The Planner - January 2020

JANUARY 2020 CULTURE OF COMPLAINT // p.4 • DEFINING BEAUTY // p.6 • NEIGHBOURHOOD CLIMATE WATCH // p.24 • DEVELOPMENT INCORPORATED // p.28 • CASE STUDY: PLACE LADYWELL // p.33 • NATIONS & REGIONS: WEST MIDLANDS // 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

Bridge builder WHY INCOMING RTPI PRESIDENT SUE MANNS THINKS PLANNERS NEED STRONGER LINKS WITH COMMUNITIES

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CONTENTS

JANU ARY

13 NEWS 4 Culture of complaint 6 Planning APPG’s beautiful discussion 7 Increase in affordable housing delivered in 2018 8 ‘New Skeffington’ needed to return democracy to planning 10 Is tech a force for good?

11 Reservoir safety concerns blight Kilkeel development 12 Welsh Government could call in plans that ignore placemaking 13 Introducing Planner Live – the new RTPI Planning Convention

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20 20

“ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS FOR MANY PEOPLE – AND I STRUGGLED WITH IT WHEN I CAME INTO PLANNING – IS HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF A TWO­DIMENSIONAL PLAN ON A PIECE OF PAPER WHEN THE ACTUAL SPACE IS IN 3D”

29­30 JUNE 2020 / LONDON

20 OPINION 16 Louise BrookeSmith: Nothing new under the sun?

18 Patrick Clarke: Garden city principles provide a better vision for housing 18 David Jacques: Landscape policy needs to catch up with theory 19 Clare Linton: Joining the dots on transport will deliver better climate action 19 Karin Taylor: Everyday heritage must be at the heart of neighbourhood plans

QUOTE UNQUOTE

“MR AYTON’S TON’SS R RECITAL ECITAL OF … HOW THE BUILDING FEATURED IN HIS YOUTH PORTRAYS A CONVINCING AND INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE AREA AND OF THIS PARTICULAR BUILDING” INSPECTOR B M CAMPBELL REFERRING TO WITNESS EVIDENCE AT AN ENFORCEMENT INQUIRY IN SEVENOAKS, KENT

COV E R I M AG E | R IC H A R D L E A- H A I R

FEATURES

INSIGHT

20 RTPI president Sue Manns is an evangelist for engagement. Martin Read finds out why listening matters to her

33 Case study: PLACE/Ladywell, a pioneering project in Lewisham, offers stable temporary accommodation for homeless families

24 Neighbourhood plans can be a cornerstone in the effort to build climate resilience into communities, says com Dan Stone 28 C Could a proposal for a development corporation deve to deliver d the OxfordCambridge arc lead to a Cam new age of such bodies managing large-scale man developments? asks deve Mark Smulian Mar

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36 Nations & Regions: West Midlands 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 Plan B: Oil at sea in the climate apocalypse

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NEWS

Report { PLANNING OBJECTIONS

Culture of complaint Latest research reveals that nearly two million complaints or objections were made about planning applications since 2017.

Huw Morris reviews the numbers

“LOSS OF VIEW AND PROPERTY PRICES ARE DEFINITELY NOT PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS YET ARE AT THE TOP OF THE LIST” – ANDREW WHITTAKER

To some it was just one in the long line of David-and-Goliath struggles epitomising the battle lines between communities and the most controversial planning applications. But Clean Power Properties’ proposal for an incinerator in Hamilton in Scotland now has a more notable moniker.

The proposal drew the highest number of complaints for a single planning application in the past three years. More than 7,000 people registered objections with South Lanarkshire Council.

However, controversial as this plan proved, other staggering statistics have recently emerged to reveal the culture of complaint, never mind Nimbyism, enveloping all planning applications.

Every planning application in the UK receives 2.2 objections on average, with

1.9 million complaints since the start of 2017. Since then, almost 870,000 planning applications have been submitted across the UK. This means that about 80 objections have been raised every hour over the past three years.

The figures, based on a Freedom of Information request to all UK councils by

TOP 10 COUNCILS IN THE UK WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF COMPLAINTS FOR A SINGLE PLANNING APPLICATION South Lanarkshire (2017)

7,080

Newcastle (2019)

3,937

Swale (2018)

3,734

Aberdeenshire (2018)

3,004

East Riding of Yorkshire (2019)

2,582

Falkirk (2019) Windsor & Maidenhead (2017) Mid Ulster (2018) North Lanarkshire (2018)

1,858 1,705 1,505 1,460

London Borough of Richmond (2018) 1,425

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Source: Churchill Home Insurance

Churchill Home Insurance, depict the extent of complaining across the country.

However, when interpreting them there are mines beneath the surface, according to the Home Builders Federation.

“Every application is different, so averaging responses or objections across all applications doesn’t really provide a useful measure,” said planning director Andrew Whittaker.

“As recognised in the survey, some applications attract a huge number of objections and some none at all.

“A lot of the representations recoded will be serial responders – amenity societies, parish councils and so on. There will inevitably be considerable double counting when calculating the proportion of the population who make objections.”

Whatever the reservations, the figures show the increasingly difficult workloads facing UK planning departments. They are handling 893 applications every day, equivalent to 37 an hour.

“The emotional attachment people have towards their homes and neighbourhoods is strong, so they are acting absolutely rationally in scrutinising development and objecting sometimes, whether that is objecting to a household application for an extension, or a major development scheme,” said British Property Federation director of policy Ian Fletcher. “We should not take for granted the fantastic job our planning professionals do in trying to help people and organisations through what can I M AG E | I STO C K

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PLAN UPFRONT

KEY STATISTICS

1.9 million

The number of complaints over planning applications since 2017

870,000

The number of planning applications submitted across the UK since 2017

482,000

The number of objections made in London since 2017, the highest in the UK

7,080

The highest number of objections recorded for a single planning application in the UK - received by South Lanarkshire Council for a proposed incinerator

2.2

The number of objections each planning application receives in the UK THE TOP FIVE CAUSES OF COMPLAINT IN THE UK

51%

Private rights of access

50%

Loss of view

50%

Land and boundary disputes

43%

Negative impact on property value

39%

Impact of construction works Source: Opinium

NIMBYISM IN THE REGIONS

The East of England has the highest number of planning applications per 1,000 residents, with 19.3 applications per 1,000 over the past three years. This is closely followed by Northern Ireland with 18.7 per 1,000 and the South East with 18.1 per 1,000.

London received the highest number of objections, with 482,000 raised since 2017 – 26

per cent of all objections noted. Overall, 55 objections have been raised in the capital since the start of 2017 for every 1,000 people living there.

The South East comes a close second with 441,000 objections raised – 49 per 1,000 – followed by the South West with 200,000, or 39 per 1,000, and the East of England with 170,000, or 28 per 1,000.

be a complex and emotionally charged set of decisions.”

Objections overruled So what are people complaining about?

Private rights of access with 51 per cent was the most commonly cited reason, with loss of view and land and boundary disputes coming an equal second, both at 50 per cent. Negative impact on property value was cited by 43 per cent and the impact of construction works with 39 per cent completed the top five. These findings, following research

by Opinium, were seized upon by the Planning Officers Society (POS).

“One of the most important things about the planning system is for people to make their views known and most if not all local authorities have systems in place so it’s a lot easier for people to make their views known online,” said a POS spokesperson. “Everybody is entitled to their perspective on an application but the interesting thing from the research is that many of these concerns are not material planning considerations.

“Every local authority will have guidance notes on their website on how to comment and sets out what the planning authority can and cannot take into account, but people quite often don’t look at them and just want to express their view.”

Here there is considerable common ground with homebuilders. The research demonstrates “misconceptions around

“Even assuming double counting, the numbers show that most of the population – 95 per cent of the population in London and higher elsewhere – don’t object to development,” said Andrew Whittaker. “This suggests that the opinion of a few objectors is given much more prominence in the planning application process than it should be.”

the planning system and what are planning considerations that can be taken into account when making decisions”, says Whittaker.

He adds: “Loss of view and property prices are definitely not planning considerations yet are at the top of the list. Construction traffic is a temporary impact that can be dealt with through conditions or enforced through environmental health laws rather than the planning process.

“The survey also demonstrates the need for the industry and local authorities to better inform local communities about the significant benefits delivered through planning applications. Improvements to amenities and infrastructure as a direct result of new homes benefit both new and existing residents.”

One crumb of comfort comes from separate figures recently unveiled by the National Centre for Social Research, which has been reviewing public attitudes to housebuilding since 2010.

Last year, 57 per cent of people said they supported more homes being built in the local area, while 23 per cent said they opposed it. Levels of support and opposition have remained the same as in earlier studies 2017 and 2014.

Yet support for more homes being built in the local area increased from 28 per cent in 2010 to 47 per cent in 2013.

Opposition has fallen from 46 per cent in 2010 and 31 per cent in 2013.

J ANU AR Y 2 020 / THE PLA NNER

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NEWS

News { ALL­PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP ON HOUSING AND PLANNING

Beauty and the beast of a problem

By Martin Read

With publication of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’s full report imminent, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Planning met at Westminster to consider the issues With a just-called general election in the air, and his own decision to stand down as an MP making this his final meeting, chair of the All-Psrty Parilamentarty Group on Housing and Planning, Mark Prisk, recently oversaw a lively assessment of the issues facing housing design quality.

Conversation focused on the endemic issues influencing quality of housing end product, in particular underresourced local authorities, an overly adversarial and litigious system and an often weak plan-making process.

Adrian Penfold, tasked with considering the planning element of the BBBB report, said that planning policy tended to be very generic in terms of defining what constitutes ‘beautiful’: “It’s all very general –‘design should be good, it should be contextual’. We’ve concluded that there is scope for improvement in local plans and supplementary planning documents.

The way in which we allocate could be better based on a vision for an area and an analysis of its potential for growth”.

In terms of involving local communities in this process, and indeed in masterplanning, Penfold bemoaned the issue that came up constantly during the commission’s research:: “Local authorities are clearly not resourced to do that sort of work.

Insofar as they’ve got resources, they are in development control, not in policy and certainly not design policy.

So we’ve been looking at other things [such as] net gain as a component to policy, as well as issues around prior

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clearly defined and permeate through approval and permitted development.

The key focus is how can we get a better the different departments.”

As long as success is mainly measured policy environment which will allow for by number of homes delivered, shortbetter outcomes.” term decision-making is inevitable.

Mary Parsons, group executive “If we start a local plan process with a director at Places for People, said that call for sites rather than a strategic while a lack of senior standing for vision for that area, you’re automatically planners’ within local government is an building up expectation from issue, the wider problem is a lack of developers and a very combative collective ownership of place at senior process. A lot of it is about level. the plan-making process, “The local plan needs “THE LOCAL PLAN to be owned by the NEEDS TO BE OWNED but it is also about the measure of success being leader and the senior

BY THE LEADER more about the balance management team in AND THE SENIOR local government, MANAGEMENT TEAM IN between five-year land making sure that LOCAL GOVERNMENT” supply and quality of outcomes.” desired outcomes are – MARY PARSONS

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PLAN UPFRONT

“The NPPF doesn’t actually demand places be beautiful or popular. It talks about sustainable development, but while it has wording on good design, it’s very far down the food chain.”

“We’ve looked at how public officials are targeted. What is it they are being asked to deliver? What is it Homes England are being asked to deliver?

How are Homes England making those decisions? There’s a lot of potential to introduce metrics.”

Nicholas Boys Smith, interim chair, Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission

“What we have observed is a highly litigious planning scene which is, from the responses that we’ve received across the board; much more litigious now than it has been in the past.”

Increase in affordable housing delivered in 2018 Government statistics show that

57,485

affordable homes were delivered in England in 2018/19, which is 22 per cent more that the number delivered a year earlier.

66 per cent

were for rent, such as social and intermediate rent. This figure has decreased from 78 per cent in 2014/15.

49 per cent

of the homes delivered were funded through section 106 agreements.

92 per cent

were new-build homes.

Gail Mayhew, principal, Smart Growth Associates Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

“My instinct is that if people feel design is handed down from on high there will be a lot of resistance. But if it’s about creating a framework in which the local vernacular design – be it London Lincolnshire, Cumbria or wherever – is truly respected, and people feel they have participated in designing something that adds to their community, then the notion of design codes will work.”

Mark Prisk MP

Housing supply in England Annual housing supply in England amounted to 241,130 net additional dwellings in 2018/19, up from 222,190 in 2017/18. This is an increase of 9 per cent. The 241,130 net additions breaks down to:

213,660

new-build homes;

29,260

gains from change of use between non-domestic and residential;

“I am convinced that there is a role for citizen’s juries in the plan-making process. Getting a truly representative sample of local citizens involved just adds more resilience and robustness to the plan-making process. But I also think we can’t make the step change in the quality of development without land reform. While we still have a system that allows speculative value to drive ultimate cost and expenditure by the developer, quality will leak out of the system.”

Helen Hayes MP

5,220

gains from conversions between houses and flats; and

940

other gains (caravans or house boats, for example).

Of the change-of-use additions, 14,107 were through permitted development rights: 12,032 former offices, 883 agricultural buildings, 199 storage buildings, 69 light industrial buildings and 924 from other non-domestic buildings.

The total additions were offset by 7,940 demolitions.

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

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NEWS

Analysis { RTPI NATHANIEL LICHFIELD LECTURE

‘New Skeffington’ needed to bring democracy back into planning

By Simon Wicks Planners need to become “neo-advocates” for their profession, says Prof Gavin Parker

The planning system needs “fundamental reform” of its approach to public participation, including a ‘new Skeffington’ and a ‘focused agency’ to oversee public involvement in planning.

Moreover, planners themselves need to be “neo-advocates” for the profession, supporting communities to become “co-owners” of a system that is alienating them, argued Professor Gavin Parker FRTPI at the ninth RTPI Nathaniel Lichfield Lecture.

Without such reform, trust in planning would continue to erode, suiting the agenda of those who would prefer to remove the protections that planning offers communities and create a deregulated planning landscape.

“If we don’t address the way that we do this and consider hardwiring participation into our system then the future is already with us,” said Parker.

Speaking on the 50th anniversary of the publication of the influential Skeffington Report, People and Planning, the professor of planning studies at the University of Reading offered a series of “home truths” in ‘Participation 50 Years after Skeffington’.

The picture that emerged was of a failure to build on Skeffington’s recommendations. Since 1969, local authorities had done the “bare minimum” to deliver participatory planning. Planning had been taken “hostage” by politicians. Post-war expectations of planning had been defeated, prompting “dissent and dissatisfaction”.

“Many of the things that we do as planners are hidden from view and not understood at all by the community. And we expect their support. No,” he said.

Meanwhile, corporate entities and

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The Planner asked Gavin Parker what ‘neo-advocacy’ means. “Neo-advocacy brings together the variety of approaches and techniques, as well as dispositions, developed through experience since the late 1960s. It’s an eclectic approach to suit circumstances, stage or time.

Collaborative planning approaches on their own can be too easily manipulated and so agonistic interactions are more often than not required as part of the mix. There are reasons, therefore, for arguing that an independent body is needed. Thus neo-advocacy also brings into play intermediaries to effect fair and inclusive participation.” their advocates had mastered the art of giving the appearance of good consultation while manipulating the process to deliver the outcomes they want. The private sector, Parker observed, had become a kind of “private advocacy agent” for its own interests.

“What’s happened in many cases is that consent is manufactured and citizens are seen as a prize to be captured rather than people and ideas to be worked with,” he contended.

Even neighbourhood planning worked

only for communities with social capital and resources. Deprived communities had little hope of combating the “unequal distribution of power and resources” in planning and society.

Ultimately, he said, planning was journeying away from its democratic purpose. “The ideal of democracy at its core is primarily about reflecting the will of the people,” he said. “I’m not quite sure that the outcomes we have provided through our planning system necessarily reflect the will of the people.”

Is there a solution? “We need public support if planning is to be successful” in serving a public purpose.

This would require planners to “do something fundamentally different in how we get people involved in owning and co-owning planning”, he said.

An “upgrade” to planning could be achieved though three actions: first, planners needed to become “neoadvocates” for their profession – that is, “think about what techniques we need to bring together to make sure that those who really need the planning system to work for them have the kind of support that’s required”.

Second, Parker called for a “new Skeffington” – a wide-ranging review of participation in contemporary planning.

Finally, he argued for an independent body to lead on the delivery of participation throughout the planning system. We need, Parker concluded, “to be far more strident in how we promote planning and engage communities so that they understand the great work that planners are trying to do”. n Dr Gavin Parker is co-author of Enabling Participatory Planning: bit.ly/planner0120-Participatory I M AG E | RT P I / A L A M Y / I S T O C K

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PLAN UPFRONT

Scottish trade body calls for more support for SME builders Welsh climate change strategy outlines floodrisk planning measures The latest Welsh climate crisis mitigation strategy commits ministers to strengthening planning policy to prevent housebuilders from building properties on medium and high-risk floodplains.

This move includes a proposal to develop a companion guide advising developers, householders and landlords on how homes and premises can be adapted to be resilient to the climate crisis in Wales.

Prosperity For All – A Climate Conscious Wales highlights the administration’s pledge to increase woodland cover by at least 2,000 hectares a year from 2020 to 2030.

Also stressed is the importance of more urban ‘greener infrastructure’. This includes open spaces and networks of habitats, parks, playing fields, allotments, private gardens, grasslands, ponds, rivers, canals, woodland and hedges. It involves street and garden trees.

The strategy points out that green infrastructure can be engineered to form green roofs and walls or sustainable urban drainage, but it can also be part of transport corridors and other links between built-up areas and their surroundings.

Environment minister Lesley Griffiths has promised to promote a renewed focus on the “small things” that can create local, accessible green spaces. n Prosperity For All – A Climate Conscious Wales can be found here on the Welsh Government website: bit.ly/planner0120-Prosperity

Homes for Scotland has appealed for more support for small and mediumsized housebuilders if growth in the country is to continue, particularly regarding the planning system.

Its Small Scale Home Builders: Increasing Supply report considers the decline of small builders since the recession and outlines the barriers they face.

It found that the number of active SME homebuilding companies has fallen from 782 in 2007/2008 to 465 in 2017/18 – a decline of 40 per cent.

If SME housebuilders can return to pre-recession levels of output, they could contribute about 2,000 additional homes a year to Scotland’s housing supply, particularly in areas where larger volume developers don’t currently build, according to the report.

The report details how a lack of available and suitable housing sites, coupled with the constant struggle of securing implementable planning consents, through a planning system crippled with delays is causing issues. Evidence collected suggests that Scottish SME builders face

confusion and inconsistency in the approach to developer contributions and information requirements for applications.

On planning, it advises the Scottish Government to produce new and specific guidance on planning for increased delivery of new homes by small-scale homebuilders.

The Scottish Government should also establish a policy in the National Planning Framework 4, currently being developed, that directs planning authorities to “waive any requirements for developer contributions on small homebuilder sites of up to 12 homes”.

It states that local authorities should deliver an SME-focused development management approach that, among other things, provides nationally consistent and transparent guidelines on what is required to have an application registered and commit to determining application for small sites within the statutory eight-week period. n A full account of the report can be found on The Planner website: bit.ly/planner0120-SMES

NI planning system could be reviewed The Northern Ireland Audit Office is gearing up to review the planning system at both local and central government level, according to the latest update from the country’s chief planner Angus Kerr.

A scoping review for this exercise will start in early 2020, said Kerr.

The update highlights

that several reviews have been deferred pending the return of ministers to Stormont. These include those on Planning Act regulations, permitted development rights for mineral exploration, strategic policy on renewable energy and strategic planning policy on development in the countryside.

Called in Kerr has confirmed that the Department for Infrastructure has called in two schemes – development plans at the Londonderry Hotel, Portrush, and a major housing proposal at Lurgan Road, Moira.

J ANU AR Y 2020 / THE PLA NNER

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NEWS

Analysis { TCPA ANNUAL CONFERENCE: TECHNOLOGY

Is technology a force for good?

By Laura Edgar The “most valuable” companies today are data technology companies.

It used to be oil or manufacturing companies, but the economy has “dramatically” changed, Euan Mills, head of digital planning at Connected Places Catapult, told the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) annual conference.

He cited Airbnb and WeWork as examples of tech firms changing the way we interact with places. The changes cannot be avoided – they are “exponential, beginning to speed up”.

Which, as Mills said, puts us in a difficult position. “How do you actually plan for the smallest changes happening incredibly fast? We don’t actually know what the future holds.”

Tech should be embraced, not to change what is planned, but how we plan, particularly around the processes.

Mills noted the difficulty in reading all the documents for a local plan – most of the data is contained in PDFs, which is easy for humans to read but “practically impossible” for machines to do anything with; likewise, planning applications.

“Fundamentally, it reflects this reliance we still have on 19th century institutions and 20th century tools to plan for places which are way beyond our comprehension, that are changing faster and faster and faster.”

It’s hard, he continued. Everyone is under pressure and the government isn’t helping by reducing planning powers.

But technology can be used to improve efficiency. Most of what goes into evidence bases is public data – “how can we rethink how we collect and store this data?” Less time should be spent on tasks that can be automated, he said.

A much more transparent planning system could be created – a system in which communities and developers

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better understand the policy and the decisions.

The system could also be more responsive, because the rate of change that we’re seeing at the minute is going to increase, according to Mills.

Real-time feedback is needed on the work being done so that what is happening in towns and cities can be better understood.

Time to get real In complete contrast to Mills, Hugh Ellis challenged the audience on whether technology has helped our lives. Nearly everyone raised a hand to say it had. The TCPA’s director of policy did not – instead, he described it as “amoral”.

Amazon? A force for good in our society, he asked, daring the audience to say that it is. The economic model behind such technologies is an “extractive” one, he said. “It doesn’t really care whether we have any town centres left or very much about equality or climate change. Can we all get real a little bit about this?”

Do bear in mind, he continued, that technology is always a choice; how it is used is a choice.

million children living in poverty in the UK. “Is technology helping with this?”

On the climate crisis, the UK has done well in decarbonising the grid, but buildings and transport remain “stubbornly unresponsive”. Society must be re-engineered to address the climate crisis. The country has great designers and great technology to do it, but “we’re not deploying it on the scale that we need to”.

The economic restructuring of the 1890s led to Letchworth, a garden city that offered people a different future, but Ellis explained that by the 1930s people were a “bit fed up of the people of Letchworth and they were described as sandal-wearing vegetarians”. The incredible thing is, he went on, “is that is precisely what we need now – a pathway for all those sandal-wearing bearded vegans who want a different way of life”.

A word of warning Is tech helping?

The UK2070 Commission this year found levels of inequality in the UK as bad as parts of South America, Ellis noted, while research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that there are 4.5

“TECHNOLOGY IS A TOOL THAT IS UTTERLY AMORAL” – HUGH ELLIS

Technology certainly has benefits, as Mills outlined. And it can and should be used to address the challenges we face here in the UK and globally. It has the potential to make our systems – planning, transport and others – more efficient; perhaps it can make up for a lack of resources. But as Ellis cautioned, it is our choice. “Be sceptical of technology,” he concluded, “unless you can understand the values behind it.”

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

10/12/2019 16:36

PLAN UPFRONT

Reservoir safety concerns blight Kilkeel development Newry, Mourne and Down District Council has confirmed to The Planner that safety issues in respect of Northern Ireland’s two largest reservoirs, Silent Valley and Ben Crom, are holding up determination of seven planning applications.

All the proposed developments are in the Kilkeel area, downstream of reservoirs owned and maintained by NI Water.

The planning authority said that statutory consultee the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) had raised concerns about “assurance in relation to reservoir safety”.

“DfI and NI Water are currently working together to provide the necessary assurances and will update the planning department when the matter has been resolved. It is acknowledged that some planning applications may be delayed.”

The DfI told The Planner: “The department provides responses to consultations from planning authorities as part of the planning process, which includes ensuring that policy requirements on reservoir safety are satisfied in relation to development in the inundation zones of controlled reservoirs.

“Given the importance of reservoir

safety, some departmental consultation responses have been precautionary in their approach. However, we recognise the need to ensure that development is not disproportionately affected and have been working closely with NI Water over recent months to develop proposals to ensure that their already robust reservoir operating and maintenance activities are fully recognised in planning application consultation responses so as to allow development to proceed.”

NI Water denied that the structural integrity of the reservoirs is a problem. The organisation told The Planner: “Safety has always been, and will always continue to be, NI Water’s number one priority.

NI Water would like to stress that we have no concerns about the structural integrity of Silent Valley or Ben Crom Reservoirs.

“NI Water can give assurances that how we manage and maintain our reservoirs follows the spirit of the Reservoir Act 1975.

This includes regular inspections as well as 10-yearly (section 10) inspections carried out by an independent reservoir panel engineer. The latest section 10 inspections carried out in April 2018 highlighted a number of items of work to be undertaken to ensure the reservoirs continue to remain safe.”

However, the publicly owned utility has declined to say what work is entailed and when it will be carried out. It has made no secret of the fact that is experiencing budgetary difficulties due in part to the political vacuum at Stormont.

Guide published for heritage in neighbourhood plans New guidance has been published to show local communities how heritage can be incorporated into neighbourhood plans.

The National Trust’s Guide to Heritage in Neighbourhood Plans is intended to help communities to take a lead in planning for historic areas by enabling them to identify and safeguard local heritage in the places in which they live, work and spend their leisure time.

Karin Taylor, head of planning at the National Trust, said: “By creating a neighbourhood plan, communities can create general planning policies for

development of land in their area. Through this, they have an opportunity to create a vision for the future of their area, agreeing what is special and how local character can be preserved and enhanced.

“Our new guide describes how heritage can be incorporated into neighbourhood plans. This includes guidance on collecting your evidence base, engaging with wider stakeholders, the statutory process and planning for heritage.”

Guide to Heritage in Neighbourhood Plans comprises direction on: planning

policy and designations; advice on providing an appropriate and effective evidence base that supports the heritage aspect in neighbourhood plan policies; and a range of tools for assessing design, character and sustainability.

It also outlines the neighbourhood plan process, from designation of a neighbourhood area right through to the adoption of the plan. Anyone involved in neighbourhood planning or who has an interest in planning heritage would be able to use the guide. n Karin Taylor has written a blog on heritage and neighbourhood planning on page 19 of this issue

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of of

NEWS

News { Welsh ministers could call in plans that ignore placemaking Housing and planning minister Julie James has warned that Welsh ministers could use their planningdirection powers to call in applications that do not consider strategic placemaking.

Speaking at an RTPI Cymru conference held to mark one year since the publication of Planning Policy Wales (PPW) in December 2018, James set out the country’s approach to placemaking, which features in the 10th iteration of the policy document.

The government wants developers to ensure that the right homes are in the right places for the people who need them the most, powered by renewable energy and with built-in walking and cycling routes.

Using its powers to call in applications that do not adhere to these aims is just one of the ways the government is considering what changes can be made to enable

ministers to review applications that are not embracing this new approach.

The financial assistance the government offers the development sector, for example, through housing grants such as Help to Buy and regeneration funding, should all be used to incentivise good practice.

James said: “The Welsh Government wants to ensure the biggest applications for new development coming forward are exemplars of placemaking practice …

If necessary, we will use our planning powers to ensure this.”

Roisin Willmott, director of RTPI Cymru, said ‘Placemaking Wales’ would be a “vital” initiative that seeks to bring organisations together to lead on the implementation of placemaking and the improvement of the quality of development in Wales. n Willmott’s comments can be found here: bit.ly/planner0120-Placemaking

Data centre proposed for County Meath Irish data centre company EngineNode has unveiled proposals for a huge data storage campus near Bracetown, County Meath.

The 25-hectare site earmarked for the project is close to a data centre owned by Facebook in Clonee.

EngineNode has applied to the county council for a 10-year permission for a total of four twostorey data centre buildings with a combined floor space of nearly 92,200 square metres.

The scheme is expected to be built in four phases and will include

offices and an electricity substation.

Meanwhile, in a separate development involving the country’s burgeoning IT sector, An Bord Pleanála has upheld Kildare County Council’s decision to grant planning permission for Intel’s proposed new €3.63 billion manufacturing facility at its Leixlip chip plant, following an unsuccessful third-party appeal.

Be a planning radical at The Planner Live Got something original to say and a burning desire to tell your fellow planners?

We’re looking for four RTPI members to give a five-minute speed presentation at The Planner Live on 29-30 June 2020.

It can be on the topic of your choice, but it must be bold, challenging and offer new ways to think about planning in the 21st century.

So whether you want to propose a new way of doing planning, a different economic model that planning can support or a fresh solution to an intractable problem such as affordability or diversity within the profession, we want to hear from you.

If we select your idea, we’ll be putting you on stage in front of hundreds of fellow planners at The Planner Live. We’ll also give you free entry to one day of the two-day event.

If you have what it takes to be a planning radical, let us know using the form in the link below. We’ll need to know: n Your idea n Your main points n Why it’s new and why it will be of interest to fellow planners n Go for it! Get in touch via: bit.ly/planner0120-Radicals

29­30 JUNE 2020 / LONDON

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DEBATE | NETWORK | DISCOVER

- 8 1 ( / 2 1 ' 2 1

The Planning Convention is getting a makeover!

In 2020 we're re-launching our Annual Convention as The Planner Live, bringing together the strengths of both the RTPI and The Planner Magazine to offer delegates two full days of conference sessions and a Presidential dinner to maximise your networking opportunities.

From ministers to high-profile international speakers and experts from other sectors, our 2020 programme will take a critical, interactive and in-depth look at the hot topics in planning.

With focus sessions, live interviews and extensive opportunities for delegates to contribute to discussions and interact with presenters, The Planner Live is THE event of 2020.

12-13 news_January 2020_The Planner 13

Save the dates { -81(

If you only attend one event in 2020 make sure it’s this one.

Put the date in your diary now and look out for more information in early 2020 as we open bookings.

« #3ODQQHU/LYH rtpi.org.uk/plannerlive

11/12/2019 09:46

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05/12/2019 11:35

LEADER COMMENT

Opinion onn Fresh cash impetus from government?

You beauty – It’s January 2020 and all is sparkling and fresh. Rarely do we get to welcome both a new decade and new government in the same month, but, well, here we are. I am of course entirely certain that all our newly appointed ministers (and please bear in mind I’m writing this on Tuesday 10th December) will be bouncing into work after the festive break with a spring in their step to start delivering on all those spending promises.

Yes, that’s right, spending.

Because whatever this administration’s political complexion, all parties were promising more government spending. The hope, of course, is that planning will see some of that fresh investment, particularly within local authority planning departments.

It’s also about now that we were meant to be coming to terms with the Building Better, Building Beautiful

Martin Read Commission’s full report. A few days after the election was called, the now former MP Mark Prisk chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Planning’s meeting to consider all things BBBB. The meeting’s clearest takeaway was that better-resourced local authority planning and the presence of planners at a more strategic level within authorities are the critical must-haves in a system better structured to ensure strong policy, strong local

involvement and strong defence of acceptable quality standards in the face of often massive pressure to sign off on schemes.

Interim commission chair Nicholas Boys Smith spoke of “making beauty count”, and a move to a more level playing field in which landowners are more incentivised to be interested in the long-term value coming from development.

That is an aspiration with myriad component parts, but bringing more teeth to the structuring and subsequent defence of local plans is likely to feature prominently in the commission’s report.

There is a fair argument to suggest that quality of design demands a brake, or at least a more controlling influence,

“THE HOPE, OF COURSE, IS THAT THE PLANNING PROFESSION WILL FEEL SOME OF THIS FRESH INVESTMENT”

on the development process.

Not to stymie the free market process, far from it; but certainly to allow for the time and space for policy to be developed, sustained and enforced by a local authority planning department that’s fit for just that purpose.

It occurred to me just how much the debate about beauty touched just briefly on actual local design, instead immediately becoming an argument about resource and the restrictions of endemic structural ties. Perhaps if the argument for fresh money in planning focuses primarily on quality of design outcome, we’ll be able to better explain to the public this profession’s importance.

Before we crack on, a significant ‘and finally’ for you: This year the RTPI Planning Convention is being re-badged and relaunched as The Planner Live. Pages 13 and 44 have the details, and note that if you want to get involved there are ways in which you can. See you in June…

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All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any print or electronic format, including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet, or in any other format in whole or in part in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher. While all due care is taken in writing and producing this magazine, neither RTPI nor RPL accept any liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. Printed by PCP Ltd.

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J ANU AR Y 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER

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10/12/2019 17:58

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

O Opinion

Nothing new under the sun?

They say that the revolution’s near – but to Louise Brooke-Smith it seems it’s all just a little bit of history repeating.

I was asked recently whether I agreed with a colleague who felt that they had “heard and seen it all before”. I said it was probably an age thing and they would also claim that policeman were all looking younger these days too. But, on reflection, perhaps we do have a tendency to forget that some of the miracle solutions being peddled by well-meaning politicians or circulated on social media are simply old ideas given a new paint job and actually there isn’t anything new under the sun. Is my colleague alone in suggesting that we have indeed heard much of the current rhetoric before?

As we head into 2020 with the climate emergency, the housing emergency, and the education and NHS emergencies, we have the joy of our leaders claiming to have new solutions. But are they just regurgitating triedand-tested strategies and presenting them in slightly newer wrapping paper?

Perhaps it’s that wrapper that is the critical element.

If you think of that paper as technological advances then does it matter that sometimes we forget that we have had some of those brave new ideas for some time already, but under a different pseudonym or wrapped up in old technology?

I am a strong advocate of not reinventing the wheel, but when ‘needs must’ it’s

16

different. I would suggest that climate change and our dire housing situation constitute pretty urgent needs, and the wheel can and should be repackaged. After all, the penny-farthing has morphed over time into a slick carbon fibre-racing bike fit for Chris Hoy. The principle of wheels turning under pedal power hasn’t changed. It’s the improved technology that has been wrapped around it that has made the difference.

Take modular construction.

Given the skills gap, the increasing challenges of sourcing materials and some of the procurement and policy red tape many agree that it is our best bet for getting effective and viable housing out of the ground quicker. But it’s not new.

There have been variations on the prefab theme for years. Birmingham isn’t the only city that has examples

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“CLIMATE CHANGE AND OUR DIRE HOUSING SITUATION CONSTITUTE PRETTY URGENT NEEDS” of off-site constructed dwellings that were erected in the 1920s as part of the Homes Fit for Heroes programme that are not only still standing and occupied but are statutorily listed. And you can go back further to different forms of timberframe structures from mud huts to wattle and daub.

Technical innovation and mass assembly, à la a Ford car production line, means that economies of scale can be addressed and the whole supply chain becomes a far more viable proposition.

Internationally, off-site assembly is regularly seen

as a standard approach to housing construction and it doesn’t mean that design quality is compromised.

Clever architects can give character to any box. No, the difference is technical innovation, and a change in culture that supports a viable production regime and an economy of scale so we can do things differently to address increasing needs.

Digital technology and the sharing of design data can mean that a home can be designed, construction materials sourced, service ducts and interiors manufactured and everything transported to an assembly point where a unit can be assembled, loaded on a transporter, moved to a site and erected before you can say “Where’s the brickie?” He is probably still some miles away on his penny-farthing, cycling past a church and remembering Ecclesiastes 1:9*. Look out your old school Gideon Bible. * E c c l e s i a s t e s 1 : 9 “W h a t h a s b e e n w i l l b e aga i n, wha t h a s b ee n d o n e will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. ”

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

10/12/2019 16:27

Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB “I don’t think this is a reason not to build them in the first place.

I think it is a reason to lobby to end that Right to Buy policy.”

LAURA MCGILLIVRAY, NORWICH CITY COUNCIL CHIEF EXECUTIVE, COMMENTING TO THE BBC ON THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE STIRLING PRIZE WINNING COUNCIL HOMES IN GOLDSMITH STREET WILL END UP BEING BOUGHT UNDER RIGHT TO BUY RULES

“Mr Ayton’s recital of his antics as a child and how the building featured in his youth portrays a convincing and intimate knowledge of the area in general and of the building in particular” INSPECTOR B M CAMPBELL REFERRING TO WITNESS EVIDENCE AT AN ENFORCEMENT INQUIRY IN SEVENOAKS

“Social geography is scarred by inequality” HUGH ELLIS, DIRECTOR OF POLICY AT THE TCPA, ON THE CHALLENGES FACING THE UK

“If you asked four members of my family which is the best football team in Birmingham, three of them would give you the wrong answer. And for the avoidance of doubt, it’s not Aston Villa.”

BIRMINGHAM CITY FAN AND 2020 RTPI PRESIDENT SUE MANNS WITH A SPORTING TAKE ON THE FUTILITY OF SEEING CONSENSUS IN ENGAGEMENT PROJECTS

“The way we are living now just doesn’t fit the climate.

It doesn’t seem to me that planners speak loudly about that.”

GEOFF BEACON, CHAIRMAN OF POLLUTION TAX ASSOCIATION, COMMENTING FROM THE AUDIENCE AT THE LICHFIELD LECTURE

“Is the vision of leaders legitimate or is it correct that the public will always be a brake on solutions?”

I M AG E S |

T I M C RO C K E R / G E T T Y / I S TO C K

DAVID LOCK OF DAVID LOCK ASSOCIATES COMMENTING FROM THE AUDIENCE AT THE LICHFIELD LECTURE

17 Quote Unquote_January 2020_The Planner 17

“We’re getting people ople into a y are going lifestyle where they ossibly earlier towards a dead end possibly y might do” than they hoped they LYNDA ADDISON OBE, THE CHAIR OF THE CHARTERED INSTITUTION OF HIGHWAYS AND TRANSPORTATION,, NSPORT PLANNING SPEAKING AT AN RTPI AND TRANSPORT ENT APPROACH TO SOCIETY EVENT, ON THE CURRENT RT PLANNING PLANNING AND TRANSPORT

10/12/2019 16:27

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

O Opinion

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Patrick Clarke MRTPI is director and UK and Ireland masterplanning lead with AECOM

Garden city principles provide a better vision for housing

If we are to build a new generation of garden gard towns and villages, a holistic masterplanning approach must be a priority to ensure all the expertise is in place to deliver these highly complex projects within the required time frames.

The government has to date supported 29 garden communities across England with the potential to deliver almost 300,000 new homes. Although this is a significant contribution to addressing the UK’s housing crisis, there is still a lot of work to be done.

For many years, developers have struggled to get communities on board with the idea of delivering large developments. But in 2018 the British Social Attitudes Survey found that 55 per cent of people were in favour of new housing developments in their neighbourhoods compared with just 28 per cent in 2011.

Although growing public support for new housing has helped, it is vital that we look into new ways to plan and deliver these complex projects while gathering the support needed to make it a success. Typically, development projects are planned and delivered at a much smaller scale – providing between 200 to 300 homes on a site near an existing town with just basic infrastructure in place. Over time these smaller extensions add up to thousands of new homes but often lack the strategic town-wide infrastructure needed to meet fully the needs of local people.

David Jacques, a landscape historian and conservationist, is author of Landscape Appreciation: Theories Since the Cultural Turn

Landscape policy needs to catch up with theory

But a garden community approach enables us to plan in advance to provide housing that is needed over a longer period, with the possibility of creating better connections. This enables a vision-led approach and allows necessary infrastructure to be identified as part of an infrastructure delivery plan, Much of this could be funded by the project through the uplift in land value.

It is vital that developers follow the garden city principles that provide a compelling framework for the planning, delivery and long-term stewardship of new communities.

These principles, developed by the Town and Country Planning Association, have given authorities the confidence to plan more ambitiously for new communities.

Using them will ensure that all the facilities needed by a small town are provided while also addressing the challenges of climate change and the need to foster better health through provision of green infrastructure.

This approach has the potential to boost housing delivery, but people must buy into the vision to allow projects to move quicker through the planning process. If successful, this may also provide the chance to plan and implement larger garden towns and cities in places such as the Oxford -Cambridge Arc.

“GARDEN CITY PRINCIPLES PROVIDE A COMPELLING FRAMEWORK FOR NEW COMMUNITIES”

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2 BLOG

BLOG

We may m have to start contemplating contem the post-Brexit countryside.

Sustainability pressures will mean more wind turbines, decarbonisation apparently demands tree planting on an epic scale, while a changing diet will tweak the pasture/ arable balance and challenge the viability of upland sheep farming.

And the recreational demands of the countryside look set to increase inexorably, as the public overwhelmingly wants the countryside to remain just as it is.

Our thinking on the appearance of the countryside got stuck somewhere in the mid-to-late 20th century, and our systems of protection have been on autopilot.

We still rely on those designations of national parks and areas of great landscape vale and suchlike, mostly identified many decades ago. The most recent national park, the South Downs, was simply two previous areas of outstanding natural beauty.

And how many planners or politicians stop to think whether we have the right approach to tackle the pressures on the landscape, and whether we are protecting the right rural areas and the right qualities in them?

There was once a rationale behind landscape designation.

The regional planning studies of the 1960s and 1970s demanded another.

They generated computerised models of landuse planning. ‘Objective’ facts

needed to be fed in, and hence the various attempts to find ‘objective’ methods of landscape evaluation at that time. But these methods fell into disrepute, and ever since planners and academics have shied away from developing methods to assess why people prefer some landscapes to others.

So for the past 25 years ‘landscape character’ has been promoted. It is analytical, and has its uses, but it is not well suited to addressing the question of aesthetic preferences. So it can tell us nothing about landscape value.

Theories on this topic have never ceased to be promoted. A diverse group of philosophers has explored ‘e nv i ro n m e n t a l aesthetics’ for 20 years, trying to work out how and why landscape is appreciated. Another group acknowledges that public tastes are ideological and cultural.

Cognitive psychologists with their MRI scanners have developed neuroaesthetics, and ecologists continue to elaborate their idea of ‘evolutionary aesthetics’.

So there is no shortage of theory; it is just that those responsible for landscape policy seem unwilling to connect the theoretical and practical aspects to prepare the planning system for the physical and attitudinal changes that lie ahead.

Landscape Appreciation: Theories Since the Cultural Turn is published by Packard Publishing

“OUR THINKING ON THE APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE HAS GOT STUCK IN THE MID­TO­LATE 20TH CENTURY”

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10/12/2019 16:28

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

Dr Clare Linton is policy and research advisor at the Urban Transport Group

Joining the dots on transport will deliver better climate action

Three years yea ago transport became biggest emitting sector of the big greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for over a quarter of the UK’s emissions (26 per cent) and surpassing the energy sector (25 per cent) for the first time. Provisional statistics show transport’s share could now be as high as a third. The sector is the worst culprit for its contribution to climate change and it has reduced emissions by just 3 per cent since 1990, compared with 59 per cent for energy supply.

So what can we do about it? One of the opportunities for cities to tackle the climate crisis is to join the dots on transport, energy and the adaptation and decarbonisation of the built e nv i ro n m e n t.

Because as well as being a large consumer of energy, our infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which will be more profound in urban areas – with heavy rainfall on hard surfaces causing widespread flooding, and urban heat island effects exacerbating heatwaves.

Our transport infrastructure also generates energy, often as waste heat, which can be put to use to make our cities more sustainable.

Urban Transport Group’s recent report, Making the Connections on Climate, draws together practical examples of the climate links that can be made between these sectors at the city-region level. Innovative

4 BLOG

BLOG

case studies include Transport for London’s project to warm homes using waste heat from the Underground and buses on the streets of Nottingham powered by biomethane derived from sewage and household waste.

Not only are these projects and policies reducing emissions and, in many cases, improving adaptation to anticipated climate change impacts, but they are also delivering wider benefits such as lower energy and maintenance costs, job creation, improved air quality, and higher satisfaction among employees and customers of transport systems.

For cities aspiring to be greener, healthier and more prosperous places, there are clearly multiple cobenefits of taking coordinated action.

A unique aspect of the report is its aim to challenge those who work across different sectors in cities, including professionals who plan transport, energy and other built infrastructure, to move away from silo-based thinking. In Munich, transport and energy teams are integrated in one municipal company (Stadtwerke München) to power the city’s public transport with renewable energy.

The urgency of addressing the climate crisis can seem overwhelming, so the report seeks to provide a sense of agency and source of inspiration on measures that can be taken on both a project and wider city level to enhance effective climate action.

“THERE ARE CLEARLY MULTIPLE CO­BENEFITS OF TAKING COORDINATED ACTION”

Karin Taylor MRTPI is head of planning for the National Trust

Everyday heritage must be at the heart of neighbourhood plans

Neighbou Neighbourhood planning has given llocal communities the opportunity and the responsibility to take direct action to shape and influence their local areas.

It can be hard enough for the professional planner or decisionmaker to make judgements about what is ‘right’ or ‘best’ for an area, and a real challenge for local people – neighbours even – to reach well-balanced conclusions, with all the pressures that living in the neighbourhood itself brings, in order to create a vision that is fair and appropriate.

People develop strong attachments to places – where they were born, where they live, where they work, or where they spend their leisure time.

Heritage – both built and natural – defines the character of these places and underpins the quality of life and work. But how can this be identified and defined?

Assembling the evidence base in terms of policies, protections and designations is relatively straightforward; assessing townscape and landscape quality less so as subjectivity and personal preferences creep in.

Key questions about built form, enclosure, the presence of open areas and green spaces may seem easy enough to answer, but less so when trying to define what is special, or what that even means.

Moving on to decide what should and shouldn’t change can easily become a minefield, but

conservation is the careful management of change and won’t be delivered by standing still and taking no action. Neither will inaction deliver the right development in the right places.

Good planning delivers the new homes, shops, employment and services that communities want, where they want them, and it protects the places that matter.

It is not just grade I listed buildings, World Heritage Sites and conservation areas that matter, but the everyday heritage, too. Heritage can achieve a wide range of social, economic and e nv i r o n m e n t a l goals, so it is important that it forms an integral part of the wider planning of an area.

Heritage can help to deliver sustainable growth. At the same time, planning for growth can support an area’s heritage and help to make it viable. Heritage is not just a luxury that can be put to one side in favour of ‘progress’.

Those of us professionally involved in planning have a responsibility to work collaboratively to help communities understand and articulate what they need and want. We can guide them to think both broadly and in detail about what ‘special’ means and to understand how heritage can help to deliver sustainable and inclusive economic development and improve quality of life and wellbeing.

“HERITAGE CAN ACHIEVE A WIDE RANGE OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL GOALS”

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WA L K I N G IN OTHERS’ SHOES THE NEW RTPI PRESIDENT IS AN EVANGELIST FOR ENGAGEMENT, HER ATTITUDE INFORMED BY A PANOPLY OF PROFESSIONAL AND EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES. MARTIN READ FINDS OUT WHY LISTENING MATTERS TO SUE MANNS

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town planning from the University of Manchester, she returned to the West Midlands as a planning assistant at Birmingham City Council.

It was 1979 and Britain was ripe for change, of one kind or another. Over the next 10 years Manns became immersed in making over England’s second city: the International Convention Centre, city centre pedestrianisation – all are on her CV. “I’m proud of it all,” she reflects. “We helped change the image and character of the city.” From the cafe window we see Birmingham’s new tram system taking shape. “It’ll bring a new dimension,” says

MANNS ON… PLANNING’S PUBLIC IMAGE

Manns would love to see a television series dedicated to the future challenges that planning needs to tackle, and believes now is the time. Modular construction, drone deliveries and industrial-scale 3D printing will all involve planning as issues of employment policy and social justice come to the fore. “If there was a programme which focused on the public understanding of what we as planners really do, I’d watch that.”

Manns. “It’ll take the transformation of the city centre to the next level”.

In others’ shoes Our meeting comes days after the annual RTPI Lichfield Lecture, in which Prof Gavin Parker FRTPI argued for ‘fundamental reform’ of public participation in planning.

A community engagement specialist, and “passionate about the benefits good engagement can bring”, Manns herself speaks of the importance of “de-stressing” contact between public and planners. To a large extent, it’s a matter of walking in someone else’s shoes.

“Put yourself in the mind of someone commuting to work by car or train, thinking of the day ahead,” she elaborates.

“Suddenly, there’s an announcement of a delay or a sign showing the road ahead closed. Your body tenses as you think about how this will affect your working day.

“But if you’d seen that sign a week ago you’d have planned for it,” she suggests.

“Early notification can change everything about how someone looks at proposals. But what if you were informed a month in advance, told why the delay was happening – and told that suggestions for new routes or diversions would be welcomed? You’d feel involved… and you would be more

PHOTO G R A PH Y | R IC H A R D L E A- H A I R

“I’m a glass-half-full kind of person,” Sue Manns FRTPI tells me in the bright surroundings of Birmingham Library’s café.

I’ve asked whether she senses a new air of positivity towards planning and it’s clear that, whatever the topic, Manns quickly seeks out the sunny side.

It’s evident in her attitude towards clients, students and the young people she guides on scouting and Duke of Edinburgh Award trips in the mountains. The incoming RTPI president is imbued with optimism about planning’s potential to engage and change communities for the better.

Indeed, one of her first presidential visits will be close to home (she was born and raised in Solihull), raising awareness of planning’s part in Coventry’s preparations to be 2021 UK City of Culture and the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

“The role planning is playing in both is phenomenal,” she explains. “We’ve got to talk about what planners have been and are doing on these projects.”

These aren’t even the most potentially transformative projects on the horizon.

Manns’ take on HS2 is unsurprising, perhaps: its continuation is crucial, she argues, for both region and country.

Transformation is a recurring theme.

Having obtained a postgraduate degree in

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11/12/2019 09:42

INTERVIEW: SUE MANNS

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11/12/2019 09:42

relaxed about what was happening.”

The message is that individuals matter. Manns talks of the power of ‘place attachment’, citing the example of a woman whose experience of a patch of wasteland was deeply personal to her, as it held memories of her children as they had walked across it each day on the route to school.

“Someone from outside saw this wasteland and thought: we can improve this space for the community. She got that, but to her the changes were taking away her precious memories.”

Local people will always have more intimate associations with a place than those from outside designing new developments. Planners have a duty to listen, to understand and to respect the feelings of people affected by development.

“We’re planning professionals – but we’re still outsiders,” Manns stresses. And you can forget achieving unanimity. “We can achieve a greater or lesser consensus of understanding, but I find it hard to believe we will achieve 100 per cent consensus from a whole community about a planning issue.

“People have different views and experiences. For example, there’s consensus on the rules of football and the top team ‘points-wise’ at any one time, but there’ll not be consensus on who we each support.

“If consultation is done well, we should get a consensus of understanding of the key facts, but for reasons relating to people’s experiences there will not necessarily be consensus on the solution. What there will be is a greater understanding and an acceptance that there are other views.”

A different view In addition to facilitation skills, Manns is an advocate of using technology to reach this plateau. It can deepen discussion by giving planners a more visual language to use during engagement.

“One of the hardest things for many people – and I struggled with it when I came into planning – is how to make sense of a two-dimensional plan on a MANNS ON… INSPIRATIONS

CURRICULUM

VITAE

SUE MANNS FRTPI Born: Solihull Education: BA Hons Geography (University of Sheffield); postgraduate BTP Town and Country Planning (University of Manchester), MA Education and Professional Development (University of Central England); PG Certificate Personal and Business Coaching (University of Chester)

1979 Planning assistant, Birmingham City Council

1992 Senior lecturer, Birmingham School of Planning at Birmingham City University

2002 Head of Planning and Transport, Advantage West Midlands; Transport lead for all English regional development agencies

2005 Business leader, Arup (Midlands) Planning Policy and Economics business

2009 National planner, Planning Aid England

2011 Regional director for Pegasus Planning Group

2018 Founds Sue Manns Associates

Graham Shayler: “He was chief planning officer at Birmingham City Council when I joined and was inspirational to me. He did not see gender in the way others Visiting Lecturer Birmingham did at the time. He was also a tremendous motivator; he University instilled in me the confidence to take on and run public meetings. He taught me to believe in myself.”

Mike Pugh: “My father is an outdoors person, so I grew up walking around mountains. He worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board and took me to visit power stations when we were on holiday; I was exposed to how infrastructure works at an early age.

He’s one of the most inspiring people I’ve come across.”

International Convention Centre: “It was transformational; it was my first major project, and one that opened my eyes to other opportunities.”

Planning Aid England: “It exposes you to the community and the importance of engagement. I met some wonderful people working in very demanding areas; it was phenomenal what they were doing.”

2018

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11/12/2019 09:43

INTERVIEW: SUE MANNS

MANNS ON… CLIMATE CHANGE

“A climate emergency implies the need for an emergency operation. But most of the time what you really need is a long-term solution Your emergency response may not have solved the underlying problem. That’s where I think planning comes in. We have to encourage people not just to see climate change as a series of quick fixes.”

piece of paper when the actual space is in 3D,” she says. “The most amazing thing about this new tech is how it allows that transition.”

Manns is dyslexic. She considers this has given her many advantages, especially in terms of spatial thinking. Her dyslexia accentuates that not everyone sees the world in the same way. “It wasn’t a problem for Albert Einstein or Winston Churchill, so why should it be for me?”

A still more powerful ‘external’ influence on her approach to her professional life is her work as a scout leader, and Manns eulogises the value of taking teams of young people on walking and mountain trips. She’s recently celebrated 18 years as a leader and received a medal for services to scouting. Couple this with her other role as a visiting lecturer in planning at Birmingham University and you can see why she sees the value in bringing alternative perspectives into planning.

“What keeps me going is the enthusiasm young people have and the way they see the world,” she enthuses. Manns has even had local developers present their schemes to scouts. “The questions the kids asked were absolutely brilliant,” she observes.

Promoting inclusivity Although keen to avoid too prescriptive a ‘theme’ to her presidency, issues of diversity, equality and inclusivity are set to feature prominently.

“When I started in planning the gender balance was 85 per cent male,” says Manns. “Today, 39 per cent of RTPI chartered members are women. What’s more, our licentiates are 52 per cent women and final year students 55 per cent.

“When you look at the stats, things are promising.

But in terms of senior planners and directors, it’s less than 20 per cent women on average.”

The reason this matters is simple. “The more diverse the voices taking decisions the better.” But the profession is unlikely to become as diverse as the populations it serves without some prompting.

As RTPI vice-president, Manns championed diversity, equality and inclusivity. “We commissioned Brook Graham, part of solicitors Pinsent Masons, to develop an action plan for how we can encourage organisations and our members to break down those barriers.”

One tool that she would like to see used more widely is training that raises awareness of unconscious bias when recruiting and developing employees. There’s a wider application, too. “My goodness, could we also use it as planners when we’re dealing with the community,” Manns remarks.

It’s expected that the recommendations of the Brook Graham report will, by this spring, inform an action plan to be embedded in the RTPI’s corporate strategy. It could be transformative, says Manns. “My strong view is that those actions won’t just benefit planners, they’ll positively impact how people think of the profession.”

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C LI M AT E C H A N G E

MICRO CLIMATE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANS CAN BECOME A CORNERSTONE IN THE EFFORT TO BUILD CLIMATE RESILIENCE INTO SETTLEMENTS AND COMMUNITIES, SAYS DAN STONE MRTPI

I L L U S T R AT I O N | N E I L W E B B

T

he climate crisis is the challenge of our – never mind the upgraded commitment ent to net times. carbon neutrality.

The British public is more concerned Second, as time goes on the sheer depth, epth, about climate change than ever, and extent and speed of the changes needed ed across extreme weather events both at home our society to solve the climate crisis become ecome and abroad have become a news bulletin staple. clearer. ‘Solving’ the crisis will touch on n nearly Meanwhile, more than half of local authorities every aspect of how we live. The carbon n emission have declared a climate emergency, pledging to reductions already achieved are the low-hanging cut carbon emissions to nothing. fruit. The further reductions now A recent RTPI survey suggests needed would be harder to find. We that 79 per cent of planners agree need to: “LOCAL PLANS that climate action should be a n Entirely phase out petrol and ARE SLOW… top priority for the profession, but diesel cars and achieve Dutch levels WHY SHOULDN’T only 17 per cent think the planning of cycling and public transport use; NEIGHBOURHOOD system or policy framework in their n Retrofit our entire housing stock, PLANS FILL THE part of the UK is equipped to deal decarbonising heating in all homes POLICY VACUUM with the crisis. and require all new development to AND HELP BOOST The Centre for Sustainable be zero carbon; and AMBITION?” Energy (CSE) has long made the n Move to 100 per cent zero-carbon case for neighbourhood plans to energy and quadruple our installed include climate change mitigation renewable electricity capacity. and adaptation policies. Helping As recognised by the Committee communities shape neighbourhood on Climate Change in its Behaviour plans to a low-carbon agenda is a Change, Public Engagement significant part of our work programme. and Net Zero report, this scale of change would The reasons for this are twofold. First, the UK directly affect how people live and would require government needs all the help it can get to reduce full public support to be accepted. carbon emissions. We are not on track to meet our And all of these changes need to be well on existing carbon reduction commitments under track within the next decade. the Climate Change Act – 80 per cent by 2050 It’s a tall order.

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C LI M AT E C H A N G E What neighbour neighbourhood planners think. How dev should new development do more to minimise climate chang change and adapt to its effects?

Potential of neighbourhood od plans Writing a neighbourhood plan is a unique opportunity to normalise and localise discussions of the climate crisis which are removed from m daily experience, and to build a positive vision for how w that particular community might contribute.

Neighbourhood plans might, for example, explore how rural communities could meet their energy demand from local renewables in a locally acceptable way, or how car-dependent market towns could be made more sustainable. The scale of the neighbourhood is well suited to identifying key local challenges or strengths.

Neighbourhood planning is not the only tool for tackling climate change, nor even the best, but thousands of communities across England are already writing neighbourhood plans. So we’d ask: is it wise to write plans setting planning policies for the next five years which ignore an existential threat that needs to be solved in the next 10?

Also, while the climate crisis needs fast action, local plan preparation is slow. While many councils are adopting zero-carbon policies for new development and aligning local plans with climate emergency resolutions, many have yet to get off the starting blocks. Why shouldn’t neighbourhood plans fill the policy vacuum?

These policies could create duplication and complication, so we advise groups to concentrate on gaps in local plan policy and avoid technical areas they are not equipped to handle. In London, for example, which has adopted excellent zerocarbon policies, there’s little that neighbourhood planning groups can add in terms of technical

14%

86%

81%

17%

NEW BUILDINGS SHOULD HAVE RENEWABLE ENERGY BUILT IN

NEW BUILDINGS SHOULD HOULD BE HIGHLY ENERGY EFFICIENT/ FFICIENT/ CARBON-NEUTRAL UTRAL

20%

80%

56%

NEW BUILDINGS SHOULD BE RESILIENT TO OVERHEATING DURING HEATWAVES

RESOURCES FOR CLIMATE­CONSCIOUS NEIGHBOURHOODS

26 2 6

2%

A pick list of questions for household surveys and questionnaires. Suggested questions that embed climate and sustainability into householder surveys. These raise issues relevant to the climate crisis, but also build links to other issues that people care about, such as quality of life.

Workshop: Future energy landscape. A workshop to help communities to work towards an informed consensus about what renewable energy might be acceptable in their neighbourhood, and the proportion of their energy that could be generated locally from renewable energy.

Workshop: Policies for a zeroWorks carbon future. Designed to get communities thinking about commu for a zero-carbon policies needed n framed by the proposition: future, fra “Imagine iit’s 2050 and we’ve solved the climate crisis and are enjoying a safe, stable climate. Look back and describe what we did to reduce emissions and how we adapted and cities in our villages, towns to response to the climate crisis.”

Support for neighbourhood planning: bit.ly/planner0120-CSE CSE’s Climate Emergency Support Programme offers communities and local authorities free help with policy writing and community engagement for both neighbourhood and local plans: bit.ly/planner0120-Climate

39%

5%

NEW DEVELOPMENTS TS SHOULD HAVE CHARGING GING INFRASTRUCTURE URE FOR ELECTRIC CARS ARS

requirements around energy performance.

We frequently see neighbourhood plans that contain no climate policies. When you question this, the answer is often that while there is concern about the climate crisis and support for renewable energy, these issues weren’t raised in the community engagement phase.

It’s no surprise, really. If you only ask questions about housing provision, you’ll probably only get answers about housing provision.

Without evidence of support, climate change considerations are edged out early and have little chance of re-emerging. Consultants can also have a conservative approach to plan writing, and without evidence of support, novel policies can be set aside, even where there is no fundamental problem with what is proposed.

To help to solve this, we’ve trialled and published resources to help ‘bake in’ climate change and sustainability considerations from the start and build a consensus for ambitious policies (see box – Resources for climate-conscious neighbourhoods).

This work is funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

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C LI M AT E C H A N G E

CLIMATE ACTION IN WIRKSWORTH

Wirksworth is a small market town in the Derbyshire Dales. The following policies were included:

34%

66%

81%

19%

NEW BUILDINGS SHOULD BE HIGHLY SUSTAINABLE IN DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

NEW DEVELOPMENT SHOULD UTILISE NATURAL DRAINAGE SYSTEMS REDUCE FLOODING AND PROVIDE HABITAT

10% STRONGLY AGREE

AGREE 39%

51% DISAGREE

STRONGLY DISAGREE

NEW BUILDINGS SHOULD N INCORPORATE GREEN ROOFS AND INCOR WALLS WALL TO REDUCE FLOODING, REDUCE HEAT EXTREMES AND REDU PROVIDE HABITAT

n Code for sustainable homes policy – code level 4 to 2017, code level 5 from 2017-2020, code level 6 from 2020 onwards. n Minimum BREEAM standards for non-residential development – BREEAM ‘Very Good’ from 2017; BREEAM ‘Excellent’ from 2020. Proposals not achieving these standards should be refused unless open-book evidence is submitted to justify them. n Promoting retrofitting of existing buildings, including traditional buildings. n General policy supporting renewable energy (microgeneration only) provided there is no harm to landscape character/biodiversity/heritage assets. n Creation of specific new dedicated cycling routes. n Rainwater and storm water management. n Short design briefs given for development sites, encouraging renewable energy and sustainable design.

bit.ly/planner0120-WirksworthPlan Source: 2019 CSE survey of 59 neighbourhood planners in North Somerset

Support for climate policies Results so far are encouraging. For example, a group of villages in North Somerset using our survey questions learned that 90 per cent of residents were very or somewhat concerned about the risk of climate change impacts locally. y.

A sizeable majority agreed or strongly agreed that development should include a range of climate mitigation and adaptation features, from om natural SuDS to electric-charging infrastructure. ure.

This question alone in household surveys would ould go a long way towards demonstrating support ort for the incorporation of such policies.

When we ran our ‘Policies for a zero-carbon rbon future’ workshop in Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire, residents came up with a flood of ideas including: n Communal electric vehicle charging;; n Green roofs and walls; n Improved cycle and walking infrastructure; tructure; n Better local service provision and employment; n Co-working hub and support for homeworking; and n Increased tree cover.

“WITHOUT EVIDENCE OF SUPPORT, CLIMATE CHANGE CONSIDERATIONS ARE EDGED OUT EARLY AT A VERY EA STAGE AND HAVE LITTLE CHANCE OF RE­EMERGING”

A second ‘Future energy landscape’, workshop demonstrates that, given objective information about renewable energy and a sense of agency – and not facing the threat of a planning application – most people will have insightful, mature discussions on how renewable energy infrastructure can be hosted locally.

What our resources have in common is that all ask questions and help local communities to consider how their community might respond to the climate crisis, rather than dictate what the right answers are.

It can be tempting to draw up a ‘perfect’ set of policies and seek to build support around them; but our experience is that it is more effective to use participatory processes that encourage people to think through issues themselves. The community itself ‘owns’ the outcomes, which may communi be what we might have recommended anyway.

Participatory approaches can expand the space Partic within which politicians and local authorities can safely work. A local authority planner, witnessing level of ambition at one workshop went away the le emboldened, intent on rewriting the climate embo policies within their local plan. polic The climate crisis is a wicked problem. We – communities and planners – need to throw c everything at it. ev n Dan Stone MRTPI is project manager, low carbon neighbourhood planning programme, with the Centre for Sustainable Energy.

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Development Inc. 2020

COULD A PROPOSAL FOR A DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION TO DELIVER THE OXFORD-CAMBRIDGE ARC LEAD TO A NEW AGE OF SUCH BODIES MANAGING LARGESCALE DEVELOPMENTS? MARK SMULIAN WONDERS WHERE LOCAL AUTHORITIES FIT INTO THE MIX

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Development Inc. 2020

I

t is not often that a well-known planning consultant says localism “does not work”, that national planning “is mired in delay and scandals” and calls for a development corporation to take on the delivery of a million new homes and infrastructure in a rapidly growing area.

Nor is it often suggested that such a corporation should avoid recruiting staff from local authority planning departments.

But these are propositions put by Mike Derbyshire, head of planning at Bidwells, in support of the creation of a development corporation with sweeping planning powers for the entire Oxford-Cambridge Arc. Were these just his own views they would cause mild controversy. But Bidwells is fronting a coalition in support of the corporation that includes sector heavyweights – developers Barratt, Argent, Legal & General, Countryside and Grosvenor, social landlords L&Q and Metropolitan Thames Valley, plus investors and parts of the University of Oxford.

That kind of backing means the possibility

“If you want people to stop using cars and use other means, let alone plant 60 million trees, you can’t do that by districts with each one taking local decisions” of it happening cannot be dismissed.

The government, at least before the general election, said it wanted up to a million new homes in the arc by 2050, with an ‘expressway’ road from Oxford to Cambridge and the east-west rail project, which would restore rail services between the two via Milton Keynes and Bedford by reinstating track.

Those behind the development corporation idea argue that this will not happen on time, or possibly at all, if left to multiple local authorities. They want one overarching body to oversee the lot.

In a paper about the idea, Derbyshire states: “Localism does not work, with politics and Nimbyism stifling development, while

CANARY IN THE COAL MINE? Almost every major city once had a development corporation with land assembly and planning powers, with instructions from the Thatcher and Major governments to “get things done” on specific sites.

The largest was the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), which from 1981-98 had planning powers over parts of the London boroughs of Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets.

When it started it there were derelict docks and when it finished Canary Wharf was the centrepiece among huge office and housing developments.

Janet Ludlow, who represented Tower Hamlets on the LDDC board in the early 1990s, says: “The LDDC had complete planning powers in its area so we were dealing with everything from Canary Wharf to someone’s house extension.

“I insisted at least one councillor had to be on the planning committee to give at least some democratic representation.”

She recalls the committee was not much different in its workings from a local authority one, but “I always thought the planners saw themselves as there to deliver the huge developments without much attention to local planning issues, it was all about who’d build the tallest”.

Ludlow says, though: “No local authority that could have done what the LDDC did. They had one job to do, and local authorities have many, and no council could have attracted that sort of money.

“Architecturally though, if you look at Docklands now it’s a hotchpotch and you can see it wasn’t really planned.”

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Ebbsfleet Garden City, billed as the place ‘where London meets the Garden of England’

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Development Inc. 2020

WORKING FOR THE CORPORATION

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Ebbsfleet Development Corporation is based around the eponymous High Speed 1 station and adjacent to the Bluewater retail centre.

It was set up by the government in 2015 to advance plans that had never quite happened over the preceding 20 years for up to 15,000 homes on 1,026 hectares. So far only 1,820 have been built.

How different an environment is this for a planner compared with a local authority?

Chief planner Mark Pullin says the corporation has development management powers but not planmaking ones and so determines planning applications in accordance with the local plans of Dartford and Gravesham councils.

He says: “Some development corporations have had plan-making powers but there are long-standing strategic plans in place here and the local authorities are supportive of development anyway.”

Pullin was formerly with Medway Council and says working for the corporation differs because “you’re in an organisation that is solely focused on delivering a development whereas a local authority has all kinds of other

things it must do.

“Here everybody is working towards delivering Ebbsfleet and local authorities perhaps do not have that focus.”

Pullin has a staff of five planners plus two administrative staff, a development manager and design office, but this is expected to grow with the project.

There are other development corporations, although with rather low profiles outside their areas.

The London Legacy Development Corporation has since the 2012 Olympic Games overseen regeneration in the Lower Lea Valley, while the Old Oak Common Development Corporation – set up by the Mayor of London – has planning powers over former railway lands in West London, where Crossrail and High Speed 2 will eventually meet. It should deliver 25,500 homes and 65,000 jobs, although as yet little has happened.

Elected mayors have established development corporations at South Tees and central Stockport, which are in their infancies.

“If you want people to stop using cars and use other means, let alone plant 60 million trees, you can’t do that by districts with each one taking local decisions”

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Development Inc. 2020

top-down national planning is mired in delay and scandals.”

Proponents contend that a lack of new housing, workspace and infrastructure threatens to stifle growth by pricing out talent and businesses, and that soaring home and employment space costs would continue unless a lot more of both are built, with the infrastructure to match.

A development corporation would bring together councils and developers, and be responsible for delivering all new housing, transport links, social infrastructure and commercial space within the arc, with a “streamlined” planning system that would help to “give investors greater certainty”.

Derbyshire says: “To secure growth you need clusters at scale. That is how science and technology companies work and how they have been successful in Boston and San Francisco.

“What they need is infrastructure provided through joined-up thinking – and that includes how we get to zero carbon – and the idea you can do that district by district is inconceivable. If you want people to stop using cars and use other means, let alone plant 60 million trees, you can’t do that by districts with each one taking local decisions.”

He argues that the localist approach has led to planning decisions being based on local political pressures while even the more formal duty to cooperate between councils does not give the regional planning scale needed.

I M AG E | G E T T Y

Space for local authorities?

Who, though, would do the planning in such a corporation? Derbyshire says: “I would not want to see them peopled by local authority planners because I think they would just change employer but still make the same decisions.

“It would be difficult for them to leave the local authority mindset and it needs a quite different skill set. You want graduates and people from the private sector who can see this would be an exciting opportunity they can work on, and perhaps attract people from the housebuilding industry.”

He maintains that local authorities “react to local voters not local

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“If you look at Docklands now it’s a hotchpotch and you can see it wasn’t really planned” businesses” and that digital tools could be deployed to gain support for development from “people who might come and live in new homes rather than just the people who already live there, who planning reaches now”.

There should also be an emphasis, he says, on providing the necessary infrastructure for digital, electric power and other utilities.

Andrew Taylor, head of planning at Countryside Properties, is among those backing the development corporation idea. “For a big scheme, such as our 3,500 homes site outside Cambridge, there are so many processes which slow you down, and sometimes prevent you from delivering much-needed housing,” he says.

“The key issue here is a lack of transparency and collaboration in the planning system. If we’re to deliver the housing, facilities and infrastructure needed to bring the Oxford-Cambridge arc onto the world stage, we need to encourage a more joined-up approach between councils and developers.

“This could come in the form of an overriding strategic planning authority who Canary Wharf, flagship of the London Docklands regeneration

can take decisions that really matter and which could otherwise not be made due to competing priorities from different levels of local government, local politics and Nimbyism.”

There is, unsurprisingly, no enthusiasm among local authorities for their planning powers vanishing into a development corporation.

Martin Tett, the Conservative leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, which next year will become a unitary council and so a planning authority, says: “You are going to get developers complaining that councils don’t give them planning permission; that is like saying the sun comes up in the morning. You have to wonder if there are councils rejecting applications or if it’s more developers making speculative applications that do not fit with local plans and wondering why they are rejected.”

Lewis Herbert, Labour leader of Cambridge City Council, adds: “I don’t think you can just run the democratic element out of planning, and nor do I think the local authorities are barriers to progress. There’s not some magic wand a development corporation can wave to allow development outside local plans; they have to go through that.

Cambridge is one of the two fastestgrowing areas for housing in the country.

We’re not holding anything back.”

The development corporation idea may go nowhere, although large-scale development in the Oxford-Cambridge arc is likely anyway. But if it was accepted could there be a new generation of such bodies with their own planning powers and planners? n Mark Smulian is a freelance

journalist specialising in the built environment

10/12/2019 17:06

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05/12/2019 11:40

CASE STUDY: RTPI AWARDS

A PLACE TO CALL HOME A PIONEERING PROJECT IN SOUTH­EAST LONDON OFFERS STABLE TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES – AND IT CAN BE MOVED TO WHEREVER THE NEED IS GREATEST. RACHEL MASKER REPORTS ON PLACE/LADYWELL Lewisham’s PLACE/

Category: Excellence in Planning for Homes (Small schemes up to 50 homes) Project name: PLACE/Ladywell Submitted by: London Borough of Lewisham Key players: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (architects), AECOM (construction) The number of homeless families in temporary accommodation stands at its highest level for a decade, so more affordable housing is urgently needed. Councils are under increasing pressure to find new ways to help people in housing need.

In the London Borough of Lewisham, one bold and innovative solution is a 24-home block described as a ‘pop-up village’ for homeless families.

The project uses modular construction to provide 24 two-bedroom flats and four ground-floor community/retail units that can be picked up and moved to other sites in future. It also allows the council to make use of a vacant brownfield sites while a longer-term project is finalised.

Figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government I M AG E | M O R L E Y VON S T E R N B E RG

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Ladywell is a 24-home show that 84,740 block described as a households were ‘pop-up village’ for housed in bed and homeless families breakfasts and hostels in England in March 2019. In London, more than one in three are placed outside their home borough.

Government figures only include those who councils register as homeless – charities say the number is far higher.

Temporary B&B-type accommodation is not only insecure (and especially damaging for children), it is also expensive for councils. In Lewisham, the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation has tripled from 924 in 2010/11 to 2,185 in 2019, plus 679 in nightly paid accommodation.

A FRESH APPROACH Lewisham Council investigated higher-quality temporary housing solutions in response. Council chiefs were inspired by the ‘Homeshell’ designed by architectural firm Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners (RSH +P), which can be constructed in 24 hours from flat-pack panels to provide an

immediate, low-cost solution to Britain’s housing problem.

Lewisham Council linked up with RSH + P and AECOM and the pilot project known as PLACE/Ladywell, was born.

The scheme was constructed on the town centre site of the former Ladywell Leisure Centre in Lewisham High Street.

The site is earmarked for 200 permanent flats, but planning for such projects is a lengthy procedure. So the council decided to make use of the brownfield site while awaiting redevelopment.

According to the architects, there were three objectives. First, to provide 24 homes for homeless families living in poor-quality temporary accommodation.

Second, to create community/commercial space on the ground floor. Third, to infill a prominent site on the high street that had been left empty following demolition of the former Ladywell Leisure Centre and act as a catalyst for future regeneration.

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CASE STUDY: RTPI AWARDS

The 24-home block scheme is designed to be redeployable up to five times and has a 60-year life span

J U D G E S’ C O M M E N T S “This is an innovative way of offering temporary accommodation for homeless people and delivering fantastic social benefits beyond basic shelter. It was made possible through excellent contributions from the local planning authorities”

The prefabricated flats are made offsite before assembly in situ. This meant the development could be built faster and cheaper than if traditional construction methods had been used. Work started in November 2015 and within a little over six months the first registered homeless families moved in.

Their factory-made flats are highly insulated and fitted with kitchens and bathrooms. Floor-to-ceiling windows bring light into the interiors, which exceed space standards.

On the ground floor, there is a charity café, co-working space, and retail and community spaces.

Of course, the idea of prefab housing has been around for decades. What’s special about the PLACE/Ladywell scheme is that it is designed to be redeployable.

The 24-home block has a 60-year life span and can be deconstructed, moved and reconstructed up to five times in that period, says the council.

Total construction and fit-out costs came to £4.98 million, or £1,200 per square metre. The cost of relocating the Ladywell scheme is around £800,000 for each move. Lewisham Council used Right to Buy receipts and invested from its general fund on a ‘spend-to-save’ basis.

Savings to the council compared with emergency stays in bed and breakfasts are around £136,000 a year. Plus it receives

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income from rents, which are set at local housing association levels and paid with housing benefit. The council expects the scheme to pay for itself within 10 to 14 years.

“PLACE/Ladywell is the result of a strong council vision to reduce the high level of homeless families and desire to make use of a prominent and vacant town centre site,” says Michael Forrester, major and strategic projects manager at Lewisham Council.

“While the 24 units alone will not solve the crisis and many more homes are needed, they were produced significantly faster than traditional construction – allowing quick occupation.”

MAKING AN IMPACT Praised by homelessness charity Shelter, PLACE/Ladywell provides stable accommodation for 24 homeless families for up to four years, giving them a chance to rebuild their lives. The scheme also provides ground-floor space for employment, training and community services.

Its deliberately bold design – intended to animate a prominent site and to

drive footfall ahead of the long-term development – has not pleased everyone, however. The bright cladding and its use as an architectural show home has made some residents feel “stigmatised” and “on show,” according to a study by Royal Holloway University of London. The council says these findings are an “ongoing c o n s i d e ra t i o n” and points out that the quality of the flats is exemplary.

Planning permission lasts until March 2020, although the council has yet to submit a planning application for the redevelopment of the site.

In future, the 24-home block may find a permanent home elsewhere or be divided up to create smaller projects.

The scheme was also partly the inspiration for the launch of the not-for-profit modular housing company Pan-London Accommodation Collaborative Enterprise (PLACE), set up by London councils.

Lewisham Council has approved plans for three more modular developments in Lee, Deptford and Sydenham.

Commenting on the pioneering PLACE/ Ladywell scheme, RTPI judges said it was “an example of best practice and could easily be redeployed in other towns and cities to provide a good solution for the urgent and growing homelessness crisis in the UK.” n Rachel Masker is a freelance journalist specialising in the built environment

I M A G E | M A R K G O R T O N / R O G E R S S T I R K H A R B O U R + PA R T N E R S / M O R L E Y V O N S T E R N B E R G

10/12/2019 16:29

Visualisations for a positive outcome

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Visuals

Contact Chris Hale to discuss the preparation of high quality visualisations, including YHULͤHG YLHZV DQG SKRWRPRQWDJHV WR VXSSRUW \RXU GHYHORSPHQW SURSRVDOV • Architecture • Landscapes

01225 876990

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04/12/2019 16:01

N AT I O N S &REGIONS

W H AT ’ S H A P P E N I N G I N T H E W E S T M I D L A N D S ?

HERE’S A ROUND­UP OF KEY PROJECTS AND EVENTS IN THE REGION IN 2020

The West Midlands IN THE PIPELINE

Alexander Stadium, Birmingham Redevelopment of the centrepiece venue for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in the suburb of Perry Barr will provide increased capacity, a new warm-up track, improved public realm and even a fresh access road.

An application has been submitted on behalf of Birmingham City Council, with a decision expected in early 2020. bit.ly/planner0120-Alexander

Alexander Stadium, Birmingham

Stoke-on-Trent District Heat Network Since 2017, two kilometres of pipes have been installed in the city council’s £52 million district heat network, with another 16km to come by 2021. The scheme, pumping hot water from deep underground, should distribute nearly 45 gigawatt hours of heat to thousands of homes and businesses, saving 12,000 tonnes of CO² a year. bit.ly/planner0120-Stoke

The Lakes at Curborough This urban extension on greenfield land north of Lichfield will see 750 homes (233 affordable), a retirement village, primary school, arts and crafts centre and open space within a 43ha landscape shaped by a series of fishing lakes. bit.ly/planner0120-Curborough

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RECENT SUCCESSES

The Green Heart, Birmingham

Winner of the RTPI West Midlands Planning for Excellence Award 2019, The Green Heart is a 5ha park around the ‘Old Joe’ clock tower on Birmingham University’s campus, praised for prioritising people, with ‘movement corridors’, study Highworth, areas, seating, and Broadway performance space. bit.ly/planner0120GreenHeart

West Midlands Metro Network

Highworth, Broadway

The network will triple in size with a £1.3 billion investment programme led by Transport for West Midlands. Plans include 50 additional trams and a depot upgrade, and the network will serve more than 80 tram stops with more than 20 transport interchanges linking big towns and cities. bit.ly/planner0120-WestMidsMetro

Also shortlisted for the RTPI West Midlands Award 2019, Highworth is a collection of traditionally inspired new homes being delivered by Spitfire Bespoke Homes. The scheme, set amid green space in the Cotswold

village of Broadway, will include a 50-unit extra care facility. bit.ly/planner0120-Highworth

Blythe Valley Park Shortlisted for the same award, Blythe Valley Park site will host a 750-home development by junction 4 of the M42 near Solihull, along with leisure uses, beside an existing business park in a country park setting. bit.ly/planner0120-Blythe

Burlingham Square, Worcester Commended in the category Planning for Homes – Small Schemes at the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence 2019, the site has brought 35 homes to the city. The scheme has integrated design in keeping with the historical nature of the area with modern methods to ensure sustainable development. bit.ly/planner0120-Burlingham

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Regional contact details: westmidlands@rtpi.org.uk

See more on the West Midlands at the Nations and Regions gateway: bit.ly/PlannerGateway

INSIGHT: UPTOWN DEAL

One hundred English towns are to receive a share of the £3.5 billion Towns Fund for ‘innovative’ town centre regeneration. Three – West Bromwich, Smethwick and Rowley Regis – are in Sandwell.

Regeneration support officers Chloe King and Alexander Oxley explain how Sandwell Borough Council’s approach to Town Deals.

We’re second only to Cornwall in the number of towns that will receive a share of the Towns Fund.

Towns are expected to focus on transport, broadband connectivity, skills and culture and the deals will be worth up to £25 million.

We sent the initial analyses to government in early December outlining the challenges that the towns are facing. Each has different characteristics. For example, West Bromwich is our main strategic

and opportunities for residents.

The Town Deals that come out of the three areas will be very different, but they’ll all sit within our Vision 2030 Corporate Strategy and reflect our Inclusive Economy Deal. The aim of this is to drive economic growth while ensuring that it’s spread throughout Sandwell and that residents genuinely benefit from it.

The idea is to have a co-design approach and so far we’ve surveyed residents and businesses to find out how they view Sandwell and what changes they’d like to see. We see regeneration as more than just physical and we’re thinking about how we can complement improvements in the built environment by upskilling residents and opening up greater access to opportunities. We’re

S to ke -o n -Tre n t

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High Street, Smethwick

COMING UP

West Bromwich town centre

centre, where the focus is on town centre regeneration. Rowley Regis doesn’t really have a single centre, but there are different places that people gravitate towards.

Smethwick will be the location for the aquatic centre for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The Commonwealth Games is quite key in putting Sandwell on the map and we’ll use it as a platform to generate improvements

working with businesses to ensure they understand what they are going to get out of this, but also what opportunities they’re able to offer residents.

It’s really important that residents and businesses feel that they have a voice and they are able to drive projects, because they’re the ones that will be experiencing the changes that we hope the Town Deals will bring.

RTPI West Midlands Urban Design Forum Meeting 28 January 2020, Birmingham bit.ly/planner0120-Urban

Developers and viability: An introduction 26 February 2020, Birmingham bit.ly/planner0120-Viability

Planning law updates 17 March and 17 November, Birmingham bit.ly/planner0120-WMLawUpdates/ bit.ly/planner0120-AutumnLawUpdates NEXT MONTH:

East Midlands

I M AG E S | B I R M I N G H A M C I T Y COU N C I L / S PI T F I R E B E S P OK E HOM E S / S H U T T E RSTO C K / A L A M Y

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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

Unauthorised pub demolition retrospectively approved despite social harm An inspector has granted retrospective consent to replace a pub with flats after the appellant demolished it without permission, despite acknowledging the harm its loss had caused to the local community.

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Chris Miller, Pub Protection Coordinator, CAMRA Kingston & Leatherhead branch, commented:

( “It was CAMRA's hope that the inspector would reject the appeal and advise the applicant to submit a smaller scheme that included the reinstatement of a drinking establishment. ( “We are extremely disappointed in the decision to allow the development unchanged. We are discussing the possibility of a micro­pub at the site, to reinstate ­ in a small way ­ the lost community facility."

LOCATION: Leatherhead AUTHORITY: Mole Valley District Council

INSPECTOR: N Thomas PROCEDURE: Written submissions DECISION: Allowed REFERENCE: APP/ C3620/W/19/3223148

consulting rooms, an office and toilet. Thomas noted that while there was no policy requirement for alternative facilities to be the same size as those they

would replace, in this case the proposal would be “considerably smaller and more constrained”. It would have “restricted potential” to accommodate social activities, she found, and was therefore not a suitable alternative to the pub.

Nor was the inspector satisfied with the appellant’s marketing of the property, noting that it had only been advertised for a period of two months. She also found harm had arisen from the pub's demolition, because there were no “realistic alternatives” to it in the area.

Further harm would arise from the proposal’s access arrangements, she added, which would not be able to accommodate service and

delivery vehicles.

In the planning balance, however, Thomas noted that in light of the council's housing supply shortfall, the “tilted balance” of NPPF paragraph 11(d) was engaged.

The scheme would “make use of previously developed land to provide additional housing, including affordable housing”, she commented, the benefits of which were enough to outweigh the harm she had found.

While she acknowledged the “frustrations” of local residents, Thomas ruled that “the fact the pub has been demolished without permission is not a reason in itself to dismiss the appeal”.

Retrospective permission was therefore granted.

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

The appeal concerned the Royal Oak in Leatherhead, Surrey. In November 2017, the appellant demolished the pub. Initially, the council released a statement saying that its demolition did not require planning permission. However, it had not taken account of a change to the law in May 2017 which removed permitted development rights, including demolition, from pubs.

The council subsequently withdrew its statement and told the appellant to submit a retrospective application. The submitted plans proposed the construction of 20 flats in place of the pub, along with a “small self-contained community facility”.

However, the council then unanimously rejected the plans, against the advice of its planning officers.

Considering the subsequent appeal, Inspector N Thomas referred to the council’s core strategy, which resists the loss of community facilities unless an alternative facility is provided, or it can be demonstrated that the facility is no longer required.

The proposed replacement facility would be a 51 square metre “counselling facility” comprising three

EXPERT COMMENT

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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

Permitted development plan would be unneighbourly An inspector has refused prior approval to convert offices next to two Birmingham music venues into flats, ruling that the impact of noise on the living conditions of any occupants was a consideration under the GPDO.

Jenrick dismisses 700-home scheme near listed farmhouse Robert Jenrick has vetoed a 700-home development in Hampshire, ruling that a healthy housing supply in the area meant that its public benefits would not outweigh harm to a grade II listed farmhouse.

Jenrick noted the council’s housing land supply of 9.2 years, which, even taking on neighbouring Surrey Heath’s unmet need, was “well in excess of five years”.

Nevertheless, he agreed with his inspector that the tilted balance was triggered, as relevant local plan policies relating to landscape character were out of date.

Inspector Nick Fagan had found the emerging Hart local plan to be at an advanced stage and Jenrick agreed that “allowing the proposed development through this appeal would predetermine the location of a significant urban extension that the plan-making process has decided is inappropriate for the district”.

This prematurity alone would justify refusal, he noted.

Ultimately, however, the secretary of state’s decision turned on heritage, in particular the scheme’s impact on a grade II listed farmhouse. Agreeing that there would be “less than substantial” harm, he weighed this against the scheme’s public benefits.

Jenrick agreed with his inspector that “in the light of the healthy housing land supply position, and the LOCATION: Fleet, Hampshire fact that there is no need to deliver an additional AUTHORITY: Hart District Council 700 houses in this location at this time ... the public INSPECTOR: Nick Fagan benefits of the proposals set out above do not PROCEDURE: Recovered appeal outweigh this heritage harm”.

DECISION: Dismissed This “protective policy” alone provided a “clear REFERENCE: APP/ reason for refusing the N1730/W/18/3204011 development proposed”, he found. The titled balance was thus “misapplied” and so the scheme was refused.

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The appellant sought to convert the appeal building from offices to flats under permitted development rules.

But the building was near two music venues with late licences, adjoining one and sitting opposite the other.

The appellant suggested that secondary glazing could be installed behind the building’s existing windows to provide sound insulation, with mechanical ventilation to maintain air quality. It confirmed that although the windows would be openable, they would only effectively mitigate noise when closed.

The council was concerned that this arrangement would lead to unsuitable living conditions. The appellant responded that there is no reference to living conditions under the relevant part of the GPDO. But Dowsett pointed to paragraph 127 of the NPPF, which says new development should “create places that promote health and wellbeing, with a high standard of amenity for existing and future users”.

LOCATION: Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham

AUTHORITY: Birmingham City Council INSPECTOR: John Dowsett PROCEDURE: Hearing DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ P4605/W/18/3217413

Dismissing the appeal, he decided that “the manner in which it is proposed to mitigate noise” was “an integral and non-severable part” of assessing the impact on living conditions. The ability of occupants to open their windows would “fatally undermine the effectiveness of the proposed mitigation scheme”. the inspector ruled, because it would be “reliant on the actions of a third party” (the occupants) and beyond the control of the council or the appellant.

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C&D { C Third rejection against inspector’s advice for Cheshire homes plan

Darnhall Estates first applied to build 184 homes on the site in 2013. Following an initial inquiry in June 2014, the scheme was recommended for approval. In 2015, thensecretary of state Greg Clark reopened the inquiry after being told that material considerations, including the council’s housing supply and development plan, had changed.

The developer then altered the proposals, increasing its affordable housing offer from 30 per cent to 40 per

cent. The scheme was again recommended for approval, but Clark refused permission.

The developer then appealed to the High Court, Clark’s ruling was quashed, and the inquiry reopened for a third time in 2018.

Inspector Melvyn Middleton again tipped the scheme for approval, finding that the local plan policies the scheme conflicted with were out of date, thereby engaging the tilted balance.

New housing secretary Robert Jenrick noted that

since the inquiry matters had again moved on, as the council had adopted part two of its new local plan, with housing allocations, settlement boundaries and other detailed policies. He found the proposal would be in breach of these policies.

As the council now had a good housing land supply, Jenrick found no reasons to justify the scheme’s conflict with the new policies.

Permission was refused contrary to an inspector’s direction for a third time.

Christmas market would impinge on ‘exceptional’ listed building

“That may be true”, inspector Graeme Robbie observed, “but only to a degree”, noting that four of the sheds would still form a “conspicuously formal and regimented arrangement” that would “pay little regard to the sweeping curve of the carriage drive”, while the other two would “stand sentry” and “significantly impinge” on views of the building.

“Appreciation of the building is not time or season-specific”, said Robbie, rejecting comparisons to the tables and chairs that occupy the forecourt yearround, which he called “less obtrusive, transient features”.

He accepted that the proposal would “contribute to local distinctiveness and seasonal festivities” and that these would amount to “social, economic and cultural public benefits”, but he concluded that these did not outweigh the potential heritage harm. The appeal was therefore dismissed.

LOCATION: Winsford AUTHORITY: Cheshire West and Chester Council INSPECTOR: Melvyn Middleton PROCEDURE: Recovered appeal DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ A0665/W/14/2212671

Permission for a small independent traders’ Christmas market at a grade-I listed building in York has been denied, after an inspector ruled that the temporary wooden sheds would impinge on views of the building.

The appeal concerned Judge’s Lodging, a grade-I listed 18th century townhouse in York in use as a five-star hotel. Each year since 2015, the hotel’s operator has run a Christmas market in the forecourt of the building, comprising six timber sheds and a chalet bar, for six weeks.

In each of these four years, the council issued an enforcement notice requiring the market to be dismantled, which were complied with.

The appellant sought a temporary annual permission to “regularise future market

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operations”.

However, the council refused permission on heritage grounds, leading to the appeal.

It was common ground between the parties that the main building was of “exceptional architectural and historic interest”, but the appellant argued that appreciation of its features was “kinetic” and would still be possible even through the structures introduced as part of the market.

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

The housing secretary has refused plans for 184 homes in Cheshire against the advice of a planning inspector for the third time since the scheme was submitted in 2013, after the appellant’s successful High Court case.

LOCATION: York AUTHORITY: York City Council INSPECTOR: David Wildsmith PROCEDURE: Written submissions DECISION: Dismissed REFERENCE: APP/ C2741/W/19/3235333

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DECISIONS DIGEST{

SUBSCRIBE to our appeals digest:

https://subs.theplanner. co.uk/register

Council’s concern over future PD conversion dismissed An inspector has made an office block in Birmingham eligible for conversion to flats under permitted development by removing a condition applied to it in 2006, despite council concerns about the building’s location within an employment area. bit.ly/planner0120-Birmingham

Parking concerns foil bid to shift Walton GP services to hospital

Self­ Self­assembly skateboard ramp is a building buil for planning purposes A reporte reporter has upheld an enforcement notice to remove a self-assemble not skateboard skateboa ramp from a garden on the grounds ground that it is a building and so it rrequires planning permission. bit.ly/planner0120-Skate

A plan to relocate GP services to a former ward of a community hospital has been rejected because of on-street parking and inconvenience to residents. bit.ly/ planner0120-GP

Travellers can stay despite ‘high risk to life’ from flooding

Inspector admits policy dilemma in allowing Hillingdon flats conversion

A gypsy family can permanently remain living at a site with a high risk of flooding subject to conditions, an inspector has ruled, citing the council’s inadequate supply of pitches for travellers in the area. bit.ly/planner0120-Flood

Permission has been granted for the change of use of first-floor flats to a restaurant in West Drayton after an inspector acknowledged planning policies “pull in different directions”. bit.ly/planner0120-Hillingdon

Poultry farm scuppered by risk to gliders

Inspector makes split decision sion on rch solar panels at Henley church

Plans for a poultry farm next to an airfield used by a gliding club have been dismissed after expert said its buildings would an aviation exp reduce” the chance of a safe “substantially re forced landing ffollowing an engine failure after take-off. bit.ly/planner0120-Glider

An appeal has been partially allowed at a Henley-onThames church centre for the installation of solar panels in a split decision by an inspector. bit.ly/planner0120-Henley -Henley

Removal of affordable housing from approved scheme blocked

Tesla chargers would harm setting of grade II* listed country hotel

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An inspector has rejected a developer’s argument that a 2017 permission to build 10 homes in Norfolk with 20 per cent affordable housing was no longer viable because of a £600,000 increase in building costs. bit.ly/planner0120-Norfolk

The public benefits of installing 16 Tesla electric car chargers would not outweigh the heritage and green belt harm they would cause, an inspector has ruled, noting that most electric car owners would not be able to use them. bit.ly/planner0120-Tesla

JANUARY 2020 / THE PLANNER

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LANDSCAPE

LLegal landscape OPINION

London must review its green belt policy The draft London Plan’s examination in public raised awkward questions about its blanket ban on green belt development, writes Martha Grekos

Following the public examination of the draft London Plan in 2019, the inspectors reached an “inescapable conclusion”: if London’s development needs are to be met, then a review of the Metropolitan Green Belt should be undertaken in the next London Plan. This should involve joint working with authorities around London’s administrative boundary, as well as the capital’s boroughs.

The inspectors stopped short of calling for the draft London Plan process to be paused so that new homes targets could be reassessed, and an immediate green belt review could take place.

Any such delay would mean uncertainty for boroughs preparing local plans, would divert City Hall planners away from implementing the London Plan, and would encourage developers to delay plans for existing sites.

And, with a green belt review likely to take up to three years and a revised London Plan extended to be in place by 2024/2025, it was thought “better to proceed on the basis of the adopted plan rather than one that is in limbo”.

The Mayor of London

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NPPF. policy G2, which says development proposals that would cause harm to the green belt should be refused, making no reference to very special circumstances.

The blanket provision that de-designation will not be supported also ignores the NPPF reference to altering would need to consider boundaries in exceptional green belt release to deliver circumstances through the housing and industrial preparation or review of development that cannot local plans. The inspectors be accommodated either in recommended that policy the existing built-up area G2 be adjusted so that it is or in adjoining areas. This consistent with the NPPF. is because, in its optimistic It is fair to say that different over-reliance on small approaches to sites, the current doing a green belt London Plan will “OF COURSE, A review have been fail to deliver the REVIEW OF THE canvassed; there identified housing GREEN BELT IS is also conflicting need of 65,000 DEFINITELY evidence about homes a year.

NEEDED the extent of The LSE’s BECAUSE THE urban brownfield analysis has even LONDON PLAN land and gone so far as to HAS MAXIMISED brownfield describe the target BROWNFIELD or other land as “pure fantasy” CAPACITY” within the green in the absence of belt that might clear plans to turn be suitable for potential capacity sustainable into delivery, development. The a reliance on London Plan itself observes infrastructure as yet unbuilt that some green belt land is and a refusal to review green derelict and unsightly and belt designation or work with does not provide significant boroughs outside London on benefits. The inspectors state additional supply. that “it is implausible to insist that the green belt is entirely Revisiting brownfield sacrosanct without having The inspectors propose a considered what it comprises target of 52,000 homes a and the impact that it has on year should be adopted wider strategic objectives”. instead. They also said the Of course, a review of London Plan’s blanket the green belt is definitely opposition to green belt needed because the London development under policy Plan has maximised G2 is inconsistent with the

brownfield capacity. If we do not look strategically at the green belt, we move ever further from building the homes the capital needs.

Difficult choices Yes, such a review is more likely to prove popular with planners than with national politicians or the public.

But it is time that such a review took place because the inspectors’ conclusions highlight the difficult choices London faces. We need to look at all options and also make sure that the London Plan policy is fundamentally consistent with the NPPF. It is hard to predict what will happen, especially in light of the general election in December 2019 and London Mayoral election in May 2020.

The only prediction that can be made is that uncertainty lies ahead, and that more delays are likely.

Martha Grekos is a barrister and director of Martha Grekos Legal Consultancy Ltd

In brief Inspectors examining the draft London Plan insisted on a future review of Metropolitan Green Belt to deliver housing In its absence they lowered London’s housing target They also found the plan’s green belt policy incompatible with the NPPF The mayor must bite the bullet and review green belt for the next London Plan

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EVENTS

CASES

LEGISLATION

NEWS

ANALYSIS

NEWS Court fines Colden man for planning breach Bradford Magistrates’ Court has fined a Calderdale resident £1,000 for breaching an enforcement notice that required the removal of scrap vehicles from land in Colden in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.

Michael Czabaniuk, of High House Farm, was also found to be storing building materials and other plant, vehicles and machinery on agricultural land, without first applying for permission to change the use of the land.

He appeared at Bradford Magistrates’ Court in November, where he pleaded guilty to the offence of failing to comply with an enforcement notice, which was served for an unauthorised change of use of the land.

Planning enforcement officers from Calderdale Council visited the site on several occasions in 2018 to tell Czabaniuk to remove the materials.

Officers returned in February 2019 and found that storage was continuing.

The matter was then referred to court. Czabaniuk was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £1,312 and a victim surcharge of £100.

Council revokes noise clause for future residents The Royal Borough of Greenwich’s planning board has removed a clause from a section 106 agreement that restricted future occupants of a housing development from pursuing claims for nuisance or damages over noise.

This followed legal advice that suggested it was unlawful.

The planning board approved Notting Hill Genesis’ planning application to build a part 13, part 17-storey waterfront tower on 18 November.

Concerns over potential legal claims from future occupants of the development stemmed from the tower’s proximity to Brewery Wharf, which is regularly used for aggregate handling. Night-time barge deliveries to the wharf, 200 metres away, could affect the amenity of residents of the proposed development, said the board.

The Port of London Authority also raised concerns about the impact of the development on wharf activities.

The clause recommended mechanisms to control the level of noise within the dwelling from Brewery Wharf, such as keeping the windows closed. It also advised that the clause should set out that the tenant, lessee or purchaser would not be entitled to make a claim for nuisance or damages caused by noise from Brewery Wharf at a level at or below the baseline noise level. Modified conditions on noise were imposed instead.

These include maximum noise levels covering bedrooms, habitable rooms, balconies and public/private outdoor areas at the development. A testing scheme will be implemented before the first occupation of each building.

Supreme Court upholds turbine appeal The Supreme Court has upheld an appeal over a decision made by the Forest of Dean District Council and a local company.

The appeal concerned a challenge to the council’s granting of permission for a wind turbine at Tidenham, which has been heard at the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The court decided that the decisions by both courts to quash the planning permission were correct.

Consent for a change of use from agricultural land to the building of an 87-metre-high wind turbine at Tidenham Farm was granted in 2015.

Applicant Resilient Energy Severndale Ltd had proposed that the turbine should be run by a community benefit society. It offered a ‘promise’ that an annual 4 per cent of the turbine’s financial turnover would be donated to a local community fund for 25 years.

Local resident Peter Wright challenged the permission on the grounds that the donation was not a material planning consideration and the council had acted unlawfully by taking it into account. The Supreme Court agreed that the community benefit was not something the council should have taken account of, and that the planning permission should be quashed.

LEGAL BRIEFS Implementing the Planning (Scotland) Act 4th March, Edinburgh This new masterclass has been developed by the RTPI to address the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, and will include a walk through of the practical implications of the legislation. bit.ly/planner0120-CPDEdinburgh

Planning law and practice CPD masterclass 27th February, Birmingham.

This masterclass will combine expert trainer input, discussion and group work, covering the latest developments in English planning law. bit.ly/planner0120-PDBirmingham

Game on over new Luton stadium Luton Borough Council has said it will “vigorously defend” a legal challenge against its decision to approve a mixeduse gateway scheme that would help to deliver a new 23,000-seater stadium for Luton Town Football Club, says Local Government Lawyer. bit.ly/planner0120-LutonTown

High Court judge rules Guildford local plan legal A Planning Court judge has dismissed three challenges to Guildford Borough Council’s local plan, leaving green belt campaigners frustrated, reports Get Surrey. bit.ly/planner0120-Guildford

Trump digs deep over failed wind case Donald Trump’s company is to pay the Scottish Government’s £225,000 legal bill after the US president’s firm was defeated in a long-running and acrimonious court battle over a wind farm development near his inaugural Scottish golf resort in Aberdeenshire, The Scotsman reports. bit.ly/planner0120-Trump

Curtilage revisited (yet again) Planning lawyer Martin Goodall revisits ‘the vexed issue of curtilage’. bit.ly/planner0120-Curtilage

Heads up on ‘material considerations’ Mark Lowe QC and Estelle Dehon of Cornerstone Barristers consider a recent Supreme Court ruling on material considerations. bit.ly/planner0120-Supreme

J ANU AR Y 2 0 20 / THE PLA NNER

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NEWS

RTPI {

RTPI news pages are edited

by Will Finch at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL

RTPI’s annual convention relaunched as The Planner Live for 2020

29­30 JUNE 2020 / LONDON

THE PLANNER LIVE – NEW FOR 2020

n n n n n n

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Two full conference days Presidential Dinner Live interviews by journalists Voting and polling during sessions Training on wellbeing for planners Opportunity for delegates to submit questions before the event

The Planner Live 2020 will feature an impressive line-up of speakers and unbeatable networking opportunities

In 2020, the Royal Town Planning Institute is relaunching its annual convention as The Planner Live.

Bringing together for the first time the strengths of both the RTPI and The Planner magazine, The Planner Live will take place on 29-30 June at County Hall in London, taking a critical, dynamic and in-depth look at hot topics in the industry.

RTPI Chief Executive Victoria Hills MRTPI FICE said: “I’m thrilled that we’re taking this important step and launching The Planner Live. We’re making a bold statement that the RTPI will harness its

convening power to host the ‘must attend’ planning event of the year.

“We’ll continue to grow The Planner Live to broaden the conversation about planning and ensure that planning and planners remain at the heart of placemaking.

“Expect live interviews by industry journalists, voting and polling during sessions, and the opportunity to submit questions to presenters before the event.

This is your chance to get involved and be part of the debate.”

From ministers to high-profile international speakers and expert insights from other sectors, delegates at The Planner Live will hear a range of views of the current planning climate.

The programme will also offer a number of practical, single-topic ‘focus

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sessions’ that can contribute to members’ CPD. Other sessions will address the wellbeing of planners; how they can build resilience and learn new strategies on how to thrive as professionals.

With a stronger focus on networking, there will also be a new evening social event in the form of a Presidential Dinner, hosted by RTPI President Sue Manns.

n A competition run by The Planner is inviting planners to put themselves forward to explore what’s new, unique or innovative in the industry right now – winners will present their ideas in one of four ‘speed presentations’ at The Planner Live! Read more about the competition on page 12. n Booking for The Planner Live will open shortly. For all the latest information, visit www.rtpi.org.uk/plannerlive

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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 S TAT U S O F P L A N N E R S As the RTPI celebrates the 60th anniversary of its Royal Charter, Clifford Smith CBE FRTPI Rtd tells us about his life in planning When I started my career in planning in 1950, planners had little status except in a small number of major local authorities and in a very few eminent consultancies. I am delighted to see that the respect, status and calibre of both planners and the RTPI has grown steadily since then.

When I talked with my first manager, the borough engineer at Grimsby, about my career path and studies, he dismissed the TPI (as it was then) out of hand and instead recommended RICS. It wasn’t until 1958 that I took my TPI finals, for which I was awarded top marks, and the following year I took up a senior post at Hertfordshire Council.

However, it was at East Suffolk between 1964 and 1971 that my career blossomed – I became the first planner and the first non-lawyer to become clerk and chief executive of a county council. In 1974 I was appointed the first chief executive of the new Suffolk County Council.

Regrettably, since my retirement in 1990, I believe there has been a real decline in the number of RTPI members holding high rank in local government, although this has been balanced out by a wonderful growth in their influence, status and reputation in so many other areas of professional activity. n To view an interactive timeline looking back at the last 60 years of the RTPI, visit bit.ly/planner0120-Charter

POSITION POINTS

WELSH NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK ROISIN WILLMOTT, DIRECTOR OF RTPI CYMRU The Welsh Government’s recent draft National Development Framework (NDF) is a welcome start to efforts to combat climate change but it must be supported by stronger evidence, detail and clarity to guide decisions.

At RTPI Cymru, we recognise the challenge of having to achieve a sustainable pattern of development for the longer term while taking into account the climate change agenda, but the NDF is a missed opportunity to push boundaries.

To start to address the issues surrounding climate change, we need a framework that can guide a behavioural change across the industry in the way that we approach planning and developing the places we live, work and enjoy.

The NDF needs more ambition regarding infrastructure decisions and far more detail about proposals including national forests and new national transport routes, which do not appear to make any attempt to improve the notoriously poor links between North and South Wales.

Read RTPI Cymru’s response in full at bit.ly/planner0120-Cymru

LOCAL AUTHORITY HOUSEBUILDING TOM KENNY, RTPI POLICY OFFICER After almost three years of RTPI research on the resurgence in local authorities returning to housebuilding and the role of planners within it, we’ve launched a new practice advice note for local authority planners who are supporting, or wanting to support, local authority-led housing delivery.

We hope that this advice can convince planners and their colleagues of the crucial role planners can play in delivering a new generation of housing which provides social, environmental and economic benefits, responds to local needs and pushes the market towards more sustainable development.

The advice is largely based on recent RTPI-commissioned research conducted by Professor Janice Morphet and Dr Ben Clifford from the Bartlett School of Planning at UCL. Although it focuses on the policy context in England, we believe that much of the learning may also be valuable to planners in other nations.

Download the practice advice note at bit.ly/planner0120-HousingAdvice

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NEWS

RTPI { RTPI N E W S

Alex Egge crowned first Wales Young Planner of the Year

Alex Egge receives her award from RTPI Cymru Chair Huw Evans

Alex Egge, a transport planner at Mott MacDonald in Cardiff, has spoken of her delight at being named as RTPI Cymru’s first Young Planner of the Year.

The award celebrates talented young planners and recognises their contribution to the profession. Alex was described by the judges as a young planner of “immense energy … who sees planning as

an opportunity to help solve the many challenges we face”.

Alex said: “I was surprised and honoured to be named the RTPI Cymru Young Planner of the Year. It is incredibly encouraging to be recognised for my work as a planner, especially my passion for taking new approaches to designing for community wellbeing.

“I think this speaks to the

growing movement within the planning industry to consider the impact of the built environment on a human scale, now and in the future. I look forward to championing the power of planning to support the wellbeing of future generations.”

RTPI Cymru Chair Huw Evans said: “We are delighted to name Alex as our first Young Planner of the Year – she has a proven track record in innovating to deliver wellbeing and has demonstrated leadership across sectors.

“Alex has achieved a great deal in her career already and is keen to change the narrative to keep planning relevant. Her colleagues have commented that she is a true pioneer and great role model for others.

“The enthusiasm and dedication that Alex has shown, to promote and ensure that wellbeing is recognised and considered throughout the decision-making process is a credit to her professionalism and values she holds.”

Three other young planners were shortlisted for the new award – Rhys Govier and Laura Williams, both of Savills, and Charlotte Raine of the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

The judging panel for the RTPI Cymru Young Planner of the Year competition comprised Huw Evans, Neil Hemington (Welsh Government Chief Planner) and Lindsay Christian (Newport City Council and former Chair of Young Planners Cymru).

CONDUCT AND DISCIPLINE DECISIONS

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Two appeals have recently been heard where the Conduct and Discipline Panel found that RTPI members had breached the Code of Professional Conduct. In both instances, the members appealed against those decisions and they were reconsidered by separate appeal committees.

In the first case the member had acted for an applicant who wanted to remove a restriction on a house to use it as an annexe. The appeal committee found that the member had not taken due care in the submission, which resulted in the incorrect description of development and other incorrect information on the application form. The member also contacted a councillor privately before the planning committee meeting to lobby on behalf of his

clients and made inappropriate comments about the neighbours at the planning committee. The appeal committee agreed that this had breached the code and warned the member as to his future conduct without naming him in the published report.

The second appeal concerned a member working at a local planning authority.

The member had been asked to finalise a committee report and recommendation for an outbuilding in a residential garden.

The development had previously received planning permission but had been built higher and closer to the boundary. A senior officer had visited the site and had told the neighbour that enforcement action would be taken, but had then reviewed the material and agreed that planning

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permission should be granted. The member assessed the scheme, agreed with the senior officer that planning permission should be granted but failed to visit the site to understand the impacts of the development at first hand. The appeal committee agreed that where a member is named as the professional officer making a recommendation on a development scheme it is important that a full assessment of the proposal is undertaken, including a site visit. It was agreed to warn the member as to his future conduct without naming him. n Members with queries about the code should email RTPI Complaints Investigator Ruth Richards at ruth.richards@rtpi.org.uk

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G PLANNIN AHEAD MEMBER NEWS

NEW CHARTERED MEMBERS

Key dates for 2020

Congratulations to the following planners who were elected to Chartered Membership of the RTPI on 4 November 2019.

Get your applications in before Friday 10 January to take part in this year’s edition of RTPI’s Chief Planners of Tomorrow initiative.

Chief Planners of Tomorrow is a work-shadowing scheme, launched in 2019, JAN offering RTPI Young Planners the chance to step into the shoes of a chief planning officer for the day.

The aim is to give participants the opportunity to learn from the very best in the profession, to understand the challenges and opportunities of life ‘at the top table’ and to see how strategic decision-making processes are made at senior level in local government.

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n For full terms and conditions, and to download an entry form, visit: bit.ly/planner0120-ChiefPlanners Join us at Milton Court Concert Hall in central London for the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence 2020. We’ll be celebrating the contribution that planners and planning make to society by revealing the winners of 15 APRIL categories, including a new category for legal teams working in the field of planning. The evening will climax with the announcement of the winner of the coveted Silver Jubilee Cup, awarded to the best project overall. Finalists will be announced in February.

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n For more information, visit www.rtpi.org.uk/excellence Join us in London for a new RTPI Training masterclass for 2020 on Planning and Community Engagement with RTPI trainer Hannah Barter.

Those taking part will gain an understanding MAY of the importance of community engagement as part of the planning process, as well as discovering a range of tools and techniques for effective working with communities. n To book your place, visit bit.ly/planner0120-Community Relaunched for 2020 as The Planner Live, the RTPI’s annual convention will be bigger and better than ever before, running across two full days. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from leading names in the planning community from the UK and overseas.

29­30 JUNE 2020 / LONDON

n Keep up-to-date with the latest news about The Planner Live at rtpi.org.uk/plannerlive

Yongjia Hu International

Tracy Payne South East

Mawarni Ahmad International

Mary Hudson South East

Joseph Pearson South East

Charlotte Irwin Northern Ireland

Jamie Pert Yorkshire

Nadeem Ahmed South East Matthew Arnold South East Ellen Bailey East of England Stephen Boundy South West Rebecca Bowen West Midlands Jonathan Brown East of England Adam Buxton London Alex Cameron North West

Oliver Jago East of England Roubeena Joghee South East Lyabo Johnson London Abigail Kos North West Jake Lambert East of England Sin Yee Lau International Debbie Longlands North East Ben MacLeod International

Vijay Prabhu Karkal Pulkeri London Matthew Pruce Yorkshire Bryan Reid Scotland Miriam Rogers London William Rogers Yorkshire Jake Salisbury North West Katie Saunders South West Kieran Shafiq Ali Scotland Kanchan Sharma South East

Wan In Chun International

Sophie Marshall North West

Brendon Dale West Midlands

Adam Mealing East Midlands

Joseph Smith North West

Clare Davey Yorkshire

Gabrielle Medforth East Midlands

Nigel Smith East of England

Ben Davis South East

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29­30 JUNE

Andrew Adams East of England

Hayden Dicker East of England

Philip Meldrum North East

Heidi Duncan London

Daniel Melling London

Jonathan Finch London

Hannah Mitchell North West

Sepideh Hajisoltani Scotland

Eleanor Moss East of England

Michael Hammacott South East Craig Hatton South East Emmanuel Hiamey Scotland

Juan Murray Wales/Cymru Bruce O’Brien East of England Emma Osborne South East

James Singer London

Melanie Starr South West Ben Stonebridge London Daniel Strode Yorkshire Jane Tennant Scotland Lauren ThiedePalmer London Emma Thompson East of England Dino Ustic London

Simon Osborne South West

Ryan Walker Northern Ireland

Holly Hobbs West Midlands

James Parkin Yorkshire

Ryan Ward London

Eoin Holland London

Joel Patton South West

Francesca Wray Yorkshire

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10/12/2019 16:34

If a job role’s worth filling…

Don’t just take our word for it - here’s what our customers are saying about Planner Jobs, the official planning recruitment service of the RTPI “We got a good number of applications for the planning of·cer posts and, having a brief look through the submissions, the candidates are from various necks of the woods.

Placing the advert with you has certainlyy helped us to reach a wider audience.”

MAY 2018 – MATTHEW PARRY DAVIES, DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT MANAGER, WIRRAL COUNCIL

“I have to say that the calibre of planners we have had apply through The Planner has really improved over the last three months.”

“I’m pleased to say we were able to appoint to this role (senior planner) and had a good calibre of applications. an Many of them, including the successful Ma candidate, were from yourselves, so ca thank you.” th AU AUGUST 2018 – ALEXANDRA KELLY, RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT, KINGSTON BOROUGH COUNCIL CO

JULY 2018 – CJ OBI, UK HEAD, TOWN PLANNING AND REAL ESTATE, OSBORNE RICHARDSON

“I am pleased to say that following our advertisement with The Plannerr we have successfully recruited high calibre candidates to each of the three vacant posts. There was also signi·cant response to the advertisement from which we were able to shortlist suitable candidates. This is due in no small way to the quality of the advertisement itself and its circulation. I would like to place on record my thanks for your support and assistance, and the professional manner in which dealt with our requests.”

OCTOBER 2018 ALAN N COLEMAN, HEAD OF DEVELOPMENT PLANNING & ENFORCEMENT DEVELOPMENT SERVICES, WORCESTER CITY COUNCIL

“As a start up practice, we had a very limited budget to recruit new graduate level planners. We also wanted to make sure that our job advert was exposed to the greatest amount of RTPI members. After shopping we decided that The Planner offered us the best possible value and reach among the planning community. As a result we were inundated with applications, and have been able to select some very high calibre candidates.”

OCTOBER 2018 – TOM VENABLES, PLANNING DIRECTOR, PRIOR + PARTNERS

“We have had really positive results with the adverts we have placed in The Planner. Our two new principals started with us this week, and we have had a series of interviews off the back of the advert.”

JULY 2018 KEVIN JAMES, SUPPORT TEAM MANAGER, AYLESBURY VALE DISTRICT COUNCIL

“The Planner worked fantastically well for our client’s senior planner role and massively exceeded expected applications! We would heartily recommend them to any client or business for their planning roles.”

NOVEMBER 2018 – DEAN TRANTER, ACCOUNT MANAGER, JUPITER ADVERTISING

Make sure your job role is seen by the largest possible audience of planners:ś ¥ ¥ś£ £¦ ¥ ¥¤ ¤·¥ ¡ £Ŝ Ŝ¦ £ś śȃȆȃśȋȌȌȃśȊȆȇȆ Find the right candidates for your planning roles by visiting:

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Recruitment {

To advertise please email: theplannerjobs@redactive.co.uk or call 020 7880 6232

Senior Planning Officer 000723 Grade 7 (£33,799 to £36,876) pro rata for hours worked 37 hours per week Stevenage Permanent “The Heart of a Town Lies in its People” and at Stevenage Borough Council our people are at the heart of what we do.

Planning Enquiries/ Assistant Planning Of·cer

Salary: £21,725 £29,687 pa Location: Oxfordshire

This is an exciting time for Stevenage Borough Council, with its Local Plan recently adopted, its ambitious growth plans can start to be realised.

A comprehensive town centre regeneration scheme is already underway, taking advantage of its ideal locational connections to London and the North via Thameslink, and new settlements on the edge of the town will soon become a reality.

An opportunity has arisen within our Planning and Regulation team for a Senior Planning Officer.

Planner

Salary: £35,122 £42,100 pa Location: Glasgow

We are looking for a qualified, suitably experienced and motivated senior planner to join our Development Management team. You will be responsible for carrying out the full range of development management duties and will have some experience of dealing with complex planning applications. You will need to demonstrate your ability to work using your own initiative, have excellent organisational and communication skills with a desire to help the delivery of high quality, sustainable development which helps to meet the aspirations of our local communities.

We value people with initiative and with the confidence and ability to work both independently and as part of a team.

The position is for 37 hours per week. However, we are happy to consider alternative working arrangements. We offer a number of benefits including:• • • • •

Assistant Manager, Enforcement Salary: £39,782 £42,683 pa Location: Gateshead

• •

Flexible working hours Generous leave entitlement We offer an excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).

Free staff car parking.

An Employee Assistance Programme to provide advice and counselling services.

We have negotiated discounts with various organisations to enable you to make choices about your health and lifestyle.

We are keen as a Council to support your training and personal development as a Development Management Officer.

Application details For further information, please contact Dave Rusling Development Manager on 01438 242270. For an application pack and to apply online, please visit www.stevenage.gov.uk/vacancies Closing date for receipt of applications is 5pm on Monday 13 January 2020.

Interviews will take place W/C 20 January 2020.

Planning and Conservation Project Of·cer Salary: £19,500 per year Location: London

Please note that Stevenage Borough Council cannot accept CV’s, all applications must be made on the Council’s standard application form which can be found at the above link.

Stevenage Borough Council (SBC) is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff, volunteers and recruitment candidates to share this commitment. SBC shall take all reasonable steps to employ staff who are safe to work with children, young people and vulnerable adults. For posts identified with regular contact with these groups applicants will be required to undertake a Value Based Interview. The council supports the legislative requirements for employing and maintaining safer staff and the guidance specified by the Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Board Safe Staffing Handbook 2010.

Stevenage Borough Council is committed to Equal Opportunities for All. For further information please see our Stevenage Borough Council web site.

theplanner.co.uk/jobs S ea rc h t h ep l a nn e r.co .u k / j o b fo r t h e b e s t v a canci e s Laundry List HPV.indd 1 p48-49_PLNJAN20.indd 49

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'INSIGHT'

What do an ancient walled town in Giza, the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, a ‘closed city’ in Siberia, a valley town in Tennessee and a web of interconnected oil platforms in the Caspian Sea have in common?

They are all settlements purpose-built for employees working on a project or for a business of regional or national importance.

It’s fair to say that monumental endeavour has always driven development. The walled settlement in Giza is thought to have housed up to 10,000 workers engaged in building the last of the three great pyramids on the plateau. Evidence of large-scale catering facilities and healthcare suggests that these workers were well cared for.

The model villages that emerged in Britain from the 18th century were more philanthropic creations in that the intent was to provide working people with decent, permanent homes (albeit in the service of industry). Bournville, Port Sunlight, Silver End, New Lanark and the like are characterful places. They stand the test of time.

By contrast, Oak Ridge in Tennessee was built at speed in the 1940s to house the scientists, engineers and the like integral to the Manhattan Project – the race to create a working nuclear bomb. Oak Ridge was sited in a 17-mile long valley to minimise the impact of accidents on other settlements. It’s evolved since the 1940s and become a regular town, though one with a scientific bias still.

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By contrast, its soviet equivalents – the numerous closed cities in remote locations –remain, mostly, secretive places where weapons are stored and military research carried out. At the height of the Cold War, they were known simply by postcodes linked to the nearest major settlement. Krasnoyarsk-26, for example, was about 40 miles from Krasnoyarsk. Nowadays it’s known as Zheleznogorsk.

One thing all these places have in common is that they provided decent living conditions for their workers, even if, from a placemaking perspective, they were merely functional. And they were all constructed in the service of what their builders believed to be a great ideal – the glory of gods, rulers and the supremacy of political or economic systems.

The same cannot really be said for Neft Daşları, a bizarre settlement some tens of kilometres from the Azerbaijan coast in the Caspian Sea. Another Cold War-era construction, it’s the oil industry equivalent of a shanty town – a series of offshore oil platforms linked by bridges, the whole built on a foundation of sunken ships and landfill. There are 300km of roads here, dormitories for workers, tearooms, outdoor recreation space, even a museum. It’s a strange mini-town with a population of around 2,000, where cold winds whip across the wave tops and storms can bring down buildings. In dystopian style, it’s disintegrating.

Neft Daşları may well be continuing a tradition as old as industry itself. But we reckon it also gives us a terrifying glimpse of life after the climate apocalypse. Is this how we’re going to live in a world of rising sea levels, dying nature and dwindling resources? Plan B has but one piece of advice: make like Iron Maiden and run to the hills!

I M AG E | G E T T Y / S H U T T E RSTO C K

Plan B

n Be a survivor Tweet us - @ThePlanner_RTPI 10/12/2019 16:34

LANDSCAPE

THE MONTH IN PLANNING The best and most interesting reads, websites, films and events that we’ve encountered this month WHAT WE'RE WATCHING 1...

Amsterdam: Why it’s so efficient as a city This entertaining video showcases the history and development of Amsterdam, going way beyond the stereotypical image of canals, cafés and bikes to explain the city’s emerging urban form. It also looks at the current planning of the city, why it is the way it is, and what is going to happen (in particular its 2040 structural plan). bit.ly/planner0120-Amsterdam

WHAT WE'RE READING..

Cities for People – The Story of David Cook A civil engineer whose career had an extraordinary reach, David Cook’s life is remembered by his daughter, his colleagues and friends, and Cook himself. Many planners are featured, eulogising Cook’s work to improve conditions in some of the world’s poorest cities. Described as “a strange mixture of traditional conservative and radical free-thinker”, there’s much here for those interested in Cook and his work. Email us to find n out more.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING 2...

New Town – a Halas and Batchelor cartoon film production Cor blimey, guv – this is a strange old video and no mistake! It’s a 1948 British Government documentary from the Central Office of Information in which a cartoon cockney cycles around his new town reminiscing about the drab houses and smog of his former city living. “Not even a blooming place for the kids to play. Poor little blighters.” The process of new town building comes to life in true Tom & Jerry style, in an astonishing eight minutes of post-war promotion. bit.ly/planner0120-NewTown

WHERE WE'RE GOING...

Each month the RTPI runs a range of free or low-cost events up and down the UK. Here’s our pick for the next few weeks.

See the full calendar here: bit.ly/planner0120-calendar The importance of planning for an ageing population 14 Jan, 321 Bradford Street (Ground floor), Birmingham

Managing supply and demand in a sustainable context 5 Feb, Somerset County Cricket Ground, Taunton

A hundred years ago, the average life expectancy for men and women was 55 and 59 respectively. Things have changed markedly, and this seminar will include presentations from the RTPI, a local planning authority, a leading developer and a university lecturer, all exploring the urgency of planning for an ageing population.

A policy update from Lonek Wojtulewicz, Planning & Infrastructure Division at MHCLG, followed by a discussion about how minerals and waste can work towards the net zeroemissions target/circular economy.

There will also be a case study and a presentation on safeguarding Cornwall’s mineral resources.

bit.ly/planner0120-Ageing

bit.ly/planner0120-Minerals

Minerals and Waste – The silent planning partner?

Climate Emergency – What next for the UK? 27 Feb, Carriageworks, The Electric Press, Leeds

WHAT WE’RE PLANNING Febru February is careers month, so we’re focusing on results of our second annual careers survey – the re including salient findings about your attitudes to inclu environment and use of new tech. your working w We’ll also discuss the visibility of chief planners give the sector’s initial response to the and g general election outcome. As ever, please contact gener editorial@theplanner.co.uk with feature ideas. edito

Half of the UK’s local authorities have declared a climate emergency, pledging to act on the causes and effects of climate change. This event examines how planners and policymakers can support action to cut net greenhouse emissions to zero while aiding sustainable development. bit.ly/planner0120-Emergency

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If undelivered please return to: The Royal Town Planning Institute 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL

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