‘Towards a Welsh Planning Act’

On January 29, 2012, in Uncategorized, by vic
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YES – RE-THINK WHAT THE PLANNING SYSTEM IS FOR, AND HOW IT SHOULD WORK

Have you seen this consultation currently out by the Welsh Government (WG)? (WAG is no more, we must learn to call them indoors in the Cardiff Senedd a Government). Do seek it out and give your views – it has not exactly been advertised widely, and it is obviously aimed mainly at those in the planners club. It is at:   http://wales.gov.uk/topics/planning/planningresearch/planningreview/callforevidence  

YOU HAVE ONLY A FEW DAYS TO ADD YOUR COMMENTS

Anything pertaining to planning attracts me like a magnet, because the longer I work with CPRW to protect our outstanding Welsh uplands and green areas, the more I see a system that is increasingly dysfunctional and community-unfriendly. Don’t get me wrong, I think our planning constraints, largely seen as necessary and codified first in the 1930’s and the 1947 Act, have been a huge benefit compared with other non-third world countries that have not conserved their countryside – Ireland and Portugal for a start, where’s the countryside? – but I fear the original intention is being lost, or worse, perverted by land speculators.  

What problems do I see in the current system? What do I think needs changing?

  • Growth – get away from the assumption of perpetual growth, exhibited in planning guidance by constant reference to ‘delivery’ of a ‘continuous supply’ of land. Let’s get real, it is not yet possible to manufacture and deliver land, like pizzas.
  • Sustainability – is a popular concept, promoted as a basic ethic by WG – but planners and politicians don’t understand what it means. Spell it out in planning terms – including that recycling brownfield land should be the norm, building on green fields should be a rarity when all other solutions for an absolutely essential development have failed.
  • Community agreement – (there’s a radical idea!) – make it a statutory requirement to prove that, say, 80% of the local population has seen and understands the implications of strategies such as LDPs. LAs should be required to provide an independent source of information and awareness-raising for local people, including doorstepping all residents, pointing out strategic and local proposals, recording that residents have understood the implications, etc. Then community groups should then be funded to campaign against proposals they object to – thus levelling up the completely tilted playing field we have at present.        

You see, I agree with a website I have just picked up on whilst researching for this post that the planning of an area should be carried out communally so that:

‘there will be more chance of being able to create and maintain built environments that satisfy both individual and community needs’

This site is http://www.communityplanning.net  I didn’t find it an easy site, it has an enormous content of other resources, and advice on campaigning, but not for instance on options for establishing a community planning group (or perhaps I haven’t found it yet). But it was rewarding to find a movement with the same views that I have reached. 

There are certainly many other relevant sources of information and radical thought about how we can live together (in planning terms, I mean!) that I haven’t found yet – I don’t pretend to be an expert. But I am aware of the UK Localism Act, neighbourhood planning, the triple bottom line (on sustainability). Get involved – one option is of course to join CPRW – check out  http://www.cprw.org.uk/

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Planning: Valuing Green Spaces – a New Way

On October 2, 2011, in Uncategorized, by vic
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Given the difficulties that environmentalists have had over the years to get Torfaen County Borough to understand our concerns about sacrificing green fields to the gods of growth and ‘development’, it is quite a shock to find a Biodiversity Management System being proposed, as a pilot, for addressing strategic land-use issues (particularly the current Local Development Plan process). Perhaps it is a consequence of the authority’s shock at the decision by the Council to change its collective mind on the large-scale South Sebastopol development.

Whatever the reason, the draft Torfaen Biodiversity Action Plan is at first glance an exciting and innovative new way of bringing biodiversity in from the cold, to be a main consideration in planning strategy, rather than a minor issue which needs only lip service to sideline and ignore. At the same time, one can sense that there may be dangers in establishing formal Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) in this area, if that is the aim. We may gain protection for some valuable green areas, but at the expense of defining other green areas as developable – or so it will be claimed by speculators. At the time of the first South Sebastopol, the planner stated at the Council meeting that Countryside Council for Wales had not objected, so the planning application should be approved; ignoring the fact that CCW’s brief was limited to commenting on statutorily protected areas only (National Parks, AONBs etc) - or so the CCW Chairman told me. (The brief seems to have widened since then).

The gist of this new strategy for biodiversity is: -

1. The need for this was identified from review of the Torfaen Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) and conflict within the Local Development Plan (LDP) - I assume the LBAP was being pretty well ignored in the LDP process. The failure of WAG to hit its target to halt biodiversity decline by 2010 must have been due in part to the failure of local authorities to take it seriously.

2. But give someone in Torfaen their due, a consultant was instructed to do something about it, and here is the first step. The ‘Early Draft’ says that it is designed towards  ’mainstreaming biodiversity’ and ‘encouraging public engagement’. Also that ‘ … the value of ecosystem services has been undervalued …’   Most environmentalists would applaud the latter statement. We shall see if it suceeds – but in Torfaen there is hope, in the wake of this current Council’s conversion to enlightenment at South Sebastopol  

3. The points I took away from a recent meeting on the draft strategy were: -

a) Six ecosystem types considered; b) a database (GIS) of all green areas in Torfaen based on this classification to be produced; c) a framework to be established for each (presumably for conservation / enhancement); d) prioritising these areas into 4 ‘Tiers of Value’, defined as Tier 1 – protect, Tier 2 – trade, Tier 3 – ignore, Tier 4 – Enhance;          e)  then applying all this to potential development.

Tier 1 is the gold standard - if it works well, no Tier 1 classified land will be developed. The contentious element is of course the ‘trade’ proposal. Development of Tier 2 areas would be possible if the developer proposed a sufficiently attractive swop – enhancing another area to an equivalent value. I can see a number of concerns and foggy areas in this, for a start will Tier 1 turn out to be a minimum, Tier 3 most of the green areas? (What Tier would South Sebastopol achieve?) Who decides the classification, professionals only, or will there be a public consultation element? Can changes to area classification be accommodated? Amenity (lawn) grassland (Tier 3) is described as ecologically useless – that could be challenged. There are others, but that’s enough for now.

But perhaps I am too churlish – this is an exciting attempt at a really new way of valuing green spaces, and thereby combating unsustainable and irresponsible speculative development. We must hope it is successful, and leads to a transformation away from a planning process that regards green spaces as easy and natural growth of the built environment.  Local readers – GET INVOLVED! Contact TCBC and ask questions about your local green area.

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