Levelling Down: notes from the party conferences
What a topsy-turvey journey it’s been for our old friend “Planning for the Future”. A title which in only 13 short months has already become ironic - consigned, as its big plans now appear to have been, firmly to the past. In the meantime, last year’s White Paper has become a metaphor for the English planning system. Think of it. Spending months and months in consultation over a new proposal, only to have it trashed (against the recommendations of professional advisers) because of squabbling politicians who had never really engaged with the merits of the scheme in the first place. Sound familiar to anybody? Maybe it’s just me.
Truth be told, if you’re interested in reforming the planning system (and I’m old enough to remember when this Government seemed up for burning it all down and starting again), this is a not a hopeful moment. To recap: here we are - over a year, 44,000 consultation responses and 1 Secretary of State after last year’s Planning White Paper. Still no formal response from Government. Still no draft planning bill. Zip. Nada. Niente. The MHCLG (as it was at the time) was on the cusp of publishing some of these things. But then came the reshuffle - which I touched on in real time. Enter stage left the Right Honourable Michael Gove MP. And you’ll remember our new Secretary of State’s first step (after crow-barring “levelling up” into his department’s title) was to put talk of planning reform on “pause”. Thank goodness. Phew. Pause. Because after all these years failing to do anything to reform our planning system, the one thing we all need is a nice long break.
After Labour’s conference last week, and a couple of fun days out at the Conservatives’ conference, what have we all learned?
Nothing.
Here is my analysis of Labour’s big ideas to reform the planning system. Are you sitting comfortably. Right:
[tumbleweed].
No, seriously. We know they think the White Paper was a “developers’ charter”. But every reform package in the modern era has been criticised by whomever was in opposition at the time as a “developers’ charter” - it’s the easiest smear in the book. Labour has brought forward ideas about social rent and first time buyers. But proper structural reform? Not a sausage.
And as for the Tories, the best we can do is to try stitching together a series of press gobbets (which I will now dutifully try to stitch for you):
At the weekend, the Economist told us that higher house-building targets are out (😬) to be replaced by taxpayer support to help first-time buyers to take on larger mortgages because:
“housing and planning present the Conservatives with a dilemma: although they want more homeowners, they do not want to annoy existing ones:”
Now. Debates rage about the correctness of the Government’s 300,000 home annual target. Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree. It’ll be another one of those arguments (Godfather 1 vs. Godfather 2, Stones vs. Beatles, still vs. sparkling) which is left unresolved for the ages. Sorry folks. We’ll never know what meeting the target of 300,000 homes a year would have done to improve the English housing crisis. Because it looks like the Government’s ready to pass over the target before it’s actually been met. For what it’s worth - whether the target’s retained in the end or not - there’s clearly mileage in the Select Committee’s recent suggestion that the “evidential basis” for the 300,000 figure needs a public airing.
Then on Sunday, Michael Gove launched a report by a group of Tory MPs called “Trusting the People” which apparently involves:
“making neighbourhood planning universal and the ultimate arbiter of local development.”
“Ultimate arbiter”. 😬. Them’s fightin’ words. Now we don’t want to get too excited about vague and essentially meaningless soundbites like that. But safe to say that - lovely, noble and helpful though neighbourhood plans can sometimes be - using them as an “ultimate arbiter” to manage strategic regional and national needs for things like housing, industrial land and infrastructure makes no sense at all. Don’t get me wrong. There are some things neighbourhood plans can do well e.g. setting local design expectations. And there are some things they can’t do - i.e. determining a spatial strategy for an area. Looking beyond the boundaries of the parish, the village or whatever to understand what needs to come forward where. We can be honest here, can’t we? Making neighbourhood plans the “ultimate arbiter” of what goes where is a disastrous idea. Most of the last decade of failed planning reform proposals have been trying to reverse the unintended consequences of the Localism Act 2011. I talked about some of the legal issues with neighbourhood plans here. Putting more - not less - weight on the shoulders of the neighbourhood planning regime to solve our housing crisis is going to mean that development will not come forward where it’s needed. #levellingdown
And then, the cherry on the cake, Monday’s article in the Times which told us that:
“Fresh laws to block “ugly” new homes have been promised as ministers reverse plans to limit the power of local residents to veto development.”
Oliver Dowden, the Conservative chairman, apparently said that:
“additional safeguards are needed. . . We need to set out in law measures to protect our towns, villages and precious countryside from being despoiled by ugly development.”
But, before you all get over-excited, these mysterious new legal “safeguards” (seriously - what does he even think he means by that?) are - apparently - “at an early stage of development”. Oooooh. And the planning bill - remember that thing that all of us are supposed to have vociferous opinions on even though we haven’t read it - has now been downgraded to a “tidying up exercise” which is “limited to making the current system we have work better.” Well I say. Quite a journey from Bojo’s promise last year of “radical reform unlike anything we have seen since the Second World War” via “taking the edges off” the reforms in August to now… tinkering with what we already have. Ah well. Maybe next time, eh.
Again, we mustn’t slip into the trap of over-thinking facile soundbites like these. But as you lot already know - faithful #planoraks as you are - if someone tells you that we need “laws” to “block” development which is “ugly”, what they’re really saying is: “I have literally no idea how the English planning system works”. Why, you might wonder, do our political overlords always seem to think planning problems can be answered with a new law? Particularly a law to do something as philosophically complicated as “blocking ugliness” (whatever that’s supposed to mean). A problem I touched on here.
Let’s call it what it is. Empty twaddle. But one thing’s for sure. If “building lots more houses” was on your bingo card of what levelling up might actually mean, well. Don’t get your hopes up, friends. If you’re that way inclined, you may need to have another look at the Lib Dems - the party which only last month promised a target of… a whopping 380,000 new homes, with at least 150,000 suitable for social rent. Sounds punchy! Just make sure you don’t mention it to the voters of Chesham and Amersham.
So much for crystal ball gazing, you may be thinking. Why not put all this speculation to rest and hear from the man himself. Michael Gove addressed the Conservative conference yesterday. What exactly did he have to tell us on the future of English planning reform? How are we going to solve the housing crisis? Where will this blessed “pause” be taking us? What on earth comes next………….
Not a sausage. We’re having - so we’re told - a “complete rethink”. Which is ministerial code for “dunno”.
Enjoy all the politicking, folks, and watch this space for the laws which will guarantee that all new buildings are gorgeous, all summers are long and golden, and all water is gently sparkling. Stay well, planoraks, and through it all… #keeponplanning.
