Policy Exchange
(Jack Airey) has produced a very interesting and challenging report on the
planning system: Re-thinking the Planning System for the 21st
Century. https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Rethinking-the-Planning-System-for-the-21st-Century.pdf
The critique
illustrates two features of the current system. Local panning authorities are
their own worst enemies, exposing themselves and the system to these
fundamental criticisms. But the reason
why Airey is right to predict that the recommendations will give rise to ‘scare
stories’ is because of the mess that has resulted from most of the
contributions the private sector has made to development in the last decade or
so. The justified criticisms of the
current system might suggest wholesale reform, were the private sector to have
earned or now merit any trust. The
planning system will have imposed costs on the private sector, but there is no
reason to believe that greater freedom from regulation would result in greater
quality or, importantly, greater levels of sustainability and resilience. Many of the problems and delays would be
sorted were the private sector to deliver quality, sustainability, affordability
without the need for protracted negotiations and coercion.
Policy Exchange
chooses to keep the identity of its funding under wraps so readers are unable
to see the names of the pipers playing this tune. Work by PE would also carry greater
credibility were its research to informed by the fact that the UK is one of the
most unequal societies in the world. There
is no evidence that the wealth of the few will be employed for the benefit of
the many if there was less regulation over the use of land and buildings.
PE has also
chosen not to declare a climate emergency to ensure that climate change and
biodiversity loss inform all its work.
In fact there is a repeated paragraph intended to show that Airey has
taken climate change into account:
“Climate
leadership.
A reformed planning system will allow the building of
infrastructure more easily, not least the infrastructure necessary to achieve
the UK target to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (e.g. more
wind farms and better public transport).”
About 2 of the
100 pages purport to demonstrate this, but refer only to on-shore wind,
broadband and an abandoned tram. A
reformed planning system is indeed needed to address the carbon emissions and
biodiversity loss, but Airey has not shown that this will be achieved by the
private sector through less rather than more regulation (and enforcement). The Building Regulations could do some of this
job but sustainability is much more than the structural and thermal performance
of buildings and drains.
As he says,
beauty need not add to costs, and there is no reason to believe that a freed up
private sector is any more capable of delivering sustainable housing than it
has been of delivering beautiful environments.
The report describes the limited freedoms enjoyed through ‘permitted
development’ rights, but does not mention the way the right to change from
office use to residential has resulted in some of the most sub-standard living
accommodation since the advent of the planning system in 1947.
The system controlling the use and development of land and buildings does
need to change but, for the next decade, this must be in a way that prioritises the
need to reduce carbon emissions (including those embodied in new buildings and infrastructure)
and not to enable economic growth as measured by Policy Exchange.
