The Planner- August 2020 by The Planner

AUGUST 2020 STATE OF DEVELOPMENT // p.4 • PLANNER LIVE ONLINE // p.6 • HIGH STREET HEARTBEAT // p.20 • THE GREAT GREEN RESET // p.26 • CITY URBANIST BRIAN EVANS // p.32 • CLOSER LOOK: LAURIESTON // p.36

T H E B U S I N ES S M O N T H LY FO R P L A N N I N G P R O F ES S IO N A LS

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CONTENTS

AU GU ST

06 NEWS 4 How have levels of development fared during lockdown? 6 Planning for a postpandemic landscape: Planner Live Online reviewed 10 Public transport shake-up on the cards for Scottish capital 11 Irish housing minister O’Brien sets out stall on social housing 12 Northern Irish mine project heads for public inquiry 13 CPRE wants “radical rethink” of countryside’s climate emergency role

20 20 “IN URBANISM, THERE IS NO END STATE. CITIES ARE ALIVE, THEY’RE ON A JOURNEY."

32 OPINION

14 Louise BrookeSmith: High Streets Task Force should take note of Petula Clark I M AG E |

16 Charlotte Morgan: The new normal is about economic resilience. 16 Russell Jones: An open letter from a property investor 17 Adam Price: We shouldn’t rely on house plants to access nature 17 Jenny Raggett: Transport blind spots are undermining garden communities

QUOTE UNQUOTE

“THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I CAN REMEMBER AN ENTIRE PROFESSION BEING REDUCED TO ‘NEWT COUNTERS’ BY A SITTING PRIME MINISTER” PLANNERS HAVE FACED PLENTY OF DISPARAGING COMMENTS FROM GOVERNMENT AND POLITICIANS IN THE PAST BUT BORIS JOHNSON’S NEWT COMPARISON WAS A NEW ONE ON CHESTERFIELD COUNCIL’S RICK LONG

A L A N M C AT E E R

FEATURES

INSIGHT

20 UK high streets are facing ruin as Covid-19 prompts closure after closure. Simon Wicks asks what's needed to give them long-term life. 26 The call for a green recovery post-pandemic is growing louder, reports Huw Morris. But is the government listening? 32 What's it like to be a 'city urbanist'? Brian Evans talks urbanism, urbanity, COP26 and Glasgow's 'existential challenge' with Matt Moody.

36 Closer look: Transforming Laurieston. Once a hive of people and industry, Laurieston in Glasgow experienced severe decline from the mid 20th century. Now things are looking up again. 38 Cases & decisions: Development decisions, round-up and analysis 42 Legal Landscape: Opinions, blogs and news from the legal side of planning 44 RTPI round-up: News and interviews from the institute 50 What to read, what to watch and how to keep in touch

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NEWS

Report { COVID19 RECOVERY

Developing situation Amid a flurry of government announcements to rebuild Britain, Huw Morris looks at how development fared during lockdown councils since 2009/10. Only 1,530,680 Politicians cannot resist making had been completed, according to the reannouncements, and the month Local Government Association (LGA). just passed witnessed some classic The number of planning permissions examples. Former chancellor Sajid granted for new homes has almost Javid set out his ambitions for major doubled since 2012/13, with councils infrastructure spending more than a year approving nine in 10 applications. ago. This was then reannounced by his “Once again we got the old repeated successor Rishi Sunak in March before promise to reform the planning system Prime Minister Boris Johnson dressed which in practice will mean taking away up a modest £5 billion as a ‘new deal’ from local communities the right to have in response to Covid-19. At 0.2 per cent a say in what is built in their areas and of gross domestic product (GDP), the leading to more substandard money was neither new nor and badly planned out of the F D Roosevelt “IT IS AN developments,” said the locker – his New Deal was INCONVENIENT Commons’ communities worth more than 40 per TRUTH THAT MORE and local government cent of US GDP at its peak. THAN A MILLION committee chair Clive The spending was in place HOMES GRANTED Betts. “The reality is there before the pandemic struck. are hundreds of thousands Johnson also reannounced PLANNING PERMISSION IN of planning permissions £100 million this year for THE PAST DECADE already given in this country 29 road and rail projects, HAVE NOT YET for homes that could be allocated earlier in March’s BEEN BUILT” built tomorrow but where Budget. His unveiling of £12 developers have yet to put a billion to build affordable spade in the ground.” homes had similarly been Figures from the Planning previously unveiled. Portal, which receives 90 Another announcement per cent of all planning applications was the now obligatory “radical reform” to councils across England and Wales, of planning, in particular allowing indicate that development was developers to demolish or turn empty rebounding anyway. Although April – shops into homes. the lockdown’s nadir – saw a drop of After all this, two questions remain. nearly 20 per cent in applications, they How much is the latest homebuilding started to rise in May amid the easing of drive needed? And how has restrictions and some furloughed staff development fared during lockdown? returning to work. It is an inconvenient truth that more Planning submissions were 14 per cent than a million homes granted planning below expected levels in that month. permission in the past decade have Applications for larger schemes or not yet been built. Figures released in change of use were down slightly by 24 February – before the lockdown was per cent on expected seasonal volumes imposed and construction slammed to against 23 per cent in April. a halt – show that 2,564,600 homes had All regions have seen a growth in been granted planning permission by

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KEY STATISTICS

£5bn Spending Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged under his ‘new deal’ to “rebuild Britain”.

2,564,600 The number of homes granted planning permission since 2009/10, according to the LGA

1,530,680 The number of homes built by February 2020

473 The number of infrastructure schemes on hold at the start of June, according to Barbour ABI.

£6bn The value of infrastructure projects on hold during the lockdown

I M AG E | G E T T Y

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PLAN UPFRONT Figures from the Planning Portal show that in April, during deepest lockdown, there was a drop of nearly 20 per cent in planning applications

seasonal volumes, instead of the 21 per cent seen in April. However, the Planning Portal could ﬁnd no correlation between variations in May and submissions within regions with the most Covid-19 cases. Yorkshire and the Humber was one of the most aﬀected yet saw the biggest increase in planning applications. In contrast, Wales saw the highest rise in Covid-19 cases but a further drop in applications.

and infrastructure, owing to its phased approach to restarting. Planning activity is improving but “the gradient is shallow, we have not yet seen large increases from depressed Covid-19 levels”, says Barbour ABI chief economist Tom Hall. Planning applications and tenders are now broadly comparable to pre-crisis levels but decision updates and contract awards remain signiﬁcantly lower.

Infrastructure on hold

applications from April to May 2020, apart from the West Midlands and Wales, which continued to fall slightly, down 1 per cent and 3 per cent respectively. Yorkshire and the Humber saw the biggest percentage increase in volume, up 12 per cent in May against April numbers. Householder applications, for projects such as extensions and loft conversions, also rallied slightly in May, being down only 19 per cent on expected

How did infrastructure schemes fare during the lockdown? At its nadir, 473 infrastructure projects worth around £6 billion were on hold. By the beginning of July, the number of open projects had risen to 3,300 and worth £106 billion, according to construction industry analyst Barbour ABI. Scotland saw the most change, split across infrastructure and residential with smaller increases in open and restarted projects in the commercial, hotel and leisure and education sectors. London witnessed a smaller change, mainly in the commercial sector. The rest of the UK was broadly ﬂat. Restarted projects increased by £6 billion and total £56 billion. By early July, 2,278 projects were delayed with a value of £20.5 billion. Scotland has £5.8 billion of delayed projects, mainly in residential

1 2

4 5 10 6

7 9

APPLICATIONS BY REGIONS

Region

Apr ’19

Apr ’20

Change

May ’19

May ’20

Change

Change Apr ’20-May ’20

1 North East

993

873

-16%

1,063

933

-12%

+4%

2 North West

4,129

3,233

-22%

4,231

3,655

-14%

+8%

3 Yorkshire and the Humber

3,182

2,637

-17%

3,161

2,992

-5%

+12%

4 East Midlands

3,266

2,655

-19%

3,224

2,813

-16%

+3%

5 West Midlands

3,314

2,972

-10%

3,436

3,045

-11%

-1%

6 East of England

6,207

4,979

-20%

6,217

5,463

-12%

+8%

7 London

9,722

7,515

-23%

10,047

9,158

-19%

+4%

8 South East

9,906

7,935

-20%

9,990

8,593

-14%

+6%

9 South West

5,200

4,599

-12%

5,191

4,815

-7%

+5%

10 Wales

1,437

1,179

-18%

1,493

1,177

-21%

-3%

Source: Planning Portal

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NEWS

Analysis { #PLANNERLIVEONLINE

Planning for a post-pandemic landscape By The Planner team Soon after lockdown to halt the spread of Covid-19 began, it became clear that The Planner Live – the RTPI’s rebranded annual conference – would not be able to take place in London on 29 and 30 June. Instead, the decision was made to hold a series of webinars and discussions online throughout the week beginning on 29 June. Not just on the pandemic that has brought societies to a halt, however, but also on the climate crisis. Here, The Planner highlights its key takeaways from the week.

29 9 JUNE NE MONDAY 29 JUNE The institute began the week by launching a campaign – ‘Plan the World We Need’ – seeking to raise the “vital” awareness of the role planners have in every respect of the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes reviving the economy, tackling inequality and meeting the UK’s netzero 2050 target. The campaign was launched alongside a report – Plan The World We Need: The Contribution of Planning to a Sustainable, Resilient and Inclusive Recovery. (See pages 26-30 and 40 for more on both campaign and report.) Covid-19 exposes the risks in the built environment The people with less access to life’s basics – such as clean air, good-quality housing, good-quality sleep and safe public realm – are

Design, insisted that the the people who have higher current circumstances offer levels of poor-quality health a “really good opportunity” outcomes, stated Araceli to review how places are Carmargo, cognitive designed, but “we should go neuroscientist and founder beyond the basics of of The Centric Lab. This is appearance”. what needs to be ﬁxed in the Looking to the future, built environment, because location is “incredibly” the people who experience important, and addressing these the “most are people climate change in design of colour, poor people, and should be “absolutely nonpoor white people, negotiable”. The Covid-19 especially in this country, so situation has also shone a here we’re looking at both spotlight on the functionality classism, and racism”. of space in housing design, She maintains that more and space standards require data and research is not more attention. “It’s about needed to understand that a the ability for planners to poorly planned insist on certain outcomes,” environment affects explained people’s health Oosthuizen, – but they are “IT’S ABOUT who advocates needed to figure THE ABILITY for revisiting out how to help FOR PLANNERS buildings and and how to elevate TO INSIST learning these ON CERTAIN lessons from environments. OUTCOMES their Dr Riëtte ” – DR RIËTTE development Oosthuizen, OOSTHUIZEN and outcomes partner at HTA

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PLAN UPFRONT

to fo form part of planning requirements. requ n Re Read The Planner report: bit.ly/planner0820-risks bit.ly nW Watch the session here: bit.ly/planner0820bit.ly builtenvironment built

TWITTER TALK... The Planner Magazine @ThePlanner_RTPI #PlannerLiveOnline Jennie Savage: Village greens have become permanent festivals at the moment because of Covid-19. We need to be thinking of making more public spaces for people to use. Dean Harris @deanoharris62 This is my phrase of the day "I want to be a good ancestor" The Planner Magazine @ThePlanner_RTPI #PlannerLiveOnline Inclusive Economies session | Nabeel Khan, Lambeth: What I'd really like to see the government bring forward is a land value tax. One can dream, right? The Planner Magazine @ThePlanner_RTPI #PlannerLiveOnline Regional disparities are likely to continue - London and the south east will fare well, while the north east’s declining population and reliance on manufacturing will see it underperform, says Mark Stansﬁeld

PINS CEO speaks of lockdown challenges lock Planning Inspectorate (PINS) Plan chief executive Sarah chie Richards spoke to RTPI chief Rich executive Victoria Hills exec about the organisation’s abou response under lockdown. resp How Ho has PINS responded the crisis? to th “We agreed our priorities at the sstart, and these informed all of o our decision-making. had three priorities: our We h staﬀ's wellbeing; keeping our casework moving; and keeping stakeholders well informed.” The most challenging aspect of the crisis? “An enormous expectation that we could move all of our face-to-face work into a virtual space at the click of a switch. While we’ve made tremendous progress in a short period of time, that has been a great challenge and continues to be for us.” What about PINS’ role in the green recovery? “One of the key things that we can do is to keep our work moving through the planning system… The planning system, and the work we do, particularly around local plans, is essential to keeping the economy moving.” n Read The Planner report: bit.ly/planner0820lockdownchallenges n Watch the session here: bit.ly/planner0820-pins

30 JUNE

TUESDAY 30 JUNE

Local control over transport spending will accelerate a green recovery Local authorities should not have to be competing for small pots of ringfenced money within a fragmented transport funding landscape. Instead, they should be given the funding and freedom to formulate coherent local transport strategies and spend where needed – leading to more costeffective, time-saving and greener local transport scenarios. n “Why would central government get involved at all in local public transport?” asked an almost despairing Jonathan Bray, against a backdrop of the prime minister simultaneously announcing cash for ‘shovelready’ local transport projects. “If they were good at it, great. But I’m not sure national government’s record compares with devolved authorities when they have the freedom to do that.” n “I don’t think anyone would have

predicted the change in the modes that we use in our daily lives that’s happened to us in the past few months,” began Fiona Blackley, head of neighbourhoods and networks for the walking and cycling charity Sustrans. What’s needed now is to “build on our memories of lockdown” and convert temporary changes of habit into permanent ones, supported by appropriate local transport infrastructure. n Anxiety about viral spread is leading to

public transport being overlooked as a transport solution that can deliver both a greener world and one in which prosperity is within reach of a greater number of people, insisted Claire Haigh, chief executive of campaigning and research organisation Greener Journeys and the governmentbacked Transport Knowledge Hub. The injunction to build our way out of the economic hole created by Covid-19 will require any new homes and infrastructure to be “fully integrated with sustainable and urban transport”. n Read the full session report here on The Planner: bit.ly/planner0820-greenrecovery n Watch the session here on YouTube: bit.ly/planner0820-greendebate

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NEWS

Analysis { 1

JULY

WEDNESDAY 1 JULY

possible solution, legally enshrined in that country’s Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. In Welsh policy, she said, prosperity was not equated wholly with GDP or GVA. “It’s a matter of law to stick to the long term and make sure that we are being good ancestors,” she said.

Health considerations must drive post-Covid planning, say experts A comprehensive rethink of the principles that drive planning will be necessary n For Tim Gill, researcher, if we are to create healthier consultant and owner of neighbourhoods, towns and Rethinking Childhood, by cities in the removing wake of the barriers to safe Covid-19 and “WHY WOULD pandemic. independent CENTRAL Planners and occupation of GOVERNMENT other propublic spaces GET INVOLVED fessionals by children, AT ALL IN need to work planners and LOCAL PUBLIC collaboratively developers TRANSPORT?” – and strategiccould create JONATHAN BRAY ally with a places that main focus on were healthy wellbeing as for all. “What the key does a childindicator of friendly place prosperity, look like? It rather than GDP. looks like a sustainable place, a liveable place. These are one and the n “We need to be asking same.” better questions,” said Graham Marshall, director of urban design agency Prosocial n Read The Planner report: Place. “We need to start bit.ly/planner0820-postcovid understanding and using n Watch the session: bit.ly/ research better... We need to planner0820-coviddebate become proponents of healthy places. We have A mixed forecast for plenty of policy but it all commercial centres needs joining up and focusing The future of commercial on one overriding ethos: development in the UK is a health and wellbeing.” He nuanced picture in the wake pointed out that “this virus of Covid-19, and planners has exposed a fragility in our have a vital role to play. societies” of a kind quite In March and April, the UK diﬀerent from the frailties that economy shrank by 25 per might be exposed by a natural cent, wiping out nearly two disaster. decades of growth. Although there are early indications of a V-shaped recovery and n Sophie Howe, Future strong growth in 2021, some Generations Commissioner parts of the commercial for Wales, pointed towards a

property sector are in better shape than n others. n Mark Stansﬁ tansﬁeld, of real

estate analyst alyst CoStar, pointed out ut that office landlords entered the crisis in a fairly strong position. He considered dered the idea that a rise in working from home could be balanced out by reduced worker density in offices as a result of social distancing, g, leading to a surprisingly gly steady level of demand emand for office space. Industriall property, meanwhile, remained resilient, with planning consents continuing to pass during lockdown. He highlighted last-mile fulfilment as a growth area. n James Shuttleworth, head of planning at Salford City Council, commented that while economic data could help to forecast the “scale and direction of growth”, planners still needed to focus on quality of placemaking, which is “fundamental in terms of how much economic activity will ultimately be attracted”. He shared a graph showing that the lockdown had brought carbon emissions in Greater Manchester in line with the area’s target trajectory for achieving zero-carbon by 2038 – but only just. “I’m confident that we can’t rely on the market to achieve this policy objective.” n Read The Planner report: bit.ly/planner0820commercial n Watch the session: bit.ly/ planner0820-centresdebate

TWITTER TALK... The Planner Magazine @ThePlanner_RTPI #PlannerLiveOnline In industrial property, demand from supermarkets and online retailers should offset losses, and developers continue to move forward with new schemes The Planner Magazine @ThePlanner_RTPI #PlannerLiveOnline “Based on data taken from 358,000km of roads across 54 countries, 85% have no footpaths and 92% have no pedestrian crossing facilities", says Jim Walker The Planner Magazine @ThePlanner_RTPI @aracelicamargo_says: We don't need any more data and research to understand that poorly planned environment affect people's health. We need the resources to ﬁgure out how we help. #PlannerLiveOnline Araceli Camargo @aracelicamargo_ Yep- as we have known the corrallation between poorly planned environments x poor health outcomes since 1939.

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PLAN UPFRONT

JULY

FRIDAY 3 JULY FR

JULY

THURSDAY 2 JULY Rewilding demands a spatial approach The session on local planning authorities’ role in managing climate action tackled re-wilding, in particular the issue of many rural land uses falling outside of the system. Deryck Irving, director of strategy and development at the Central Scotland Green Network Trust, said that Scotland was currently running two initiatives; one looking at the spatial plan as part of Scotland’s new national planning framework, the other on land use planning. “We’re trying where we can to initially give them the same geographies, but the two things do not fit well together. This has to be driven by policy and new ways of collaboratively working. We can’t rely on the planning system, which

New routes to capturing the value of land How best to capture the surge in land value created surg planning permission and by p direct it towards public dire amenities and am infrastructure? Professor infr Tony Crook of the Ton University of Sheffield Uni shared research estimating sha that around 40-50 per cent th of the total increase in the is driven by a very specific development value of land set of goals, to deliver way was being captured beyond those criteria.” currently through such Richard Blyth, head of mechanisms as CIL and policy & practice at the section 106 agreements. RTPI, explained how the However, Professor institute is pushing within Christine Whitehead of the the Broadway initiative for London School the creation of of Economics single pointed out environment “IT’S A MATTER that, in fact, 6 plans covering OF LAW TO STICK per cent was larger areas TO THE LONG closer to the than one local TERM AND MAKE mark. authority, SURE THAT WE Moreover, while Rebecca ARE BEING GOOD landowners Wrigley, chief ANCESTORS” – themselves executive of SOPHIE HOWE avoid paying Rewilding taxes on the Britain, increase in suggested value – that what’s needed obligation falls is “integrated to developers spatial only. There is, she stressed, planning on a larger scale, at much to be gained from a level where we can make taxing land values across the best use of our natural the board. assets and resources to most But John Hennesbury, also benefit people, climate and of the University of nature, Unless we do that, Sheffield, suggested that it's always going to be landowners were piecemeal and sector-based disproportionately hit by rather than integrated”. policy change. For example, a 15 per cent increase in n Watch the session development costs as a here on YouTube: bit.ly/ result of new policy – say, planner0820-climateaction

biodiversity net gain – would lead to a one-third fall in the value of the land. Tom Dobson, director of Quod, also urged planners to take a realistic view of the viability challenges that developers face. Even local authorities, building on land that cost nothing, were finding that it was not easy to deliver their affordable housing targets alongside planning obligations. In Scotland, explained former RTPI convenor Stefano Smith, planning reform was encouraging the public sector to lead on an infrastructuredriven approach to land value capture through an infrastructure levy and masterplanning consent areas (MPAs) – zones where the public sector sets out development requirements and infrastructure obligations up front, meaning the price developers pay for land would reflect its share of the cost of infrastructure to be installed in the MPA. A similar model was working successfully in Denmark, said Nicholas Falk, co-founder of Urbed. In general, he noted, Northern European countries “have managed to keep housing more affordable [than in the UK] and to build both more and better”. n Read the full session report here on The Planner: bit.ly/planner0820landvalue n Watch the session here on YouTube: bit.ly/ planner0820-landdebate

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NEWS

News { Major North Wales offshore wind farm could expand further RWE Renewables UK has confirmed that it has secured a lease from the Crown Estate to extend its existing Gwynt y Môr offshore wind farm, located off the coast of North Wales. The new project, known as Awel y Môr, will be sited 10 kilometres off the coast of Llandudno and Colwyn Bay. Project partners have been confirmed and include RWE (60 per cent), Stadtwerke München (30 per cent) and Siemens Financial Services (10 per cent). RWE is leading on the development of the project on behalf of the partners. The project could include up to

107 wind turbines with potential maximum turbine tip heights reaching 330 metres – taller than the Eiffel Tower. The scheme will be the subject of a development consent order. First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford said: “This announcement brings the project a step closer to development, realising both the energy-generating potential of the site, together with the creation of more jobs in the local economy and in the supply chain.” The existing Gwynt y Môr offshore array was commissioned in 2015, with the 576-megawatt project generating energy for approximately 400,000 homes.

Go-ahead for major Belfast east bank redevelopment Belfast City Council has approved outline proposals for an extensive waterside development at the former Sirocco works site in Belfast. It is hoped that the development could create at least 8,000 jobs and provide homes, some affordable, for more than 1,500 people. The scheme is a mixed-use waterfront development made up of around 80,000 square metres of commercial space, 675 flats and a hotel, together with retail, hospitality and professional service units and community and leisure facilities. A total of 15 new buildings – the tallest 13 storeys in height – are proposed for the 2.6-hectare site. Public realm works include a street network and linear park, the removal of existing boundary walls, landscaping, a replacement pedestrian bridge over the River Lagan and improved access to both Short Strand and Bridge End. A ‘creative cluster’ building, facing onto the River Lagan, is to include a public square reflecting the site’s industrial heritage and providing spaces for community and arts use.

Scottish capital public transport shake-up on the cards Edinburgh’s council-owned bus company is set to be merged with Edinburgh Trams to form a single operation in a major reorganisation of public transport in the city to put an end to competition between buses and trams. The move to bring together Lothian Buses and the tram company, in the process scrapping the overarching Transport for Edinburgh organisation, would save on senior management and other operational costs, the city council believes. A comprehensive new public transport strategy would accompany the establishment of a single, integrated organisation. This would involve a redesign of Edinburgh’s bus network and the tackling of congestion in the city centre, particularly through a reduction in the number of buses using Princes Street. The council said the Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams brands would remain. The city council will now hold talks with the other Lothian authorities, which own 9 per cent of the shares in Lothian Buses. The new public transport plan will be a key deliverable from the city’s emerging mobility plan.

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O’Brien sets out his stall on social housing

Address climate and nature recovery as one, suggests report

Darragh O’Brien, Ireland’s new housing and local government minister, used a debate in the Dáil in early July to set out his social housing priorities. Accelerating delivery of social housing, with an increased emphasis on direct build, is a key objective, with the programme for government containing a target to deliver 50,000 social housing units over the next five years. “I will also be working closely in partnership with local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency (LDA) to plot the course ahead and to agree output targets,” he stressed. The minister also intends to extend the Serviced Sites Fund (SSF), strengthen the mortgage-to-rent scheme and ensure that it is helping those who need it, and retain and expand the help-to-buy scheme for new properties and self-build properties. He stressed that SSF funding of €127 million has already been allocated in support of 35 projects. “I am going to ensure that these projects are expedited. This will provide for critical infrastructure works that will support the delivery of almost 3,200 affordable homes across 14 local authority areas, including the Greater Dublin Area, Cork, Limerick, and Galway.” O’Brien said the administration would legislate to establish the LDA on a statutory basis to ensure stateowned lands are properly managed and used. The LDA would be tasked to work with government departments, local authorities, state agencies, and other stakeholders to assemble strategic sites in urban areas, and to guarantee the sustainable development of social and affordable homes for rent and purchase. “We intend that state lands being offered for sale, whether owned by a local authority, government department, commercial or noncommercial semi-state agency, or any other agency, would automatically be offered first to the LDA,” he said.

Restoring degraded habitats would see them absorb a third of the UK’s carbon emissions, suggests a report, as a wildlife charity insists that the climate and nature crises should be tackled together as one. The Wildlife Trusts have urged the government, industry and local authorities to “step-up” investment in nature’s recovery and climate mitigation. A report published by the trusts outlines that a wide range of land habitats – grasslands, peatlands and wetlands – should be restored to store carbon. It explains that the UK’s peatland soils store around 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon, but as they are “heavily degraded” they release the equivalent of 23 million tonnes of CO2 every year. According to Let Nature Help – How Nature’s Recovery is Essential for Tackling the Climate Crisis, restoring them to prevent this emission is one of “the most cost-effective nature-based solutions”. The government has missed its targets to help peatlands recover, as well as to plant trees. The trusts want the government to identify, map and protect a wide array of ecosystems and

restore them locally as part of a national Nature Recovery Network. The report also considers the seas and coastland. A hectare of seagrass could store two tonnes of CO2 a year and hold it for centuries but, “since 1985, we have lost half our seagrass meadows”. Reducing water pollution and replanting would improve the health of the seagrass meadows. A hectare of salt marsh is capable of capturing two tonnes of carbon a year and lock it into sediments for centuries, explains the report. “We are losing nearly 100 hectares of salt marsh a year”, but coastal realignment could restore much of it, as well as reduce flooding and erosion. The Wildlife Trusts recommends that introducing effective management for Marine Protected Areas and designating several Highly Protected Marine Areas. Such measures would bring the UK’s oceans back to health and enable them to function properly and absorb more humanmade CO2 emissions. n Read more at bit. ly/Planner0820natureclimate

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NEWS

News { AM’s report highlights ineﬀective planning regime in Wales

Sperrin mine project heads for public inquiry Infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon has conﬁrmed that a public inquiry will be held into the planning application for the Dalradian mine project in the Sperrin Mountains. The proposals for a site at Greencastle, County Tyrone, were submitted to the department back in November 2017. Revised plans, including the complete removal of the original intention to treat some waste with cyanide, were lodged in September 2019. The scheme, the subject of the most voluminous application ever put forward in the province, has divided communities in the area and triggered thousands of objections. Mallon said: “The application has proved to be complex and in excess

of 40,000 representations have now been submitted to my department about the mine proposal. The planning application includes an assessment of the potential socioeconomic and environmental impacts by a wide range of expert consultees.” She added: “Once I am satisﬁed that all necessary detail and consultee responses have been provided, I will move to call the public inquiry to allow for robust scrutiny of the application in a public forum.” The Canadian-based company welcomed the minister’s announcement of a public inquiry into the company’s planning application “for an underground gold, silver and copper mine in County Tyrone”.

Parts of the planning system in Wales are ineffective, fail to connect with communities and are weak on enforcement, AMs on the Welsh Assembly Senedd’s Public Accounts Committee have concluded. Under-resourcing was partly to blame, but so was the failure of planning authorities to collaborate and merge functions, decided the committee. The AMs made eight recommendations, most of which would involve the Planning Officers Society for Wales. The committee recommended that ministers should use their powers under the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 to ensure that local planning authorities (LPAs) “collaborate and merge to improve resilience and build capacity.” It also wants national performance indicators reviewed and new measures for judging the impact of planning on improving wellbeing in communities and people. New approaches on engagement that reflect 21st century communications should be found, the committee suggested, and it wants a stronger regime for how developers consult with communities before applying for major developments. The committee contended that so-called placemaking and place plans should be statutory. The AMs want s106 agreements strengthened with improved estimates of building costs and called for the introduction of a tranche system for s106 agreement payments. Under this system, developers would be required to pay a third of the agreed sum at the point when planning permission is given, a third when site development begins and the final third when the site is fully developed. The committee also recommended that the government should commission research into the use of s106 agreements, which would determine whether developer contributions were realised.

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14/07/2020 17:34

PLAN UPFRONT

Film studio complex in picture for County Wicklow Plans for a €150 million film, studio and media campus at Greystones, County Wicklow, have been submitted to the county council. Greystones Media Campus Ltd has applied for a 10-year planning permission for the campus, which would be built at the IDA Business and Technology Park in Killincarrig. The application proposes the construction of 14 studios, offices and ancillary production buildings in a landscaped setting – more than doubling the stage capacity available to film, TV and media crews in Ireland.

A spokeswoman for Greystones Media Campus told The Irish Times that the complex would help the growth of Ireland’s film and television industry. “The proposed facility will seek to build upon, and contribute to, the existing Dublin-Wicklow film and screen cluster, the leading economic cluster of its type in the country,” she said. “It will also work to consolidate Wicklow’s position as the traditional heart of television and film production in Ireland.”

Countryside role in climate crisis needs ‘radical rethink’ Planning decision-makers, including local authorities and the Planning Inspectorate, should be held to account on issues of compliance with the climate change duty, according to CPRE. The charity wants a “radical rethink” of the role of the countryside in tackling the climate emergency, with it placed at the forefront of climate action to ensure rural communities “do not bear the brunt of the climate emergency”. Greener, Better, Faster: Countryside Solutions to the Climate Emergency and for a Green Recovery sets out the countryside’s role in achieving a netzero society by 2050. Crispin Truman, CPRE chief executive, said: “Whatever breathing space we had to tackle the climate emergency has already been used up. But some of the best ways to reduce our emissions also make our countryside more resilient, so let’s harness the awesome power of our countryside and rural communities to tackle the climate emergency head-on. That means properly investing in rural public transport, delivering renewables sensitively and investing in naturebased solutions like peatland

I M AG E S | A L A M Y / I STO C K

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restoration and hedgerows.” As well as accountability for decisionmakers, it also recommends that the government does the following: n Optimise the recycling of land that’s already been used for buildings by adopting a truly ‘brownfield first’ policy. n Radically tighten up building regulations to ensure that new buildings meet zero-carbon standards. Existing buildings should also meet zero-carbon standards in terms of heat and space. n Introduce a legally binding national carbon budget and reduction pathway to 2045 for the transport sector. Projects that do not contribute towards it should not go ahead. n Create a ring-fenced rural transport fund to support public transport services for rural communities that need to be better connected. n Immediately disincentivise all exploration and development for coal, oil and gas, and apply a strict energy hierarchy to future supply, prioritising demand reduction and energy efficiency and then renewables. n Read more on The Planner at bit.ly/ Planner0820-compliance

800-home scheme approved near Bannockburn Stirling Council has approved outline permission for a development of around 800 homes near Bannockburn. Tulloch Homes and Persimmon Homes applied for planning permission in principle for the proposals earmarked for a 38-hectare site on land next to Pirnhall and Bannockburn. The site includes a family golf centre, car park, as well as a horse-trotting track and farmland. The scheme involves up to 800 new homes (25 per cent affordable), local retail/ commercial uses, a primary school and both a park-and-ride facility and a golf facility. The area is allocated for housing and retail use in the local development plan. Approval of the development is subject to a full application and a section 75 agreement.

AU G U S T 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER

14/07/2020 17:35

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13/07/2020 14:16

LEADER COMMENT

Event Diﬃcult to resist the positives of planning – Immovable object or irresistible force – which do you think most non-planners would view planning as? I’d wager you would expect the typical outsider to tend towards the latter, via a well-worn and depressing narrative: Planners are stubborn, obstinate; planners impede progress; planning is a brake on the economy. Planning, in short, should get out of the way – yet there it sits, arms crossed as it continually blocks, hinders, obstructs, counts newts… It is astonishing that such a distorted picture has been allowed to go unchallenged for so long. After all, it takes no more than a single case study to ﬂesh out the rather more nuanced reality; that planning is where issues of community, economy and environment come together for the good of all. From this perspective, planning is indeed immovable, in as much as any attempt to

Martin Read bypass the process to the sole benefit of one of many interested parties only serves to exacerbate problems with others. You might even compare such an approach to a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ where the bludgeoning of one mole simply leads to another popping up. So yes, ‘immovable object’ has been the caricature. Which is why it has been so refreshing in recent weeks to see the profession fighting back, if ‘fighting’ is the correct word. Because in the

RTPI chief executive’s open letter, bemoaning the spike in ‘planner-bashing’ rhetoric, there was no negativity, no exasperation at the latest disparaging dismissal of the profession’s fundamental role in shaping the world in which we all live; instead, reasoned argument and a nod to the institute’s new campaign (‘Plan The World We Need’) with its entirely sensible assertion of planning’s unavoidable involvement in everything the government says it is committed to, from climate change mitigation to postCovid-19 recovery. In a way, all this latest talk of a ‘build build build’ planning system overhaul came at an ideal time for the RTPI as it embarked on

"IT HAS BEEN SO REFRESHING IN RECENT WEEKS TO SEE THE PROFESSION FIGHTING BACK"

a range of online events. Victoria Hills was right to hit back as quickly and eloquently as she did, and through the many online sessions I took in it’s clear to me that a mood of robust deﬁance in the face of often vague political statement goes way beyond the doors of the institute. With so much riding on the way we respond post-Covid-19, and so much committed to in relation to net-zero carbon and housebuilding targets, there is hardly an issue the country faces that does not have a critical planning component. If I was starting my working life over, I can’t imagine a more valuable choice of career. The more positively minded – and why shouldn’t we be? – might say that these are exciting times to be living through, and times that put planning in an attractive light as a positive part of placemaking – and an undeniable one. So then, planning as an irresistible force? Yes, that sounds about right.

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AU G U S T 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER

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15/07/2020 13:11

LO U I S E B R O O K E S M I T H O B E

O Opinion

What’s happening downtown? I realise that I am prone to referencing song lyrics in my writing. Whether it’s embedding the words of St David of Bowie in speeches or hiding poignant Leonard Cohen prose in appeal statements, its generally for the fun of it – but sometimes it does have direct relevance. Any Radio 4 listener will have their secret Desert Island Discs list ‘just in case you get the call’. And with that in mind, in addition to the obvious Bowie and Cohen I have one of Petula Clark’s hits, possibly her best – “When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go Downtown… Just listen to the music of the traﬃc in the city. Linger on the sidewalk where the neon lights are pretty. How can you lose, the lights are so much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares. So go downtown.” Of course, those words were penned during the baby boomer years as the Sixties were swinging. I’m sure the irony hasn’t passed you by, not only in terms of the pandemic lockdown and the recent perilous moves to get the UK back into shopping mode, but in the shadow of the demise of the high street. At a time when some towns are waiting to hear whether they have been lucky in their respective bids to the government’s Future High Street Fund, it is interesting to reﬂect on whether ‘downtown’ the lights are still so bright. News of the demise of high street

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shopping, the fall of Intu and similar landlords, and the uncertainty over our modernday places of worship such as the Traﬀord Centre, will not be a surprise to those who have written on the changing face of retail with the loss of so many household stalwarts. It is likely that Covid-19 will mean that more names will be added to ‘I remember them’ list to elicit nostalgia at every lockdown quiz evening. We all know that in place of the old normal, and the rise of everything digital, a new form of high street and downtown are fast emerging. Think of it like a pop-up, chatbot version of Petula Clark. Online, or should I say e-shopping is e-ﬃcient, e-xpedient but ee-by-gum very dull. Where’s the fun, the bright lights? Can the Future High Street Fund be used to bring back

“BRING BACK THE BRASS BANDS AND MIX THEM WITH BEATBOXERS” a little frivolity? There is the chance that in between being King Canute trying to stem the tide of high street decline, some local authorities will see the bigger, more realistic picture and approach the regeneration of high streets as community centres in the broadest of terms. Places for fun, frivolity, music and activity for all of their respective communities. Indeed, as Canute was King of England and Norway, some lessons could be learnt from our Scandinavian cousins and ‘coming soon to a high street near you’ we could be seeing well-designed,

green open spaces for people to congregate safely. We could be supporting daily markets selling locally made healthy stuﬀ. Live music and performances could entertain us whatever our age. Bring back the brass bands and mix them with beatboxers. And we would all be walking or cycling to these centres of hustle and bustle. I accept that this all sounds quaint and in reality we know that business rates will still have a part to play and pension funds will still need to generate capital or many of us will be left high and dry in our retirements. But we can dream of a utopia and if it can be done in the suburbs of Amsterdam, Oslo and Århus, why not in Skelmersdale, Smethwick or Oldham? So, High Streets Task Force – take note of Petula, who I’m sure is still saying, even after emigrating to the land of good cheese and wine that she probably buys from her local farmers’ market – “Things will be great when you’re, downtown. No ﬁner place for sure. Downtown, everything’s waiting for you…”

Dr Louise Brooke-Smith is a development and strategic planning consultant and a built environment non-executive director I L L U S T R AT I O N | Z A R A P I C K E N

14/07/2020 17:35

Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB

“We need to make planning heroic again. We will need to work in an integrated way to have any chance of meeting wider o c climate targets.” IS IT A BIRD? IS IT A PLANE? I JONATHAN J NO,, IT’S BRAY,, DIRE DIRECTOR OF THE URBAN TR RANSPORT GROUP TRANSPORT

“The pand pandemic demic h has been a story inequality. Its im of inequality. impacts have not been felt equally.” e been RTPI PRESIDENT SUE S MANNS LAYS L THE GROUND FOR THE AN THE WOR INSTITUTE’S PLA PLAN WORLD WE NEED CAMPAIGN

“This is the ﬁrst time I can remember an entire profession being reduced to ‘newt counters’ by a sitting prime minister” PLANNERS HAVE FACED PLENTY OF DISPARAGING COMMENTS FROM POLITICIANS IN THE PAST BUT BORIS JOHNSON’S NEWT COMPARISON WAS A NEW ONE ON CHESTERFIELD COUNCIL’S RICK LONG

“I walked through the front door and my little girl said, ‘You’ve been at Parliament, Daddy’. Parliament Daddy Daddy’. I said yes, and she said: ‘More blah blah blah’.” LABOUR PARTY LEADER SIR KEIR STARMER TELLING THE LGA ANNUAL CONFERENCE WHAT KEEPS HIM GROUNDED

“How quaint it is that in Parliament people have to physically move around to vote. In local government we’ve had electronic voting for some time now.”

“We don’t have anyth anything without he health, we’ve seen it. We don’t eve even have an econ economy without hea health. Health ha has to be the focu focus, [it] has to be the th intention, [it] h has to be the purpose.” ARACELI CAMARGO, COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIST AND FOUNDER OF THE CENTRIC LAB

“What will we think when we look back at these four months of lockdown? How can we hold on to that? It’s a great opportunity for planners.” PINS CEO SARAH RICHARDS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PLANNERS LOCKING DOWN LOCKDOWN INSIGHTS

NEWCASTLE CITY COUNCIL LEADER NICK FORBES, HOSTING AN LGA WEBINAR WITH SIR KEIR STARMER THAT WAS INTERRUPTED BY PARLIAMENT’S DIVISION BELL

I M AG E S |

SHUTTERSTOCK / GETTY / ISTOCK

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15/07/2020 08:32

B E S T O F T H E B LO G S

O Opinion

1 BLOG

Charlotte Morgan is a senior policy researcher for the New Local Government Network

Vive la postCovid economic resilience revolution

As UK Covid-19 cases have fallen, the attention of local authorities is shifting to economic recovery planning. Or, in many cases, economic revolution planning. Determined to generate positives from this crisis, local authorities are seeking not to return to normal, but to create an improved normal. Don’t just rebuild – build back better. This new normal is about developing economic resilience. That might not sound revolutionary, but it represents a very diﬀerent approach to the UK’s response to the 2008 ﬁnancial crash, when government policy sought to accelerate recovery through rapid highvalue productivity growth. Places with a smaller share of high-value industries lost out. This time, with gaping inequalities between local economies, the government mantra is ‘build, build, build’. ‘Build back faster’ isn’t an option. Resilience means that the economy is able to withstand shocks. Resilient local economies are precisely what we need during a pandemic, with global recession and a climate emergency looming. So expect to see these themes in the post-lockdown strategies of many local authorities: • Local leadership: Local authorities and partners developing economic plans tailored to their area’s attributes will build resilience more

Russell Jones is founder of Property Workshop (propertyworkshop. com)

‘Dear Planners’ – an open letter from a property investor

effectively than a one-size-fitsall national programme made in Whitehall. Local authorities will seek more freedom to make decisions locally. • Inclusive economies: This is about equity of opportunity for people to contribute to and benefit from local economic development. In a resilient local economy, people have access to good jobs with decent pay, affordable housing and chances to improve their skills. They are able to save for rainy days and spend leftover income in local shops. Read NLGN’s Cultivating Inclusive Growth report for examples of how local authorities develop inclusive economies. • Community power: Local responses to the pandemic saw communities support neighbours and protect the vulnerable. Resilient economies recognise that all residents have a stake in their local economy and should be involved in the design and implementation of economic plans. Many local authorities will do just that, particularly with plans to revive high streets. Resilient economic approaches will lay strong foundations under local government’s goal to ‘build back better’. They lead to greater liberty, equality of life chances and fraternity between communities, businesses and public services. Vive la resilience revolution!

“RESILIENCE MEANS THAT THE ECONOMY IS ABLE TO WITHSTAND SHOCKS”

2 BLOG

Dear Planners, I’m sorry it’s come to this. I know you won’t appreciate being told the planning process isn’t working but, as a property developer, there are issues I need to address. I suspect these complaints will resonate with developers, builders and homeowners across the UK. First, does it really require eight weeks to rubber-stamp an application to crown trees, or put decorative rocks in a garden? These lead times don’t even guarantee results: Northern Ireland has a 15-week statutory deadline, yet barely half of applications are approved in this time frame. Long approvals processes mean builders miss scheduled work slots, pushing budgets beyond manageable levels. If your committees meet each week, why can’t decisions be reached within a month? When you do meet, I’m sure you can do more to make our lives easier. There’s a big diﬀerence between constructing a full-height extension and replacing rotten sash windows in a listed building, yet both require your oversight. Surely PDRs could be extended to cover more balconies and loft conversions? Speaking of lofts, people regularly pay over £1,000 for multiple bat surveys because a property stands within 400 metres of water, or has a slate

roof and gable ends. As an infrared motion capture camera generally proves bat activity within days, such expense and delay is hard to justify. It also seems unreasonable that planning applications can be rejected owing to trivial paperwork mistakes or spurious complaints. Neighbours often take umbrage with property development – the vehicles, the skips, the comings and goings. Legitimate complaints about privacy or aesthetics deserve consideration, but objections are sometimes a stalling tactic, and planners should be more assertive in dismissing these. Stalled applications hit project ﬁnances, especially if minor changes require separate planning approval after work commences. Finally, can I ask you to simplify planning paperwork, for both original applications and revisions? A national review could bring together laypeople and experts to standardise various application processes. It seems wrong that neighbouring councils treat identical proposals diﬀerently because of inconsistent permitted development rights, and varying approaches to material planning considerations. I’m not saying the system is broken or irrelevant, but can you honestly say that it’s working optimally? Yours faithfully, Russell Jones

“LONG APPROVALS PROCESSES MEAN BUILDERS MISS SCHEDULED WORK SLOTS”

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14/07/2020 17:36

Have your say Would you like to see yourself in these pages? Get in touch by email – editorial@theplanner.co.uk Topical, inspirational, angry or amusing – we consider all relevant comment

3 BLOG

Adam Price is a senior planner with Tibbalds

We shouldn’t have to rely on houseplants to access nature

I recently read a book by Bill Bryson, portraying his return trip to the UK after several decades. Comparing the latter with the former he notes the “most dismaying loss” to our streets: front gardens. “People,” he quips, “seem strangely intent on getting their cars as close to their living rooms as possible, and… have been ripping out their… front gardens and replacing them with service areas so that there is always a place for their cars and wheelie bins”. I thought this summed up the UK perfectly. Bryson came at this from an aesthetic angle but there is a range of consequential issues that arise through the loss of a soft-landscaped garden. This form of development is caught under The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, which sets out what a property owner can do without planning permission. In layman’s terms, you can lay a hard surface at the front of your house and as long as it’s of porous materials it can be as big as you like. The importance of green space to biodiversity, mental health and even a sense of security, is hardly news. However, these are fairly recent concepts that outdate the

4 BLOG

legislation formulated to allow someone to pave over their front garden. Could a condition not be included to ensure that an area of a front garden must be retained for planting/soft landscaping – ‘microgreening’? And the order does nothing to ensure that commercial properties converted to residential provide occupiers with minimum space standards or any form of private open/ growing space (whether a small forecourt, balcony or even a simple bracket for a plant pot). At a time when more of us are working from home, access to nature and open space couldn’t be more important. I’m not suggesting that we’ll all become gardeners because the developer of a new flat has provided us with a window box, but let’s at least provide occupiers of homes with at least the opportunity to grow something - whether to improve wellbeing, grow food to reduce air miles or flowers to attract pollinators. An update to the order, which ensures that not only do the national space standards apply to all commercial to residential conversions but that any conversion must benefit from X area of private amenity space or, at very least, ‘growing’ space, would be a step in the right direction.

“COULD A CONDITION NOT BE INCLUDED TO ENSURE THAT AN AREA OF A FRONT GARDEN MUST BE RETAINED FOR PLANTING/SOFT LANDSCAPING – ‘MICROGREENING’?”

Jenny Raggett is a project coordinator at Transport for New Homes

Transport blind spots are undermining garden communities

The government’s Garden Communities Prospectus made a fundamental omission, one that is common to much of our planning system – a failure to be clear about the kind of transport needed to underpin garden villages and towns. It contains fine words about sustainable transport, active travel and placemaking. It makes it clear that ugly sprawl is out and characterful, vibrant walking communities are in. But when it comes to asking the reasons why we don’t usually achieve the latter, the prospectus offers little discussion of why we have not built the self-contained, sustainable and v i b r a n t communities that are so desired, and no examples of places that have succeeded. Transport – everything from pavements and spaces for pedestrians, to buses, railways, tramways, cycle ways, parking and roads – is key to how a place develops. Anchoring a new garden development on an improved motorway junction or with parking for three cars for each home and an internal road layout designed primarily for the car, will produce a completely different kind of community from a place coordinated with a modern metro system and a street network designed for walkability and travel by train. We have seen these contrasting models on our tours

of new housing development here and abroad. The road-based model produces the kind of commuter estate that we see everywhere on the fringe of towns, accompanied by the inevitable out-of-town retail, business parks and other carbased development by new road junctions as large parcels of land are opened up. The sustainable model produces a much more ‘human’ scale of development, less dominated by parking and tarmac with the possibilities for imaginative placemaking – where shops, cafés and urban parks in town do well with a modern public transport hub as a central theme. The importance of transport decisions and funding is not a key part of the planning machinery. Even Homes England seems not to have understood that funding road building in tandem with a garden village or town may be counterproductive to the vision that the settlement has for its future. The government is equally keen on road building, modern busways and Dutchstyle cycle networks to support growth. I remember attending a housing sites DPD examination in public when, during the weeks of debate about where to build and how many homes, transport was given just a couple of hours as a kind of add-on. That says it all.

“THE SUSTAINABLE MODEL PRODUCES A MUCH MORE ‘HUMAN’ SCALE OF DEVELOPMENT”

AU G U S T 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER

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14/07/2020 17:36

HIGH STREETS ARE TAKING A BATTERING UNDER COVID-19. SIMON WICKS ASKED FIVE EXPERTS HOW WE CAN RESTORE THE HEARTBEAT TO THE UK’S TOWN CENTRES AND LOCAL ECONOMIES

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n July 9, John Lewis announced the closure of eight stores, including its flagship Birmingham branch. It is far from the only household name to be shutting up shops. On the same day, Boots closed 48 opticians. Coffee chain Pret a Manger has closed 30 stores. T M Lewin and Harveys have closed completely.

Hundreds – thousands – of smaller chains and independents are facing closure, too. Covid-19 is crashing through our high streets like a giant wave and washing away anything that isn’t firmly anchored. High street decline is nothing new, but Covid-19 has brutally unmasked systemic problems within town centres that, some argue, have become too greatly

commercial, too little communal, and which are already squeezed by online retail and economic inequalities blighting regions. Such issues predate Covid-19 and will outlast it, too. But the pandemic quickens the need to address them. “Retail isn’t going to be the driver of the high street anymore,” Vidhya Alaseko, chief executive of Power to Change,

20 T H E PL AN N E R \ A U G U S T 2 0 2 0

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15/07/2020 13:15

P O S T - C O V I D R EC O V E R Y

told a Civic Voice webinar in late June. We are likely, she said, to revert to the kinds of town centres that predated the consumer boom of the 1980s. We can expect to see more community uses such as libraries, wrapped up within more ‘inclusive’ local economies. Could we see a revival of town centres and local

economies as a result of Covid-19? The latest Grimsey report into the future of high streets, published in June, sees it as “a golden opportunity to repair their [high streets’] neglected social fabric, lead a values-led period of social renewal and deliver lasting change”. Our own commentators echo Grimsey. Consensus

seems to be emerging. But threats remain, not least in the imminent collapse of retailers and local authority finances. The challenge is immediate. What’s going to restore a healthy heartbeat to our ailing town centres? Note: These talking heads are edited versions of much longer interviews, but all quotation is accurate.

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AU G U S T 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER 21 20-24 Highstreet recovery_August 2020_The Planner 21

15/07/2020 13:16

P O S T C O V I D R EC O V E R Y

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“This is a chance to reconsider what our town centres are for”

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Sarah Longlands is director of IPPR North and chair of the Liverpool Town Centres Commission “We may need to completely rethink how we use high street spaces as a result of the lockdown, and maybe rethink the emphasis on commercial and retail use within town centres. “What do you do with that sort of empty space? There’s a strong feeling in Liverpool [City Region] that civil society has a strong role to play and the future of many of its town centres is as a hub for civic activity. “It could be support with digital skills, start-up space, places where people can connect with the wider community in a way that has been difficult during this crisis. “The obstacle is often to do with ownership and commercial intention, or a lack of power or resources within a local authority. We’ve seen how the state can move quite quickly in the face of a crisis. Some of the things that hold local planning departments up, if there are common themes that people can agree on, there’s no reason why in the spirit of urgency we’ve had around Covid that government couldn’t act. “Some of the devolved mechanisms that we’ve started to see in Greater Manchester and Liverpool, there is a sense that they do have more autonomy to think about these issues. At the very least they have a larger ability to convene landlords or town centre retailers or businesses to think about what can collectively be done to deal with them. “Planning’s got a massive role to play in local economic inclusion, because you can do all sorts of things to help deliver wider economic and social benefits. This is a chance to stop and think and reconsider what our town centres are for, or what the planning system is for, and how we rebuild the economy in a way which is equitable. There’s a real danger that planning just gets strong-armed into a quick wins mentality. That would definitely be a mistake.”

“Retail property is going to be worth an awful lot less” Mark Robinson is the chair of the High Streets Task Force and property director and co-founder of Ellandi, the town centre asset manager “We’d created clone towns, anchored by department stores. It was a very Anglo-Saxon/American model of a barbell structure with two department stores, a load of shops selling the same thing as every other town, with a bit of food in the middle to service people as they went from one end to the other. We ended up in

a place that nobody loved. “Now we have to move away from this model. It’s all about places discovering what their purpose is. We have to reinvent the new anchor. “There’s all these diﬀerent uses that we can bring back into our town centres that will add engagement and vitality. We’ve been involved with a project in Folkestone where the council has bought a former department store and we’ve been working on a plan to put an arthouse cinema in the blended community space, which could provide anything from library use to creche use, and there’s going

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“What if we move towards the local supply chain model which embeds social value” Gordon Mole is a director of the Institute for Economic Development and Fife Council’s senior manager for business and Employability “[In Fife] we’re revisiting our local outcome improvement plan and thinking how we embed that phrase ‘building back better’. We’re focused on using this as a drive to support those vulnerable communities who were in a difficult place pre-Covid. “Colleagues in North Ayrshire have launched their community wealth building approach, the culmination of two years of work with the third sector,

to be a health centre, as well as later living flats. “One of the problems with a diverse ownership of a high street is the ability to effect real meaningful change. Local communities might struggle to do that because the ownership’s diverse, it’s quite difficult to understand who owns what. Those people have different motivations. A debate around how we change that would certainly be welcomed. “One thing we’re trying to promote is the idea of strategic delivery partnerships, taking the toolkit you would have running a shopping centre and applying the methodology to an entire town centre. “There needs to be a recalibration of the relationship between owners and occupiers of retail property. Owners have to realise that they are I M AG E S | A L A M Y / I STO C K

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just part of a retailer’s supply chain [in a digital age]. But at the same time retailers need to realise that in the current market where we have CVAs and non-payment of rent because of Covid, without paying for an essential service that service can no longer be provided. “Retail property is going to be worth an awful lot less than it was in many places, which gives an opportunity for other uses to be viable. It also means leasing a shop to somebody for 20 years and going back every ﬁve years and making them pay a bit more is not sustainable. We have to look at the way we interact between owners and occupiers and how we align our interests. There’s an entire ecosystem that needs looking at in a fundamental way.”

with public sector officers working across a range of bodies and with the private sector. It’s not just an economic development function, it has to cross over all the services that a local authority provides. “In our area we’re now focusing on what a model would look like where, rather than go for supersized contracts for things like affordable housing programmes, we move towards the local supply chain model which embeds social value, provides local employment and provides for a circular economy. “We’ve already focused on the move to online trading for independent retailers during Covid by helping small businesses trade on new digital platforms. More broadly, through our design and development frameworks, we’ve had a focus on how we bring different elements into town centres. That mix might now look a bit different. There’s very much a place for quality housing in town centres. It’s about repurposing town sentences – places to live, places to be, places to meet and bring that purchasing power in. “There’s an immediate part to that around the restart. But longer term there’s an opportunity for towns to say these are places to live and be and you can work from home, or co-working spaces. Covid has presented us with an opportunity to boost up thinking about how people work, how people move, and some of the opportunities that come out of that. Why would we rush back to a model where everybody moves back to the large scale premises?”

AU G U S T 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER

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15/07/2020 11:53

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“Growth measured by GDP doesn’t mean very much to people”

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Charlotte Morgan is a senior policy researcher for the New Local Government Network

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“The challenge we’ve got is the uncertainty of local authority finances” Tracey Crews is planning director for Cheltenham Borough Council “We’ve got to move away from that development plan approach which says ‘Well, we zoned this for retail use and nothing else’. We’ve got to think more creatively about how people spend their free time, think about gyms and more cultural-based activities – and certainly residential. “We’ve got a Regency environment and some of the gaps that will open up will lend themselves very nicely to residential. Cheltenham’s economy is based on SMEs and a town centre location offers the opportunity for creative thinking about start-ups. There are big holes in the high street. Will they naturally be filled by other retail? “We’ve got gaps on The Promenade, our high-end retail space. Pre-Covid we tried to make contact with the landlords to see whether we can get more flexibility in rent levels or get access so we can have pop-up activity. A lot are offshore companies and ultimately they’re a pension fund. A little space in Cheltenham doesn’t register on their priorities. We’re lobbying government for more flexibility around landlords. “We need more flexibility at local level. We know how our economies and high streets are operating. An

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ask for us to government is more devolution of decision-making. “We’re creating an economic recovery task force, looking at, for example, influencing the types of sites that are in Cheltenham Borough Council’s ownership that could lead to growth and investment. “The challenge is the uncertainty of local authority finances. Our strategies pre-Covid were based upon a commercial agenda. There’s been a shift in the way we make decisions. The purchase of a significant amount of land in the Golden Valley [planned garden community with a technology campus] emphasises that it’s not just about the commercial but place shaping, social value and being able to take a more direct lead in major schemes. “But many local authorities are looking at emergency budgets and each will have to reassess how risky it can go in its investment decisions. With holes appearing on the high street there’s going to be a need for direct action. The ask for government is how it can create flexibilities in finances to enable local authorities to do that. If Covid has shown anything it’s that councils have a really important part to play in the way we manage our communities. And that needs resourcing.”

“The response to Covid-19 has strongly been local. Local organisations coming together with communities has made the biggest difference. The best scale for recovery should also be local. Local areas need to have more of a say over, for example, the sorts of skills people can train in to get jobs. “It’s bolstered the arguments of local governments and other localists that the things they’ve been calling for, for devolution, more capabilities, more financing – these have all been proven in the pandemic that they should have happened. “If you work with communities, make them feel engaged, energised, mobilised, then you’ve created leaders all over the place. With inclusive growth and economies it’s important to have lots of leaders; the council can’t manage all economic activity on its own. “Inclusive growth might lead to growth coming back slowly, but everyone has the chance to build the growth and benefit from it. Growth measured by GDP doesn’t mean much to people. People are more interested in growth that promotes wellbeing, that gives them a nice place to live and means they can get around more efficiently. “Tackling digital exclusion will become a bigger priority, since a lot of public service delivery has been adapted online and schoolchildren have been having to continue their education online. The digital economy and digital exclusion will be elements local authorities will go for early, as well as opening shops to restore a sense of normality. But we’re looking at some local authorities potentially filing their own section 144 notices. Local authorities are so essential to the economy, to the society of their place; if their activities are scaled back to only the most basic statutory services, we all lose out.”

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I M AG E | A L A M Y

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Training calendar September â&#x20AC;&#x201C; December 2020

Boost your CPD with our online masterclasses We provide high-quality training for all professionals in the planning environment. Our online masterclasses offer a fullyblended learning experience with sequenced activities before, during and after a half-day webinar. Led by an expert trainer each masterclass is aligned to the RTPI Core CPD Framework to prioritise your learning and to fulfil your annual CPD requirement.

Book today rtpi.org.uk/training training@rtpi.org.uk + 44 (0)20 7929 8400

Day

Time

Challenges in Sustainability Appraisal / Strategic Environmental Assessment

09:30-12:30

Developers and viability: introduction

13:30-16:30

Heritage and conservation: making better places

09:30-12:30

Flooding, sustainable drainage systems and climate change

13:30-16:30

Planning for resilient town centres

09:30-12:30

13:30-16:30

Gaining insight into NSIP and PINS

09:30-12:30

Environmental Impact Assessments

13:30-16:30

Developers and viability: advanced

09:30-12:30

Communication skills for planners

13:30-16:30

Writing skills for planners

09:30-12:30

Planning and design: making better places

13:30-16:30

Online masterclasses September

October Planning and community engagement

NEW for 2020

November

Personal wellbeing and resilience for planners

NEW for 2020

09:30-12:30

Planning for health and inclusivity

NEW for 2020

13:30-16:30

09:30-12:30

Giving evidence at inquiries

13:30-16:30

Leadership for planners

09:30-12:30

Negotiation and inďŹ&#x201A;uencing for planners

13:30-16:30

Business skills for planners

09:30-12:30

Planning for non-planners

13:30-16:30

Project management for planners December

@RTPIPlanners #RTPICPD

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13/07/2020 14:12

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THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC HAS LEFT THE ECONOMY IN DIRE NEED OF EMERGENCY CARE. THE CALL FOR A ’GREEN’ RECOVERY IS GROWING LOUDER, AS HUW MORRIS REPORTS – BUT IS THE GOVERNMENT LISTENING? distress for the country”, with people losing their Economics is the only field in which two people jobs at an alarming rate. win the Nobel Prize for saying opposing things. “We need a zero-carbon army, helping all Proponents of the science – invented, it has been workers. There is so much work to be done, said, to make astrology look good – wisecrack that from home energy insulation to designing and if you put 10 economists into a room, you will get producing zero-emission vehicles to renewable 11 opinions. energy production to reforesting and improving Recovering from the Covid-19 crisis is no joke. our green spaces and redesigning Yet the pandemic is broadly dividing and improving our towns and opinions into three cohorts, each one cities.” signified by a letter. “THERE IS A Miliband is just one voice. A Wild optimists, now few in vast array of environmentalists, number, predict a V-shaped recovery. DIFFERENT Others say the letter will be U. But WORLD OUT THERE lobbyists, business leaders, professional groups, charities and with Covid-19 revealing a sharp AND IT MUST creative artists want to build back divergence between the ‘haves’ BECOME A BETTER better, not business as usual. and ‘have-nots’ as well as along WORLD” As the UK stands at a historic ethnic lines, a big fear is a K-shaped crossroads, potentially facing recovery amid the context of the deepest recession in three runaway climate change. centuries, decisions made in For many, the answer is a the months ahead will have green recovery that also tackles consequences for the economy and inequalities and does not allow the communities for decades. opportunity presented by the crisis “The UK is facing its biggest economic shock for to go to waste. a generation,” says Committee for Climate Change What is it? How can it be achieved? And what (CCC) chairman Lord Deben. “Meanwhile, the can planning do? (See box: The world we need: global crisis of climate change is accelerating. We Planning and the green recovery.) have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address Ed Miliband sums up the wreckage left by these urgent challenges together; it’s there for the Covid-19. The Labour Party’s shadow business taking. secretary calls it “a moment of profound economic

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rtpi.org.uk

Have you seen our new website?

We are excited to announce the launch of RTPI’s newly designed website. We hope you enjoy our new clean design that is easy to navigate, looks great on any device, and is more user-friendly. • Find the very latest news on our home page • Easy to navigate • Responsive design for a seamless customer experience on all devices • Fresh layout with up-to-date content • A ‘New from the Institute’ tab providing easy filterable access to the latest news, blogs, policy and research • Handy ‘content you might be interested in’ feature suggesting other relevant pages related to what you are looking at • Clear regions and nations pages via the ‘Find your RTPI’ tab

P3517 - RTPI Full page advert planner (Website)p4.indd 1 p28_PLN.AUG20.indd 2

Log in to our improved members’ area to: • Edit contact details • Log CPD hours • Keep track of which events you’ve booked • View member only content • Log volunteer activity (for Planning Aid England volunteers) • Access an exclusive package of consumer discounts through RTPI Plus

Our new event booking system includes: • Clear maps for all event locations • Ability to enter special and dietary requirements • Easy-to-use filtering to find events relevant to you • Quick and simple credit card payment system

07/04/2020 13/07/2020 10:38 14:13

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C O V I D 1 9 R EC O V E R Y

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S!DPNQVUFS!^!^! ? ?! ?! ? “The steps that the UK takes to rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic can accelerate the transition to a successful and low-carbon economy and improve our climate resilience. Choices that lock in emissions or climate risks are unacceptable.” The government is pondering how to resuscitate the economy, a process that will reach a significant milestone in the Autumn Budget. One area of concern, according to Sussex University international relations professor Peter Newell, is to avoid business as usual. “The rush to kick-start the economy, combined with the losses they have suffered, is “THIS IS NOT emboldening airline THE MOMENT TO industries and fossil fuel RESUSCITATE firms to claim bailouts,” INDUSTRIES he says. WHOSE BUSINESS “Beyond providing MODELS ARE compensation and INCOMPATIBLE retraining opportunities WITH DELIVERING for workers, this is THE PARIS not the moment to AGREEMENT” resuscitate industries whose business models are incompatible with delivering the Paris agreement when there are so many other sectors deserving state support. “Rapid transitions out of these sectors were required before the crisis; the coronavirus has served to precipitate their decline and provides an opportunity for an economy-wide rethink.” The rewards could be huge. A low-carbon and renewable energy economy could create nearly 700,000 jobs by 2030 in England, increasing to 1.18 million by 2050, according to the Local Government Association (LGA). Demand for green jobs will increase rapidly as the nation transitions to a netzero economy with such a “bonanza” helping to offset the expected job losses I M AG E | A L A M Y

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The world we need: Planning and the green recovery The RTPI is campaigning for a very different type of recovery from earlier shocks in UK history, outlined in its research paper Plan The World We Need. Its vision is to rebuild a more sustainable, resilient and inclusive society, warning that “a failure to act now will simply defer costs to future generations and the most vulnerable, with the risks of climate and ecological breakdown to a weak economy becoming unmanageable in scale”. It sees three common themes for a green recovery: n Sustainability: supporting job growth in sectors which can accelerate progress towards net-zero carbon, avoiding investments and bailouts which lock in greenhouse gas emissions, and investing in the education needed to upskill workforces. n Resilience: futureproofing assets to extreme weather events and reducing reliance on global supply chains through domestic and decentralised manufacturing and production. n Inclusivity: creating healthy and equitable communities by targeting support to the most vulnerable in society, and improving democratic participation in decisions about the future. These all require investment underpinned by planning that links recovery

to people and places. “It’s not just a green recovery for accelerating towards net-zero carbon but also one which tackles social inequalities we see in the built environment,” says RTPI policy and networks manager James Harris. “We need a green recovery but we also need a just recovery. “This is about tying together the social with the environmental and economic. We know a lot about the underlying issues such as affordable housing, better quality of life, access to infrastructure, tackling the looming environmental crisis but also the inequalities that go with them. All these issues are at the heart of planning. But the problem over the past two decades, especially in England, is the loss of planning’s capacity to deal with these problems. “This means moving to planning that has a coordinating role, looking at what you can do to make the built environment more sustainable and equal.” n Plan The World We Need – the contribution of planning to a sustainable, resilient and inclusive recovery, is available at www.rtpi.org.uk

AU G U S T 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER

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Not so new, not so green In late June, Boris Johnson announced a package of measures to support economic revival that he termed, in an explicit effort to encourage comparison with the interwar US president Theodore Roosevelt, a ‘new deal’ for the UK. The intimation was that it would have a similar impact on the UK economy as the enormous programme of economic renewal that dragged the US economy out of the mire of 1930s recession and laid the foundation for almost a century of economic and political primacy. But, as we outline on pages 4-5, there is little new about the schemes announced and, at just 0.2 per cent of GDP (compared with the US New Deal’s 40 per cent), it’s not much of a deal either. Nor, with its focus on traditional infrastructure projects, does it set the tone for the green recovery called for by campaigners, businesses, health professionals, politicians and even the government’s own advisers. Yes, the prime minister pledged to plant 75,000 acres of trees a year by 2025; yes, there was £40 million for local conservation projects; and, yes, the government had previously said that ‘shovel-ready’ local projects worth £900 million should be environmentally friendly. But these figures are a drop in the ocean compared with the £14 billion that think tank the Green Alliance has calculated will be needed for the UK simply to meet its self-imposed CO2 targets. And it pales beside the £27 billion put aside for roadbuilding by the chancellor in March. As if stung into action, in early July, Rishi Sunak pledged £2 billion to householders for home insulation as part of a wider £3 billion green investment package. But, as critics pointed out, this is considerably less than the £9.2 billion pledged for the same thing in the Conservative Party election manifesto. What’s more, the prime minister’s promise of a ‘new deal’ – whether green or no – looks a mere trifle beside Germany’s £36 billion investment in green jobs and energy efficiency. n Simon Wicks is deputy editor of The

due to Covid-19. The LGA is calling for national skills, employment schemes and funding to be devolved to councils and combined authorities. “Demand for green jobs is due to sky-rocket as we move towards a net-zero economy and local government, with its local knowledge and expertise, is best placed to ensure the workforce in every region of the country can successfully surf the new wave of employment opportunities,” says the LGA’s City Regions board chair Sir Richard Leese. For its part the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of 57 environmental groups, calls for a £315 million investment into 330 “shovel-ready” nature protection and restoration projects. This would help to introduce 200,000 hectares of terrestrial and marine habitat, create 10,000 jobs and even out inequalities while locking down millions of tonnes of carbon. The schemes were either stopped by the lockdown or could be

Planner

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I M AG E S | G E T T Y

introduced quickly. A “conservation corps” or National Nature Service for England would deliver them while providing training, exercise, contact with nature and an income for the unemployed. For Lord Deben, the lockdown has changed people’s perceptions. “People have had the opportunity to think about themselves, their children, the future and they have come to the conclusion – very widely – that what we need is a step change in all kinds of ways. There is a different world out there and it must become a better world.” Otherwise, some economists fear, any long-term recovery will ultimately be L-shaped. n Huw Morris is consultant editor for The Planner

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15/07/2020 11:55

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13/07/2020 14:14

INTERVIEW: BRIAN EVANS

SPIRIT OF PLACE GLASGOW’S FIRST ‘CITY URBANIST’, BRIAN EVANS FRTPI IS CHARGED WITH KNITTING TOGETHER POLICY AND PRACTICE TO HELP CREATE A CITY THAT WORKS. HE TELLS MATT MOODY ABOUT THE ‘EXISTENTIAL CHALLENGES’ OF ONE OF THE UK’S GREAT CITIES

s the first City Urbanist for Glasgow, Brian Evans is used to being asked what his role actually involves. He frames his answer in almost abstract terms: one aspect, he tells me, is to help shape “an overarching narrative for the city”. It’s an intriguing idea, I suggest. “It’s something that’s frequently talked about in the academic sector, that one needs a narrative for one’s research,” Evans responds. “a point of departure and a direction of travel. “In urbanism, there is no end state,” he continues. “Cities are alive, they’re on a journey. So I suppose it’s about trying to find a way to talk in a constructive and collaborative way about the journey that Glasgow is on.” One way in which Evans is exerting an influence on the way we receive the story of one of the UK’s great cities is his insistence that “we cease and desist from talking about Glasgow as a post-industrial city, and start to talk about it as a proto-knowledge city”. Close to a quarter of Glasgow’s population is students, he points out. “And we’ve got a PHOTOGRAPHY |

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constellation of great academic institutions wrapping around the city centre – Glasgow, Strathclyde and Caledonia Universities, the Glasgow School of Art, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and two major further education colleges. That’s a really powerful knowledge engine.” But one that is likely to be misﬁring in the foreseeable future because of Covid? “Quite probably, but so will every other higher education institution in every other city, and Glasgow is used to existential challenges.”

An urban consensus Memorable stories are communal, their pleasure not just in their impact on the individual listener, but in the sharing and discussion of details, too. Since taking up the part-time post “THE CHALLENGE in January 2019 (see FOR US AS URBAN Curriculum Vitae), DESIGNERS Evans has been laying AND PLANNERS the foundation for a COMES IN shared understanding RECONCILING of what the city’s future THE GENIUS might hold. “[I have LOCI – THE been] bringing ideas SPIRIT OF THE from practice and PLACE – WITH from my international THE ZEITGEIST experience into the – THE SPIRIT OF city, and acting as link between the city THE TIMES” council, communities, and the creative industries,” he says. “It’s a consensus-building, diplomatic role.” Consensus, I suggest, is not something we see a deal of in England, where ideological opposition to the very concept of planning seems to be on the rise. Is it more achievable in Scotland? “I think, generally, there may be a greater consensus around urbanism and planning than in other places,” he says. “There is consensual thinking around national parks, biodiversity, water quality, for example. “I don’t want to paint a picture that Scotland is the land of milk and honey and there are no disputes, but I’m conscious that in many discussions with colleagues from other places, they say ‘You’re lucky in Scotland that by and large you’re starting from the same point’ [of consensus], and you can point to national policies that try to enable that.” So, there’s less political contention around planning, perhaps, than down south? “There

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CURRICULUM VITAE

is politics, but I would say it’s politics with a smaller ‘p’. The Scottish Parliament’s proportional representation system means that it’s unlikely ever to have one party with an absolute majority, so you don’t have quite the same yo-yoing of policy as you maybe do at Westminster.” In Scotland, Evans explains, two instruments underpin a participatory approach to planmaking. The ‘Place Standard’ a tool jointly developed by the Scottish Government, the NHS and Architecture and Design Scotland, provides a structure for, in Evans’ words, “a formalised dialogue” with people about the places where they live. The similarly-named ‘Place Principle’ is more of a philosophy enshrined in policy, an approach to placemaking that, in the words of the Scottish Government “promotes a shared understanding of place, and the need to take a more collaborative approach to a place’s services and assets to achieve better outcomes for people and communities”. “The Place Principle establishes a sort of primus inter pares from the government that people are required to work together,” explains Evans. “Because it’s policy, it means that when the government is looking at budget distribution, the degree to which agencies, local authorities, the private sector are honouring the principle by working together may factor into decisions on resource allocation.” He adds: “Another advantage is that it is not overly prescriptive. In the past, or maybe in other parts of the UK, we have tended to start with some kind of overarching proposition, and then seek to prescribe methodologies for its delivery in order to hit targets.”

The genius loci There is something else about which it must be vital to establish a common understanding in his civic role: what does Evans understand by the term ‘urbanism’? “Well, to start with I say that urbanism is the pursuit of urbanity, which is perhaps a tautology,” he replies swiftly. “But then I use [Glasgow-born philosopher] John Armstrong’s deﬁnition of civilisation to describe what I mean by urbanity as a collective system of values, a certain level of economic and political development, the sophisticated pursuit of pleasure and happiness, and a high level of intellectual and artistic excellence. “I would contend that the neoliberal agenda, for quite some time really, focused on the second two of those four propositions, and, to some extent, paid lip service to intellectual and artistic excellence and a common set of values – depending on what country or jurisdiction you might be talking about. Urbanism is the pursuit of these propositions with designed intent.”

B R IA N M A R K EVANS PHD FRTPI AOU Born St.Andrews, 1953 Education Linlithgow Academy (1964-69), University of Edinburgh BSc Hons Earth Sciences (1975), University of Strathclyde PG Dip Urban & Regional Planning (1979), University of Strathclyde MSc Urban Design (1992), University of Glasgow PhD Designing from Context (2017) Career highlights

19902015 Partner, Gillespies LLP Landscape Architects & Urban Designers

19982004 Professor of Urban Design, Chalmers University, School of Architecture, Gothenburg

20032007 Enabler, CABE Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment

20042010 Deputy chair, Architecture and Design Scotland (2004-2010)

20052013 Founding academician and board member, The Academy of Urbanism

2012present Director, the Glasgow Urban Laboratory, Glasgow School of Art

2015present Professor of Urbanism and Landscape, Glasgow School of Art

2015present Adviser on cities to United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 2019 Appointed City Urbanist for Glasgow

“The zeitgeist at the moment is a cocktail of demographic, climate and technological change”

Admitting that this is “not an idea I can claim originality for”, Evans refers to an essay (‘Grasping the Thistle’) written by his professor of architectural history, Frank Arneiil Walker. “He said the challenge for us as urban designers and planners comes in reconciling the genius loci – the spirit of the place, – with the zeitgeist – the spirit of the times. Any discussion on the genius loci in Scotland will be a loud and vociferous aﬀair, but you will often ﬁnd people are strenuously agreeing with one another. “The zeitgeist at the moment is a kind of cocktail of demographic, climate and technological change, with health now propelled to the forefront of that. The interaction of these forces can I think be toxic or benign for communities, cities, towns, countries, depending on the degree to which the political leadership understands that all these factors are interrelated and acts accordingly.”

When Covid comes We cannot ignore the Covid-19 pandemic that has overrun the zeitgeist and threatens to have an irredeemable impact on the genius loci of many towns and cities, too. How does this change a city’s narrative? “We’ve had ten years of change in ten weeks of lockdown,” says Evans. “People are reflecting on the wider consequences of the pandemic – for example, the clear health benefits from a reduction of air pollution as a result of less car traffic and beginning to reflect on whether we need to travel so much after all if this is a route to slowing climate change and environmental

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INTERVIEW: BRIAN EVANS

BOOKS FOR A BUDDING URBANIST

A theorist as much as he is a practitioner, Evans credits a number of thinkers and writers with influencing his view of his vocation. In particular, having taken a landscape-orientated degree, he says that Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature is “the book that changed my life” and “perhaps what drew me to a practice with a landscape focus”. We asked Brian for the five books that did most to shape his outlook. n Townscape by Gordon Cullen n The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch n The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs n Design of Cities by Edmund Bacon n Design with Nature by Ian McHarg

damage. Suddenly activities previously seen by many as bohemian or niche – locally sourced food for example – are becoming better understood.” There are challenges ahead, he says, but also opportunities. In a way, the postponement of COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference which Glasgow was due to host in November 2020, illustrates both. The conference will now take place a year later. Evans was involved

“People are starting to think about the degree to which health and climate change are interrelated”

“URBANISM IS THE PURSUIT OF URBANITY, WHICH IS PERHAPS A TAUTOLOGY”

in COP26 as both city urbanist and an advisor to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. “There are possible consequences, not just for Glasgow, internationally as well, but there might also be opportunities,” he stresses. “There has been, to some extent, a softening of the rhetoric [around climate change], but we don’t know the degree to which that has been born out of the pandemic. People are starting to think about the degree to which health and climate change are interrelated. “Internationally we’ve lost a year in which we could have perhaps advanced the protocols, although one wonders whether a conference held this year would have stood any more chance of success than previous ones, with the international wrangling that’s going on at the moment.” As well as a “ﬂowering of local community support” he has observed during this time of lockdown, Evans has been impressed by “the ability of certain sectors of industry to be so adaptive” to the new scenario. “One of the challenges for governments at every level will be to work out what was successfully adapted in this period, and what has maybe had its day, like huge scale aviation for example. How could we capture and repurpose the skills of people who work in aviation while slimming that sector down?” Questions remain, however, over the permanence of any changes. “I think there’s a passing chance, if the transition of public space for physical distancing is done well, that people may not want to go back. I do think there will be an irrevocable change in the way we live and work post-Covid.” Is Evans optimistic for Glasgow? “I am, but it’s embedded in my DNA to be optimistic. If we’re thoughtful and we work collectively and in an integrated way, we can confront and overcome the challenges we face.” n Matt Moody is section editor for The Planner

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CLOSER LOOK: TRANSFORMING LAURIESTON LAURIESTON IS ONE OF EIGHT ‘TRANSFORMATIONAL REGENERATION AREAS’ IN GLASGOW, RECEIVING SUPPORT FROM THE CITY’S TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES PARTNERSHIP. WE TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT AN AWARDWINNING PROGRAMME

Laurieston, part of the Gorbals, was once a hive of people and industry. As early as the 1920s, city authorities were moving people out of overcrowded homes into new social housing elsewhere. As industry – and population – declined, many Victorian tenements were replaced with tower blocks. These, too, were cleared in the early 2000s for improvement of the area. Since 2007 this has focused on Laurieston, where a £140 million regeneration project is being delivered in three phases by New Gorbals Housing Association, developer Urban Union, Glasgow City Council, The Scottish Government and others.

Laurieston Living falls under the umbrella of Glasgow’s Transforming Communities Partnership, a regeneration and development programme across eight ‘Transformational Regeneration Areas’ (TRAs). Managed by local delivery groups, with community representation, each project aims to provide mixed-tenure communities with new housing, community facilities, green space and commercial units.

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CASE STUDY

In early 2020, Urban Union and Stallan-Brand submitted plans for the ﬁnal phase of the Laurieston Living development, one of eight ‘transformational’ regeneration schemes across Glasgow. Started in 2010, the development will deliver up to 295 homes for social rent and up to 618 for aﬀordable sale or mid-market rent, along with a new street layout, improved streetscapes, commercial space and a new park on a 13-acre site south of the River Clyde.

The project, set up by the council in partnership with the local community and New Gorbals Housing Association, is rooted in community. Developer Urban Union has ensured that Gorbals residents, community groups and businesses have been involved throughout, through a community beneﬁts programme, links with local groups and a citizen-inspired public art programme. Throughout construction, priority has also been given to local recruitment, training and procurement. “Local people and the existing community have been involved at all stages of the regeneration process as we work to transform the area and perceptions of it,” says Neil Mackay, the Urban Union managing director. “The aim has always been to build on and celebrate the rich history of the Gorbals.”

Phase one started in 2008 with the demolition of tower blocks at Stirlingfauld, followed by Norfolk Court in 2010, and construction of 201 homes for social rent. Their designs, commissioned by New Gorbals Housing Association commissioned designs from architects Page\Park and Elder and Cannon, were inspired by Glasgow’s grand tenements and won RIBA, RIAS and Scottish Design Awards. Another 163 homes followed, a mixture of private sale, mid-market rent, social rent and shared equity.

Phase two, another 200 ﬂats and townhouses designed by Anderson Bell + Christie, is due for completion in late 2021. This phase has already seen refurbishment of the listed Linen Bank Tenement by Southside Housing Association; there will also be improvements to Gorbals Street, a main thoroughfare on the perimeter of the site, and the ﬁrst phase of a linear park through the scheme, linking New Gorbals to the east with Tradeston to the west.

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CASES &DECISIONS

A N A LY S E D B Y M A T T M O O D Y / A P P E A L S @ T H E P L A N N E R . C O . U K

800-home scheme would ‘compound a terrible mistake’ Plans to complete a lapsed redevelopment of Woolwich town centre that began in 2007 have been rejected by the housing secretary, after an inspector heavily criticised both the original masterplan and the new proposals. The appeal concerned two parcels of land in Woolwich town centre that formed part of the original Love Lane Masterplan, which received outline permission in 2007. The plan was divided into four parts. Phases one – comprising a new civic centre and library – and two – a mixed-use development that included a large Tesco superstore – were completed, but the outline permission lapsed before phases three and four, both high-density residential developments, could be built. In 2017, developer Meyer Homes sought permission for a new scheme intended to complete the redevelopment of the area, now known as ‘Woolwich Central’. The scheme used the 2007 outline permission as a starting point, but did not seek to claim it as a fallback position. It planned to build a 27-storey tower on the phase three site, offering retail and offices on the ground and first floors, with 206 flats above. On the phase four site, seven blocks of between nine and 16 storeys would provide another 598 flats. All affordable housing would be provided at the phase four site. The scheme was rejected

EXPERT COMMENT Councillor Sarah Merrill, cabinet member for planning and regeneration at Greenwich Borough Council, said:

( “We have had some hard battles recently. We need housing but not at any price. ( “This proposal for a tower in the middle of a town centre square completely flew in the face of all ideas about ‘placemaking’. ( “I’m really grateful for the care the inspector gave to this and also to the community of Woolwich for all its work in opposing the plans.”

LOCATION: Woolwich AUTHORITY: Greenwich Borough Council

INSPECTOR: Paul Griffiths PROCEDURE: Recovered appeal DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ E5330/W/19/3233519

in January 2019 before being recovered by the housing secretary in September that year. An inquiry convened by inspector Paul Griﬃths met in November 2019. Griﬃths strongly criticised phases one and two of

the scheme, noting their “profoundly negative inﬂuence” on the town centre. He was particularly scathing about the “heinous” Tesco store, remarking on its Carbuncle Cup win – awarded to “the ugliest building of the year” – in 2014. He called the granting of outline permission for a tower at the site in 2007 “a terrible mistake”, commenting that its impact on the grade-I listed Royal Brass Foundry nearby was “seemingly of little importance to anyone, including English Heritage”. The tower now proposed would be “of a height that would dwarf anything around it, existing or proposed”, said the inspector, and the phase four scheme would be “an uninspiring design of nine

rectilinear, monolithic blocks that are now common in many town centres” that was “not life-affirming”. Recommending the scheme for refusal, Griffiths said that while the phase three and four sites needed to be developed, the appeal scheme would “compound the errors” of 2007. In his decision, the housing secretary Robert Jenrick ruled that the design of the tower, although “very pleasing when viewed in isolation”, would be of an incongruous height that would harm its surroundings. Jenrick also agreed with his inspector’s findings on heritage impact, concurring that the proposed tower would “form a competitive and distracting feature” that would “dilute the focus” on the area’s heritage assets. He also agreed that the scheme would not provide a reasonable living environment for occupiers of its single-aspect units.

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These are just a few of the 40 or so appeal reports that we post each month on our website: www.theplanner.co.uk/decisions

771-home scheme would ‘fail to set design benchmark’ The housing secretary has joined Sadiq Khan in rejecting plans for the ﬁrst phase of the Charlton Riverside regeneration masterplan, citing the scheme’s failure to ‘promote a high quality of design’.

Jenrick allows urban addition despite bat concerns

I M AG E S | I STO C K / G E T T Y

The housing secretary has approved controversial plans for a 1,210-home urban extension to Newton Abbot in Devon, despite the efforts of a pressure group that won three seats on the district council. The application, lodged by a local farming family, received 350 objections to just one letter of support. A local lobby group, Newton Says No, won three seats in the 2019 district council elections on a platform of opposing the scheme. The council’s primary concern was the scheme’s impact on the South Hams special area of conservation (SAC), which consists of five sites dispersed across the South Devon area, all between seven and 14 kilometres from the appeal site. The SAC is an important habitat for Greater Horseshoe Bats, described as “one of the rarest and most threatened bat species in Europe”. The council considered that the scheme would impact the “complex network of commuting routes” that the bats use to travel between roost sites. As part of his appropriate assessment, housing secretary Robert Jenrick took into account the appellants’ mitigation plan for the bats, which included proposals to establish “networks of connected and continuous habitat corridors extending across the appeal site and the wider landscape”, preserving the area’s permeability and allowing bats to continue commuting. These corridors would also provide reinforced hedgerows and a wetland sustainable LOCATION: Newton Abbot urban drainage area to provide additional AUTHORITY: Teignbridge District Council foraging grounds for the bats. INSPECTOR: Frances Mahoney Jenrick was satisfied that were these measures PROCEDURE: Recovered appeal secured by condition, there would be no adverse DECISION: Allowed impacts on the SAC. Concluding that the REFERENCE: APP/ development’s benefits P1133/W/18/3205558 were sufficient to outweigh its heritage harm and any other concerns, Jenrick allowed the appeal.

The appeal concerned developer Rockwell’s plan for what would form the first phase of the Charlton Riverside masterplan, a major regeneration project in southeast London. The scheme proposed a total of 771 new flats alongside 35,000 square feet of community and commercial floor space. Greenwich councillors rejected the application in July 2019 against the advice of their planning officers, before it was called in by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. He rejected the scheme, saying: “We must deliver good growth, not growth at any cost.” It was recovered by housing secretary Robert Jenrick and an inquiry convened by inspector Mike Robins met in December 2019. Robins recommended the scheme for refusal, ruling that as the first scheme to come forward as part of the Charlton Riverside masterplan, it failed to set a high-quality design benchmark for the future development of the area. Jenrick agreed with his inspector’s finding that the

LOCATION: Charlton AUTHORITY: Greenwich Borough Council

INSPECTOR: Mike Robins PROCEDURE: Recovered appeal DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ G6100/W/19/3233585

masterplan for the area was a “carefully crafted and wellinformed document” that was “well considered and robust”, and that the appeal scheme did not comply with it in design terms. The council was also vexed about the scheme’s effect on a recording studio north of the site, which is owned by Glenn Tilbrook and is the base for his band, Squeeze. Jenrick was satisfied that any effects on the studio could be managed. Overall, however, he ruled that the scheme’s failure to offer a high quality of design carried decisive weight.

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C&D { C Jenrick rejects housing scheme following High Court order

LOCATION: Woburn Sands AUTHORITY: Milton Keynes Council INSPECTOR: Tom GilbertWooldridge PROCEDURE: Recovered appeal DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ Y0435/W/17/3169314

The appeal concerned 15 hectares of undeveloped land to the north of Woburn Sands, near Milton Keynes. In July 2016, developer Wavendon Properties applied for outline permission to build 203 homes on the site. In October 2017, the thensecretary of state Sajid Javid recovered the subsequent appeal despite having initially refused to do so. Against the advice of his inspector, he refused permission. But that decision was quashed by the High Court

Go-ahead for divisive Notting Hill regeneration project The housing secretary has taken his inspector’s advice to approve a regeneration scheme in Kensington after negotiations with the Mayor of London led the developer to double the scheme’s affordable housing. Plans to redevelop the site, currently occupied by a largely vacant 12-storey 1960s building called Newcombe House, had been discussed since 2011. In 2017, developer KCS submitted plans for several buildings ranging from three to 18 storeys, incorporating 46 flats, as well as offices, shops and a GP surgery. After the council refused permission, the application was called in by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Following discussions with the Greater London Authority, the developer altered the

scheme to increase the total number of ﬂats to 55 and the proportion of aﬀordable homes from 17 per cent to 35 per cent. On this basis, Khan backed the scheme, but it was then called in for determination by the housing secretary. A petition started by the Skyline Campaign gathered more than 1,000 signatures, but the plans eventually received the

in June 2019 and returned to the government for redetermination. Current housing secretary Robert Jenrick asked another inspector, Tom GilbertWooldridge, to hold another inquiry in January. GilbertWooldridge recommended the scheme for dismissal. Jenrick agreed with his inspector’s ﬁndings that the council was able to prove a ﬁve-year housing land supply in any of the scenarios discussed at the inquiry. He decided that

the scheme did not conﬂict with either the Oxford to Cambridge expressway or east-west railway projects, but was contrary to local and neighbourhood planning policies. He also found “less than substantial” harm to a grade II listed farmhouse. He concluded that while the scheme’s beneﬁts were enough to outweigh the harm to the farmhouse in the heritage balance, the overall balance “indicated a decision in line with the development plan” and he refused consent.

backing of the Kensington Society. Following an eight-day inquiry in November 2019, inspector Christina Downes recommended the scheme for approval. Despite acknowledging that it would cause some harm to heritage assets including Kensington Palace, she concluded that the scheme’s “package of beneﬁts” carried decisive weight. In his decision letter, Jenrick agreed with Downes’ comments that the proposed 18-storey tower’s “slipped form, articulated design and consistency of materials would provide a balanced and well-considered

composition” that would be “visually engaging, slender and elegant”. In the planning balance, he found that the provision of additional aﬀordable housing carried decisive weight, in light of the council’s “poor record of delivery... against a very large need”

I M AG E S | I STO C K / S H U T T E RSTO C K / A L A M Y

The housing secretary has blocked plans for 203 homes near Milton Keynes after his predecessor Sajid Javid’s decision to refuse permission was successfully challenged by the developer in court.

LOCATION: Notting Hill AUTHORITY: Kensington & Chelsea Borough Council

INSPECTOR: Christina Downes PROCEDURE: Calledin decision DECISION: Allowed REFERENCE: APP/ G6100/V/19/3225884

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DECISIONS DIGEST{

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Inspector sides with council over ‘acoustic prison’ homes Plans for 41 aﬀordable homes in Bridgend, South Wales, have been blocked by an inspector, who agreed that sealing all their windows to mitigate noise from a nearby industrial estate would be “oppressive”. bit.ly/planner0820-bridgend

179home scheme ‘entirely inconsistent’ with identified need

Fallback justifies harmful homes in AONB and WHS

Plans to build 179 flats on brownfield land in Luton were rejected by an inspector, who found the mix of too many one-bed flats and not enough larger homes was ‘inconsistent’ with local need. bit.ly/planner0820-luton yp

Six aﬀordable homes in Cornwall that would “greatly compromise” views of the surrounding AONB and World Heritage Site can go ahead, after an inspector decided that an extant fallback scheme would be more harmful. bit.ly/planner0820-aonb

Harmful railings allowed at grade II* listed harbour

Newcastle housing scheme bloc blocked over odour concerns

An inspector has allowed plans for 652 metres of railings at Ramsgate Royal Harbour despite noting that they would cause heritage harm, ruling that the scheme’s public safety beneﬁts carried decisive weight. bit.ly/planner0820-harbour

An inspector has ruled that plans for 58 ﬂats downwind of pla Newcastle’s principal recycling New and waste treatment facility a could lead to odour complaints cou that would disrupt the city’s t waste management services. w bit.ly/planner0820-odour

Costs C t against council after blocking homes despite 7.43year supply

Conversion of pub’s living quarters incurs offsite levy

An inspector has granted permission for 20 homes on the edge of a Devon village despite conﬂict with one existing and two emerging plans – and has ordered the council to pay partial costs. bit.ly/planner0820-devon

A plan to convert a pub’s living quarters into a self-contained ﬂat that would have zero build costs but would increase the property’s value by £18,000 should incur an aﬀordable housing contribution, an inspector ruled. bit.ly/planner0820-levy

Barbed wire to defend doctor’s surgery not justified

Campaign wins as Jenrick vetoes waste incinerator

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The housing secretary has cited harm to the setting of a 12th century abbey in rejecting plans for a waste-to-energy facility in Cambridgeshire that stirred up controversy over air quality. bit.ly/planner0820incinerator

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Barbed wire installed on the roof of a GP surgery and pharmacy in Ashtonunder-Lyne to protect it from ‘congregating youths’ and break-ins gave it an unacceptably intimidating appearance, an inspector ruled. bit.ly/planner0820surgery

AUGUST 2020 / THE PLANNER

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LLegal landscape OPINION

From victim to asset? Valuing green The value and potential of green space and environmental improvement have been poorly understood within the planning system. Changes are afoot, but what sort of impact will they have? Keith Lancaster and Anita Kasseean take a look

Historically, biodiversity already exists in guidance and and landscape have been good practice will be written portrayed as victims in into statute. planning. Daily, we encounter The bill sanctions protectionist local plan biodiversity gain (BG) for new policies and objections based development. Some planning on ‘loss of’ arguments. authorities have already taken Issues such as green belt up BG,, augmenting their preand village greens are played existing duty of considering out in the courts. At their the conservation of heart is fear of change. There biodiversity under the Natural is an assumption Environment that change Rural “ONE SUCH is negative, Communities CHALLENGE IS especially if Act 2006. The THE INEVITABLE problem to initiated by FOCUS ON developers seen date has been ECONOMIC as profiteering enforcement REGENERATION outsiders. of that duty IN POST There has and generating PANDEMIC recently been sustained MONTHS AND a creeping improvement. YEARS” change towards a The bill allows positive planning for a register perspective in of BG sites and the presumption enables the sale in favour of of biodiversity sustainable credits to development and recognition developers. Landowners may of the inherent value of find they have new green the countryside with terms tradable assets. Biodiversity such as ‘natural capital’ and value must increase from ‘ecosystem services’. pre- to post-development by at least 10 per cent, a value Environment bill calculated by a centrally The Environment Bill published measurement. 2019/20 promises targets Planning conditions will for improving the natural secure a BG plan and its environment, waste and implementation may be resource efficiency, air and secured additionally through water quality, environmental obligations or covenants, standards, and nature and both of which will be biodiversity. Importantly, what land charges. On-site BG

is preferable to oﬀ-site mitigation or purchase of credits. Ultimately, the government wants beneﬁts maintained for 30 years. Other changes are afoot. The chances of a new planning act are high, following the arrival of the planning white paper. Environmental impact is ripe for reform. For too long planning has failed to consider development life cycle performance against what was originally analysed, with little monitoring or amendments being fed back into consented developments. There is also the opportunity for homogenous environmental databases to establish regular baseline reporting of natural capital, given global climate change obligations with which such changes would align. Much uncertainty remains on whether zoning could enhance green capital. To the extent zoning is introduced, designations would have to be informed by parameters such as environmental enhancement and natural disturbance. Green economy The increasing focus on green assets promises to be a core element in circular economy thinking by ensuring that sustainability is embedded

at its heart. More crucially, it oﬀers to add the principle of enhancement to the closed loop system of ‘make-usereuse-remake-recycle’. Legal framework Coming challenges could see traction lost. One is the inevitable focus on economic regeneration post-pandemic. The second is divergence from the EU’s direction of travel on green enhancement. A focused legal framework on valuing green will enable this economic recovery. The beneﬁt for development lies in a change to the societal mindset, whereby green is no longer seen as a victim to be protected but as an asset to be enhanced. Keith Lancaster and Anita Kasseean are legal directors in the environment and planning team at Blake Morgan LLP

In brief The planning system is moving to a recognition of the value of green space Biodiversity gain, natural capital accounting and green-leaning circular economy thinking are all on the agenda But, without a strong legal framework, postpandemic regeneration and diversion from the EU policy could threaten these gains

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EVENTS

CASES

LEGISLATION

NEWS

ANALYSIS

NEWS ‘Landmark’ housing supply ruling praised Lawyers have hailed a judgment by the Court of Session as a landmark decision that establishes for the first time in Scotland the use of the ‘tilted balance’ in cases where there is a shortfall in housing land supply. The ruling followed a case brought by developer Gladman Developments over Inverclyde Council’s refusal of a 45-home scheme proposed for green belt land at Carsemeadow, Quarriers Village, Kilmacolm. Scottish reporters turned down the subsequent appeal. Gladman was represented in court by legal practice Burges Salmon. Partner Craig Whelton said the decision was set to have significant ramifications for planning in Scotland. Whelton pointed out that in 2014, Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) introduced a presumption in favour of development that contributes towards sustainable development and is a significant consideration when a local authority has a shortfall in its five-year housing land supply. This policy is similar to the National Planning Policy Framework in England, where it is recognised that a shortage in housing land activates a ‘tilted balance’ in favour of the granting of planning permission. Whelton commented: “We’re pleased to have supported Gladman with its successful appeal in this landmark case. The court’s judgment, and quashing of the appeal, should put planning decision-makers on notice as to the weight to be attached to SPP, and the proper application of the presumption and the tilted balance.” Inverclyde Council had refused the scheme as contrary to existing and emerging development plans.

Consent for co-living scheme quashed The High Court has quashed planning permission for a 200-bedroom co-living apartment block in Castleknock, Dublin 15. In January, An Bord Pleanála had granted permission for developer Richard Barrett’s Bartra Capital to deliver a build-to-rent shared living development on the site of Brady’s pub on the Old Navan Road. It was granted contrary to the recommendations of its own inspector. Local people, under the banner of the Talbot and Old Navan Road Residents Brady’s Task Force, forced a judicial review into the decision. The board said it approved the development as the location was in keeping with sustainable urban housing standards and was satisﬁed the development met the requirements for shared accommodation. But it conceded the case on the grounds it had “failed to give adequate reasons for its decision and in particular failed to give adequate reasons for disagreeing with the recommendation” of its inspector’s report on the development. Bartra will have to make a new application to the board to pursue the development.

Council wins legal challenge against PINS A decision by the Planning Inspectorate to grant outline permission on appeal for nine dwellings on Station Road in Fordham has been quashed by the High Court. East Cambridgeshire District Council refused the application due to its location outside the development envelope. The applicant appealed. The council said that, should the decision go unchallenged, it would “seriously” undermine the Fordham Neighbourhood Plan and all neighbourhood plans in the district. Also, the council was sure that there had been a miscalculation of its housing land supply by the inspector. Anna Bailey, leader of East Cambridgeshire District Council, said: “We knew the inspectorate had got it wrong and we needed to make a stand. We will continue to support all communities across our district that wish to develop their own neighbourhood plan.” The council has been awarded all costs relating to the case. A diﬀerent inspector will consider the appeal.

LEGAL BRIEFS Ministry calls for light touch on outdoor stall enforcement The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has written to local authorities urging them not to undertake enforcement action that would result in unnecessary restrictions on outdoor stalls, Local Government Lawyer reports. bit.ly/planner0820-stalls

Scottish Parliament petitioned over ancient woodland Campaigners have lodged a petition at the Scottish Parliament calling for Scotland’s remaining fragments of ancient and native woodlands to receive “full legal protection” after arguing that current safeguards are neither stringent enough nor ﬁt for purpose, Glasgow Herald reports. bit.ly/planner0820-woods

Business and Planning Bill, 20192021 Nicholle Kingsley and Sue Chadwick of Pinsent Masons looks at the government bill responsible for temporary changes to planning law in the wake of Covid-19. bit.ly/planner0820-bill

Substitute consent regime ‘incompatible with EU regulations’ The Irish Supreme Court has ruled that the substitute consent regime is incompatible with EU regulations on environmental assessment following cases involving quarries in Counties Monaghan and Kildare. bit.ly/planner0820-eulaw

Young Planners Ask an Expert: Acoustics in Planning A webinar, at 5pm on 18th August, giving you the chance to ask an expert about all aspects of noise and acoustics in planning. bit.ly/planner0820-acoustics

Leadership and legal change on the high street This report, by Dentons partner Roy Pinnock, argues that very few of the measures needed to rejuvenate town centres require a change in the law. bit.ly/planner0820-dentons

Latest changes to the GPDO Martin Goodall blogs on recent changes to the general permitted development order announced by the government, both temporary and permanent. bit.ly/planner0820-goodall

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NEWS RTPI news pages are edited by Will Finch at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL

life. What we must not do is ignore what it has taught us about the importance of sustainable, resilient and inclusive places.” Sue’s speech was just one of a number of highlights of The Planner Live Online, a weekView speeches, speech webinars long series of digital sessions and discuss discussions on our looking at how planning is YouTube channel coping in an age of crisis and youtube.com/ youtub at its role in post-pandemic theRTPI theR recovery. Following Sue’s opening speech, a range of webinars were held over the week on topics including the implications of Covid-19 on public space design, planning’s contribution to economic and social recovery, and post-Covid urban mobility in low income countries. There were also a series of discussions on the RTPI’s YouTube channel featuring leading figures such as Planning Inspectorate CEO Sarah Richards and the Chief Planners from each of the nations of the UK.

Beckenham Place Park in Lewisham featured in a short ﬁlm to accompany Plan the World We Need, launched by the RTPI on the opening day of The Planner Live Online. Discover the other locations used in the ﬁlm by watching it in full at bit.ly/planner0820-campaign

Planners vital for green recovery, says President in online conference address

RTPI President Sue Manns opened the recent Planner Live Online with an impassioned address calling for a ‘better, greener, post-Covid world’. Launching the RTPI’s new campaign, Plan the World We Need, she said that the time had come for plans, policies and actions that respond not only to the lessons learned from the pandemic, but also to pre-existing challenges such as climate change. She said: “The purpose of Plan the World We Need is to promote the key role of planners and planning in

a place-based recovery and in the creation of a better, greener post-Covid19 world. “As spatial planners, it is our responsibility to lead this placebased recovery. Spatial planners have the skills and expertise to bring together and balance competing needs and demands and create resilient, sustainable places that support strong communities, both for those alive today and for generations to come. “The past few months brought into sharp focus the strengths and weaknesses of our places and way of

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n What do you think a post-Covid world should look like? Watch Sue’s speech in full and leave a comment at youtu.be/Mw0yzf6YDZk

5,000

The number of views at the time of writing for the films, webinars and online discussions published on the RTPI's YouTube channel during Planner Live Online

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Editorial E: rtpinews@rtpi.org.uk

RTPI (switchboard) T: 020 7929 9494

Registered charity no. 262865 Registered charity in Scotland SCO37841

M Y V I E W O N … T H E D I G I T I S AT I O N O F P L A N N I N G Planner Nissa Shahid (right) believes that Covid-19 has proven that the profession must embrace new technologies and innovation The pandemic, and speciﬁcally the need to work remotely, has shown that the digitisation of planning is a clear and pressing priority requiring resourcing and direction. It has been uplifting to realise that this process is not about ‘replacing the human’, but instead it is about how digital tools can help planners to do their job more eﬀectively such as by modelling developments in real-time on digital platforms, or by opening up engagement channels remotely and therefore capturing previously excluded audiences. We must also realise that our concept of place and space is changing, and with it how we plan for a post-pandemic world – for example, the technologies and methods being used in planning economic recovery on high streets

could be repurposed to plan our cities. We could also be using more livedata modelling to plan for extreme scenarios such as climate change, or, even better, use real-time data to model how to plan our cities to reduce our carbon footprints. We are going to see these changes in place and priorities become increasingly evident as we realise that a lot of our work can be done remotely. As a profession, we need to embrace digital as part of our post-Covid world and we need to make it work for us, not replace us.

n Nissa is Senior Urbanist at the Connected Places Catapult. She was talking to the RTPI as part of Wider Insights: The Planning Profession’s Rapid Response to Covid-19. To download Wider Insights Part 2, visit bit.ly/planner0820-widerinsights

POSITION POINTS

SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT JAMES HARRIS, RTPI POLICY AND NETWORKS MANAGER The RTPI is pleased to support Garden Villages and Garden Towns: Visions & Reality, a report from Transport for New Homes which shows the fundamental importance of well-designed development in the right location. Transport for New Homes examined plans for 20 Garden Communities and found that they risk creating up to 200,000 car-dependent households, generating high levels of traffic on surrounding roads including motorways. While we need new housing, this cannot be at the expense of wider objectives around public health, resilience and the rapid transition to net zero carbon. The pandemic has demonstrated the importance of walking and cycling, and we cannot afford to build new settlements which lack basic levels of accessibility. We need sustainable transport at the heart of our plans for the future, with effective and well-resourced strategic planning, stronger policy and upfront investment in the right infrastructure. For more from the RTPI on sustainable transport, visit https://www.rtpi.org.uk/policyand-research/topics/transport-and-infrastructure/

PLANNING REFORM VICTORIA HILLS, RTPI CHIEF EXECUTIVE The planner-bashing rhetoric coming out of government in recent weeks has deeply concerned me – not only on behalf of the planning industry but also on behalf of every single community in the UK. Without proper planning, developers will be given carte blanche to build in places which perpetuate car dependency and health-sapping deprivation, deny neighbours of sunlight and daylight, erect tall buildings in the wrong places, or build houses in areas that may give little consideration to the health and wellbeing of the people who will live in them. Sweeping away the planning system is not the answer. Planners are not a barrier, they are a facilitator of healthy, happy sustainable communities. Let’s address 21st century issues with long-term strategic planning to integrate economic, infrastructure and environmental priorities. Let’s plan the world we need and build back better for the beneﬁt of all. Read Victoria’s open letter in full at https://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/5720/open-letterplantheworldweneed.pdf

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NEWS

RTPI N E W S

RTPI awards recognise work of apprenticeship champions Clockwise from top left: Education and Lifelong Learning Committee chair Stefano Smith, Philip Ridley, Sue Manns, Hannah Blunstone

Two RTPI members have been presented with Outstanding Service Awards for their work in championing and leading the design and development of the Chartered Town Planner Degree Apprenticeship. Hannah Blunstone MRTPI, Director of Planning at CBRE UK, and Philip Ridley MRTPI, Head of Planning and Coastal Management at East Suﬀolk Council, were presented with their awards by RTPI President Sue Manns FRTPI during a virtual meeting of the Institute’s Education and Lifelong Learning Committee. In particular, Sue congratulated Philip and Hannah on their innovative

leadership of the employer-led Trailblazer group, which was set up to lead the process and secure government backing for the apprenticeship. She said: “Apprenticeships can play an important role for planning to attract diverse local talent and beneﬁt our fantastic profession as we support a green recovery. I present Hannah and Philip with this award on behalf of the RTPI Board of Trustees and the profession as a whole. Thank you for your outstanding service in developing a new generation of future planners.” Thanks to the hard work of Hannah and Philip and other members of the Trailblazer group, 190 young planners have now taken up degree apprenticeships at RTPI-accredited planning schools around the country. Hannah and Philip are the ﬁrst RTPI members in 2020 to receive Outstanding Service Awards, presented to members who have shown sustained, outstanding and active service to the Institute.

Climate impact action plan

The RTPI has appointed RSK Environment Ltd to prepare a Climate Impact Assessment for the Institute. RSK will also produce an ‘action plan’ outlining ways the RTPI can reduce its carbon footprint. RSK, appointed following an open tender process, is a multidisciplinary environmental and engineering consultancy that provides world-leading and well-respected greenhouse gas accounting and reporting expertise. RSK Associate Director and Carbon

Team Leader Dave Allen said: “We’re looking forward to working with the RTPI to support them on this important journey from consultation and assessment, through benchmarking and consensus building, to the development of actions that will reduce their climate impact.” Ian Tant MRTPI, RTPI Immediate Past President and Board Champion for climate action, said: “With RSK’s expert help and input, I’m sure that the climate action plan for the RTPI

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RTPI TRUST BURSARY WINNERS Four undergraduate planning students have been announced as winners of RTPI Trust-sponsored bursaries to support their studies. Scott Wiles (Newcastle University), Zuzana Muckova (Birmingham City University), Elias Aldahan (Newcastle University) and Chloe Young (University of Sheﬃeld) have been awarded the grants – worth £2,000 each - in recognition of their academic excellence. Th e RTPI Trust Bursaries, awarded annually to undergraduate students on accredited planning degrees, are designed to promote and support diversity within, and widen access to, the planning profession. Nominees were asked to think creatively about the future of the High Street, considering pedestrianisation, pollution and other issues impacting economic and community life. Recipients were chosen by a judging panel made up of RTPI President Sue Manns FRTPI, RTPI Trust representative John Acres MRTPI, and Dr Kat Salter MRTPI of the University of Birmingham. n For more on the RTPI’s commitment to a diverse planning profession, visit https://www.rtpi.org.uk/about-the-rtpi/ corporate-strategy/change/

will help cement the Institute’s position as a leading advocate for sustainable placemaking through a clear commitment to tackling climate change.” The project features initial consultation and data collection before moving on to stakeholder workshops and action planning. It will conclude with the publication of the Action Plan summary. n The RTPI committed to undertaking a climate impact assessment and action plan in its Corporate Strategy 2020-2030, launched earlier this year. More information at bit.ly/ planner0820-corporatestrategy

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G PLANNIN AHEAD MEMBER NEWS

NEW MEMBERS

Key dates for 2020

Congratulations to the following planners who were elected to Chartered Membership on 8 May 2020

RTPI Online Events 2020 For the very latest

The RTPI’s physical events have been news, follow us cancelled until the end of the year due on Twitter to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, so @RTPIPlanners we’re bringing the best of our events and training programme to you online. As well as a great range of webinars and free learning modules, we’re also organising regular online discussions featuring RTPI policy experts and some of the UK’s leading planners. If you’re not able to watch as they go out, many of these events are available to view for free on the RTPI’s YouTube channel, where you can also ﬁnd the webinars and YouTube Premieres that proved so popular at the recent Planner Live Online. n For more information about RTPI Online Events, visit https://www.rtpi.org.uk/online-events2020/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/theRTPI

New online CPD masterclasses Boost your CPD with RTPI Learn’s online masterclasses – live interactive half-day webinars with a wraparound of reﬂective activities before and after the webinar over a three-month period. Led by an expert trainer, each masterclass is aligned to the RTPI Core CPD Framework to prioritise your learning and to fulﬁl your annual CPD requirement. n For more information, visit www.rtpi.org.uk/training or email training@rtpi.org.uk SUSTAINABILITY APPRAISAL This online masterclass will introduce you to the RTPI’s recently published practice advice note on SEP Sustainability Appraisal/ Strategic Environmental Assessment (SA/ SEA). Through a combination of expert trainer input, discussion and group work, delegates will develop knowledge of relevant SA/ SEA legislation, earn a summary of the SA/ SEA process and the relationship to planning processes, and gain insight into how SA/SEA has been undertaken alongside development plan making in practice.

n To book your place, visit bit.ly/planner0820-sa-sea

East Midlands Leanne Clark Elizabeth Crump Susan Heron Chi Ling Thomas McGowan Andrew Needham Megan Pashley Felicity Webber East of England Jonathan Binks David Buckley Alexander Dean Rachel Edney Natalie Harris Catherine Hewitt Robert Locke Rebekah Morgan Martin Plummer Gareth Pritchard Elizabeth Thorogood International Laura Baker Sze Lau Jason McElhoney Hiroaki Ohashi George Oldroyd Lake So Oluwole Abayomi Soyinka Long Chi Wu Ireland Matthew O’Connor London Arinola Akinyemi Anna Anastasiou Emily Bent Michael Birch Claire Booth Julian Buckle Adam Cornish Chidiebele Freeman Michael Gordon Olivia Halper

Rachel Hopkins Sarah Jardel Michele Katzler Asbaha Khanom Marina Lai Junior Moka Adam Price Luis Rojas Bonilla Nadia Shojaie Fiona Sibley James Smith Alistair Taylor Tefera Tibebe Nathan Tonge John Wilkinson North East Cheryl Askell Janet Langsford North West John Copestake Michael Dinn Mateo Espinosa Philip Gordon Lauren Hargreaves Stephen Irvine Tsz Lam Simon Newall Ben Sandover Andrew Strachan Sarah Witherley Katarina Zulver Northern Ireland Erin Donaldson Giovanni Loperﬁdo Laura Mellon Scotland Alexander Calderwood Heather Ennis Craig O’Holleran Charlotte Williams South East Katherine Alger Jo Baker Kathryn Block

Simon Cater Kerry Csuka Alice Drew Emily Fitzpatrick Jordan Guy David Hancock Sarah Hockin Esther Mngola Stefania Petrosino Richard Reid Thomas Sharman Daniel Young South West Gareth William Edgley Nicole Gillett Stacey Hartrey Declan Lau Chloe Pitt Hayley Richardson Eleanor Slack David Smart James Tavernor Wales Kathryn Attrill Ruth Evans West Midlands Natasha Blackmore da Silva Shamim Chowdhury Anna Evans Matthew Hardy Bethany Harris Stuart Hodgetts Claire Preston Thomas Ryan Sophie Serdetschniy Nigel Simkin Joshua Singh Yorkshire Stella Heeley Tabitha Howson Natasha McCann Diane Wilson

IN MEMORIAM It is with regret that we announce the deaths of the following members. We oﬀer our sincere condolences to their families and colleagues. East Midlands David Woodhall London Adrian Dennis Patricia Castledine North West Christopher McGough Fiona Hore Victor Basil Scotland Ian Fraser

Maurice Dobson Andrew McNab Charles Prosser Angela Adams Edward Coogans South East David Powell Frederick Mair Kenneth Bourne Nicholas Shute Richard Harman South West Alan Whitworth

Geoﬀrey Tucker Vinton Hall Alan Albert Williamson West Midlands Claire Heaven George Castle Hazel Bailey Yorkshire David Bridge James Gale

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RECRUITMENT ADVERTISEMENTS

Principal Development Management Ofﬁcer Grade: I Salary: £32,029 - £34,788 per annum

Housing Delivery Account Manager Grade: I Salary: £32,029 - £34,788

Senior Development Management Ofﬁcer Grade: H Salary: £29,636 - £31,371 per annum

Development Management Officers Career Grade: D to F Salary: £19,945 - £26,317 per annum The Council’s newly created Place-shaping and Economic Growth service is looking for a range of proactive, creative and customer focussed officers to help to deliver sustainable, high quality homes and jobs across our diverse and characterful district. This is an exciting time for the team with a new Local Plan in place, a new focus on housing and strategic site delivery and a key role in delivering many of the Council’s strategic priorities and projects. Our office is a brand-new, attractive and welcoming working environment and we offer flexible and agile working supported with technology to make it seamless. We offer a childcare voucher scheme, car and bicycle loans and leisure facility discounts. Importantly, we are also keen to ensure we support your individual training and development needs.

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We are a friendly and forward thinking team looking for like minded professionals to join us in delivering our success. If this sounds like you – we would like to hear from you. Closing date for all posts is the 5th August 2020. Tests to be held week commencing 17 August Interviews to be held week commencing 17 August To view all posts go to: jobs.theplanner.co.uk/jobs To apply, please visit our website: www.harrogate.gov.uk/info/20007/careers Please call 01423 500600 and ask for the HR Support Team if you need further assistance. Harrogate Borough Council requires all applicants to complete the council’s application form and attach their Suitability Statement and CV.

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Throughout the pandemic, organisations are still actively and successfully recruiting for planning professionals. Here is a selection of the most recent opportunities from a few of those organisations working with The Planner to recruit the best quality candidates in the marketplace.

Major Projects Planner

Salary: Grade 9 i.e. £34,788 £38,813 pa Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire

Planning Specialist x2

Principal Planning Of·cer (Strategic Development)

Salary: £35,934 £38,813 pa Location: Leicestershire

Salary: 1x full time role Grade H £35,934 £37,849pa & 1x part time role Grade F £26,999 £28,785 (pro rata) pa Location: Taunton, Somerset

Support Team Supervisor Salary: Band D £27,608 to £30,245 Location: Sevenoaks

Directorate for Economic Growth and Regeneration Principal Planning Of·cer (Development Management) Salary: £36,876 £40,760 Location: Lancaster

To a dve r ti s e pl ease em ai l : t he pl a n n e r jobs@redact ive. co. uk or ca l l 0 2 0 7 880 623 2

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Principal Planning Associate Salary: £55,000 £60,000 pa Location: Kettering

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ACTIVITIES There’s been much positive response to the profession’s moving of conference activity online, with Planner Live Online a summer highlight. We make no apology for shedding further light on some of those sessions here, and we urge you to check the RTPI’s own YouTube channel to access a ﬂurry of online events posted there in recent weeks. WHAT WE'RE WATCHING...

Why China banned skyscrapers Construction video channel The B1M has published an intriguing four minute video on the sudden ending of China’s obsession with super high-rise skyscrapers, which have eﬀectively been banned this year New rules strictly restrict the blind planning and construction of super high-rise skyscrapers with a maximum buildings height of 500 metres, and just 250 unless absolutely necessary. Local governments have also been forced to tighten the approval process fo towers over 100 metres, protect history buildings and employ architects to best represent Chinese culture. It’s quite a shift in direction. tinyurl.com/ planner0820-China

an annual gathering of chief planning oﬃcers from across England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The gathering has been organised by the RTPI with the aim of sharing best practice, making the case for resourcing ourcing planning and the important role of putting planning at the heart of local ocal government delivery for the quality ity places that people want to live in.. This year, perhaps unsurprisingly, the session discussed how the planning profession ession is responding to Covid-19.

new. This launch event features presentations by many of the handbook’s authors including National Association of Planning Enforcement (NAPE) chairman Neill Whittaker MRTPI and Izindi

tinyurl.com/planner0820-HOPE

Housing after COVID19: RTPI TPI South East Online Events This RTPI online event from the South East region considers ways in which the housing crisis could be e tackled, from new resourcing and d powers promoting development to deregulation aimed at ‘unleashing the market’. Good planning can be an important part of the solution – but how? The RTPI’s Tom Kenny chairs, joined by Kevin Leigh (33 Bedford Row), Maria Dunn (Birmingham City Council) and Neal Hudson (BuiltPlace). tinyurl.com/ planner0820-SEHousing

HOPE: Heads Of Planning Everywhere

RTPI/NAPE Enforcement Handbook launch

As well as Planner Live Online, RTPI Chief Executive Victoria Hills has been busy chairing this inaugural meeting of Heads of Planning Everywhere (HOPE),

An updated Planning Enforcement Handbook for England has been launched, and this ninety minute online launch session explains what’s

Visagie LARTPI, both of Ivy Legal, Scott Stemp of No5 Chambers, and NAPE Deputy Chair Craig Allison of Hambleton District Council. tinyurl.com/planner0820enforcement

London Borough of Hounslow – Planning Committee meeting, 9th July You will not want to sit through all three hours and 38 minutes of this, but Hounslow's 9th July planning committee meeting helps showcase to the wider world how such meetings work. Hopefully the greater visibility of these events will help emphasise to a wider audience the necessary complexity in process involved. tinyurl.com/planner0820-hounslow

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LANDSCAPE

WHAT WE’RE READING... Hearts of Oak

Rewilding

by Eddie Robson ISBN: 9781250260536

by Paul Jepson (via Amazon. co.uk)

Hearts of Oak is a science fiction adventure from author Eddie Robson, who previously wrote ‘Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully’. The plot is thus: As a city expands, “the people of the land are starting to behave abnormally – or perhaps they’ve always behaved that way, and it’s normality that’s at fault”. This is essentially a farce in which a king confers with his best friend, a cat. From which you will not, perhaps, be surprised to hear of it being compared to the likes of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. “It’s about town planning, it’s about cats and it’s about the nature of reality.” What more could you possibly want?

Subtitled ‘The Radical New Science of Ecological Recovery', this book sees ecologists Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe explain this “new and progressive approach to conservation, blending radical scientific insights with practical innovations to revive ecological processes, benefiting people as well as nature”. Rewilding is certainly breathing new life into the conservation movement, and this book talks of the potential for ‘de-domesticated’ horses galloping across a Dutch ‘Serengeti’; beavers creating wetlands in the British countryside; giant tortoises restoring the wildlife of the Mauritian islands; and “perhaps one day even rhinos roaming the Australian outback".

From Mobility to Accessibility Jonathan Levine, Joe Grengs, Louis A. Merlin ISBN-10: 1501716077

This book seeks to ‘ﬂip the tables’ on standard models for evaluating regional transportation performance, its authors arguing for an ‘accessibility shift’ by which planning for transport is based on people’s ability to reach destinations, rather than on their ability to travel fast. Existing models for planning and evaluating transportation should be based not on movement but on the ability to reach destinations. From Mobility to Accessibility explains how an accessibility shift is compelled by ‘the fundamental purpose of transportation’. This shift ‘is impeded by conceptual obstacles regarding the nature of accessibility and its potential for guiding development of the built environment’.

WHAT WE'RE PLANNING... September will sees us interviewing Bev Hurley CBE, the new chair of the Institute of Economic Development with an interesting perspective on how social value needs to be baked into future economic activity – and how planning can help facilitate it. In October we'll be talking oversight with Niall Cussen, Ireland's planning

regulator. Across the two months, we will also be looking at planning for rail freight, the case for a federal UK and how culture can play its part in the UK's recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. As ever, you can contact us at editorial@theplanner. co.uk with your thoughts on stories or future feature themes that we should pursue.

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RTPI Online Events 2020

Access our online events from wherever you are: rtpi.org.uk/onlineevents2020

In a series of FREE weekly online events we will help planners navigate the current crisis, keep up their CPD and explore planning in a post-pandemic world. • Webinars • Online talks and discussions • Virtual conferences Members can also access free modules on a wide range of planning topics on RTPI Learn. #RTPIOnlineEvents

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