Virtual Planning - it’s here, it works and we should keep it
Testing, testing. Is anyone out there?
How many people actually engage in planning? Well, apparently, not many. The Secretary of State puts the number at 4% of us.
Why so few? When the issues at stake can have such profound effects on (literally) every one us? Well, I don’t think it’s too hard to fathom.
Other than you lot - the die-hards! - most people have other things to do. Families, work, some socially distanced exercise, getting a sandwich, furiously refreshing web-browsers for the latest US election drama… more or less anything beats putting on a suit in the middle of a working day and trudging off to the freezing/boiling local council chamber to sit through hours of tedious detail from more people in suits about highway modelling or viability or housing land supply. Before we’re given (say) 3 minutes to say our bit.
It doesn’t sound appetising, does it? What’s worse, these processes can seem so shrouded in secrecy. What actually happens at a committee meeting or a planning inquiry or a plan examination? Isn’t it a bit intimidating? Does it have anything to do with our lives? Where are the important documents? How are we supposed to understand them in the unlikely event we can find them? And how on earth are we supposed to put enough time aside to follow these events so that when it gets to our slot we can assist by saying something useful which hasn’t been said a hundred times before?
How do you even find out if there’s an important local planning application - an email? A tweet? A Facebook post? (aka somewhere people might actually notice it?). Nope - it’s a good old fashioned laminated print-out pinned to a lamp-post round the corner. Environmental Statements and Sustainability Appraisals - those most over-wrought and impenetrable tomes which can fill boxes and boxes and boxes - have to be printed out old-school, and lodged somewhere in the bowels of the Council’s storage rooms. You want to see a full planning file? Well, make an appointment, and a hapless Council officer will bring you down a folder with loose bits of paper flying around and you can try to make sense of it all.
When you think about it, it’s a miracle the number’s as high as 4%.
Until the spring of 2020, planning in the UK was an analogue system creaking its way into a digital age. But what a change. Since spring, our system has transformed. Not just a little. A lot. It’s a generational moment. It’s almost - in a very quiet, UK kind of way - a revolution. It isn’t the future. It’s now. It’s already happening. And here’s the point: it really works.
Take the Planning Inspectorate: after a slow start in early lock-down, PINS is firing on all cylinders. 71 virtual events between June and August 2020, 64 more in September, and (if my diary’s anything to go by, anyway) loads more still to come this year. That has included big-ticket plan examinations like South Oxfordshire. It also includes some absolutely whopping planning inquiries. Like the UK National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Westminster - a case in which I’m appearing in support of the scheme. I’ll be writing more about this quite remarkable inquiry in a future post, but safe to say it’s generated a scale of public interest unlike anything I’ve been involved in. We’ve already heard from 2 former Prime Ministers, the current and previous Archbishops of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi and well over 50 other interested parties including a number of unforgettable statements from Holocaust survivors, along with academics and historians from all over the world. That’s in addition to enormous teams of witnesses for the main parties including my client. The inquiry began on 6th October - we’re over a month in. Closings are this week.
Sound interesting? Well here’s the point: every moment has been live streamed on Youtube. And the videos are uploaded and can be re-watched. Not only are they available. They’re actually being watched. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. Our opening statements have now been viewed 4.5 thousand times. Try fitting that many people into a council chamber.
You want engagement? You want more people to participate and put their trust into the robustness of a process they can actually understand? Then make it easy for people to check into an inquiry or examination process when and how it suits them. That’s what the Planning Inspectorate are doing. With some heroic support for their team. And it’s working fantastically well.
You have doubts? Alright then - have a look yourself. Which you can now do. From whatever device you’re reading this post. Because this week PINS is live-streaming 3 planning inquiries on Youtube. You can follow the Holocaust Memorial case, the Tulip inquiry in the City of London, or a housing appeal in Elsenham, Uttlesford. You can follow the back and forth of cross-examination. You can pause the video to make a cup of tea. You can watch bits back later on while you’re waiting at the bus stop. And if something you see moves you, you can dial into MS Teams and tell the Inspector about it yourself. Without having to take a full day off work. Without having to find child-care for the morning. And drive into town. And find somewhere to park. And get change for the meter.
What does all of this show us? A few things:
First, the Tulip and the UK Holocaust Memorial appeals are two of the most significant, high profile and complex planning appeals of the year. They have involved engagement with and participation of all sectors of the public. They have required and are still requiring detailed presentation of and cross-examination on expert evidence at the very highest level. So here’s the point: if these appeals can do it - and do it well! - so can all the others. The same goes for plan examinations like South Oxfordshire.
Second, the processes aren’t yet perfect. People still acclimatising to MS Teams. The odd technical hitch. The interpersonal cues we miss from not being in a room together. All that can hinder the ebb and flow of the day. So we lose something, but think about what we’re gaining. The prize is massive. I explained some of the reasons I really like virtual inquiries here. But the real point of this post is the capacity of virtual events to engage more people. Far and wide, young and old, from all over the country. Again, no speculation required for this. Because it’s happening. Right now. Already. The Youtube video numbers tell their own story.
Third, the genie’s out of the bottle. Lots of these changes were precipitated by the requirements of lock-down - e.g. digital publicity and consultation for planning applications, virtual committee meetings, virtual appeals, DCO and plan examinations. But now we know it works. Thanks to a huge amount of fantastic work by local authorities and the Planning Inspectorate. Even for the very most complicated cases. It works in a way that’s transparent, efficient and fair. And public engagement isn’t only maintained, it’s very dramatically enhanced.
So here’s my prediction: by the time the world goes back to normal (whatever that means), these new procedures will have bedded in well enough that there’s no going back. Not now. It will become ever-more difficult next year for those who would seek to force planning events back into the old world of chilly council chambers and boxes of hard-copy documents.
Some of the legislative changes e.g. which have allowed local councils to decide planning applications at virtual meetings expire in May 2021. Well… they shouldn’t expire. They should be extended. They should be made permanent. Ditto the changes to publicity procedures which allow digital publicity and consultation, but only if the old-fashioned way isn’t possible due to Covid. Well, that should be made permanent irrespective of Covid. It should be the norm.
Finally: I’ve asked some tricky questions in the last few weeks about the Planning White Paper, but there’s one side of it I applaud unequivocally. And that’s its embracing of digital PropTech agenda - spearheaded by folks like Euan Mills at MHCLG Digital. Digital plans in easily usable web-readable formats. Engaging with people where they already are, i.e. online. It’s the future. And thankfully, it’s the present now too.
Stay well #planoraks. I hope you’re getting as much pleasure as my son is from kicking your way through the piles of fallen leaves. And happy planning.
p.s. #virtual-in-plan-ity [sorry!]
