Planning by Manifesto
We kept our aspirations lofty and set out, in our 57-minute record, to answer the fundamental question –is the planning system fit for purpose? We covered the findings of the National Audit Office Report, the Raynsford Review and dissected the aims of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. Then we moved on to the changes to Permitted Development Rights and this is where things really got interesting.
For those planners who have been living under a rock, it is now possible, through Permitted Development Rights, to turn an office building into housing without applying for planning permission. The intended purpose of which, fairly reasonably, was to boost the overall supply of housing and increase the number of homes in and around town centers. So far so sensible. However, we’re now starting to see the reality of this legislation on the ground and in many cases, it does not look pretty.
Take for example a recent office to resi conversion in Harlow, which is creating "homes" of 18sqm. That’s less than half the minimum size required for a new dwelling by Space Standards (37sqm). One commenter pointed out that an average Premier Inn hotel room is 22sqm. Imagine fitting the contents of your entire house into a space smaller than a hotel room. Unsurprisingly, such developments are seeing huge increases in crime and antisocial behavior. One resident of an office to resi conversion described to the BBC the experience of having to eat all their meals in bed (there was nowhere else to eat them), and of cleaning the blood off her own front door after fights broke out in the hall outside.
More than 1000 homes in Harlow have been delivered through such conversions and the results, labelled “human warehousing” by the media, are an unintended and wholly unacceptable consequence of the relaxation of Permitted Development rights.
The news coverage has, unsurprisingly, prompted calls for greater regulation, but SLP had a different and interesting take. Their assertion was that the current acquisitive jamboree is what happens when you have too much restriction across the board, and suddenly create freedom in one particular area. The analogy they used was the episode of The Simpsons in which Homer becomes Springfield’s “Sanitation Commissioner” - trash starts popping up in unexpected places after Homer decides the best solution is to stuff the town’s waste into an abandoned mine shaft.
Now as much as I think we were coming from different ideological perspectives, I can see the sense of this argument, and I think it speaks to an interesting relationship between the level of detail in legislation and the opportunity for exploitation, legal challenges, “wiggle room” and misinterpretation. From my perspective, the UK Planning System as it currently stands is so bogged down in details and minutia that it leaves itself vulnerable to wild disregard for fundamental principles.
For those supported by the full might of financial capital and well-versed legal representation, “bulletpoint three of clause 2.6 of policy whatever” may not function as the impenetrable fortress of good sense and taste that it was conceived to be, especially if a 5-year supply cannot be proven.
Now I’m not suggesting that we respond to this by throwing our hands up in the air, starting a bonfire of Local Plan Documents and waiting for the development industry free for all to commence. Far from it. I’d like to explore the idea of something radical; de-regulation with guiding principles, laissez-fair with a moral compass, a market with a manifesto.
Let’s imagine for instance that instead of the digital piles of National Planning Guidance, Core Strategies, Local Plan Documents, Supplementary Planning Documents, Design Guides, Design Codes etc etc we just had a single sheet of A4 paper. On this piece of paper would be a manifesto and a set of principles, nothing else. Some of these principles would be spatial, some would be social.
An application comes in. Say, for example, an application that creates segregated play areas for children living in social housing. Instead of raking through reams of planning policy searching for something that specifically prevents a gate being replaced with a hedge, Generic Local Authority Planner can go: “this does not meet our social principle of creating integrated communities” and thus the application could be refused. Another application comes in, for a low-quality housing development accessed off an A-Road without a bus stop, tram station or rail link in site – “sorry, that does not meet our spatial principal that new development should be accessible by sustainable modes of transport”. My point being that it would hopefully be harder to wheedle out of a set of fundamental principles than it might be to argue the toss on highly specific policy requirements.
This system could be flexible, responding easily to changing circumstances; it’s hard to imagine a scenario where a Local Planning Authority has taken so many years to re-draft it’s piece of A4 paper that it is being threatened with Central Government intervention. It could be accessible; communities could easily engage in the development of a set of principles – no impenetrable bureaucracy, no sifting through reams of dry documentation, no long-winded, pre-drafted consultation response letters and no acronyms. It could be locally specific, easily taking into account the particular circumstances of an area.
As I write all this I’m aware that I’m sinking into the warm bath of confirmation bias, floating away into the dreamy utopia created by my new methodology. Ahhh..planning isn’t difficult or complicated...
I’ll pull the plug myself and let the water drain out right now. Firstly, it is important to note that this is a hastily constructed idea, dreamed up in the bathroom of the co-working space where we recorded the podcast. I saw a manifesto for the use of the building and liked the way “Planning by Manifesto” sounded. It is intended purely as food for thought, not thrown out as a fully articulated idea. I can already think of a half a dozen ways that what I am proposing wouldn’t work.
Secondly, there are a number of fundamental things that would need to change in the way that the planning system is resourced before this could come even close to being achievable. Local Authority Planning Departments would need to begin attracting the most highly skilled and motivated planners within the profession. These people would need to be bold, creative and most importantly sit some way outside of the election cycle which disincentivises radical or progressive ideas. They would need to be able to make nuanced judgements and have convictions in their decisions. They would need to be led by someone like a City Planner with an aspirational vision, and supported by a community of engaged residents and stakeholders. By which I mean this system would need money, and lots of it.
How to fund a successful planning system is worthy of another blog post in itself. So, for now I will continue to process my deregulatory shock and wait for the inevitable call from the RTPI revoking my membership.
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