council. 

7.          I’m not the greatest fan of the various planning reforms in the Localism Act 2011. Can I ask you about three of those. First – the abolition of regional strategies. What is your view on how that has turned out?

When the Coalition Government abolished regional strategies, it was for political reasons and there was therefore no attempt to understand the role and value of strategic planning within the system, and why an alternative, more politically acceptable approach was needed. Strategic plans historically have provided a framework for aligning place-based priorities across local authority boundaries and across different public sector organisations. They are fundamentally long-term strategic investment plans and therefore play a key role in facilitating sustainable growth. Regional strategies and structure plans before that, also helped to deal with some of the more contentious issues, such as housing numbers and green belt reviews, helping to take some of the heat out of the local plan process and delivery on the ground. Whilst the regional system was not perfect, the total absence of any effective strategic planning mechanism has set us back years and will make it much harder to respond quickly and positively to the inevitable post-Covid economic fallout.

8.          Second – the duty to cooperate. We’ve had a run of high-profile plans come unstuck in recent months for a failure to comply with this duty. What’s your view on how well it’s working?

The Duty to Cooperate is a process driven legal test which, at best, ensures that neighbouring authorities know what each other is doing and, at worst, is an expensive and divisive tool for preventing effective plan-making. It is the only test that comes at the end of the plan-making process that has the ability to completely derail a plan, sending it back to the start. It does not deliver good planning outcomes and adds no value to the process. It sets local planning authorities up to fail from the start if they are not all working towards delivering a shared, long term (strategic) vision for an area, with clearly defined goals, especially where neighbouring authorities have historically not had a good relationship. I guess you’d say I’m not a fan!

9.          Third – neighbourhood planning. I wrote recently about the disconnect between the lower standard of review for neighbourhood plans compared to local plans. But they have been a very popular way for local people to engage in the planning system. What’s your view on how well they’ve worked?

I didn’t really see the value in neighbourhood plans initially but I think it has been proved that, with the right resources and support, local communities can use them to positively support place-making at a local level. If we could get the strategic planning bit right, then we could have a planning portfolio approach where we would not need comprehensive coverage of expensive, detailed local plans but could have a more focused system which makes better use of the tools in the box, like neighbourhood plans and area action plans, to manage change on the ground.  

10.       Finally, you’ve written about how the digital technology we’re all getting used to under lockdown might help us improve planning processes after lockdown. What’s your view on what we should retain from all of these temporary virtual arrangements and how it might make things better in the long run?

One of the major benefits of the lockdown experience is that we are all embracing digital communications much more and people of all generations are becoming experts at video calls.  Many local communities have been communicating via social media, with WhatsApp providing a valuable local support network for many.  Although there will clearly be issues going forward in relation to inclusion, I hope local authorities will embrace this new found community spirit and use it to engage local people positively in plan-making, right from the start. Place-shaping should be done with communities, not for them, and our lockdown experience and increased use of digital technology should make this a lot easier in future.

Thanks for your answers, Catriona. And stay well, #planoraks.