Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

Environmental planning and sustainable development
The RSPB is grateful for the invitation to submit comments on the key issues that the Royal Commission will be examining in its study on environmental planning. We believe that any study of environmental planning must include planning for sustainable development - that is social and economic dimensions of planning systems as well as the environmental.

The environment is affected by social and economic factors. Moreover, the environment affects social and economic circumstances. For instance, it is fundamental to economic progress and increasingly it is an important sector of the economy in its own right. A recent report ^[1] has documented the importance of the environment to the economy of the South West. It estimated (conservatively) that the region's high quality environment supports around 100,000 jobs and contributes £1.6 billion to regional GDP.

Sustainable development is often described by an analogy of a three legged stool. It is our contention that the environment has historically suffered in decision making processes. Only in the last 20 years or so has the environmental leg of the stool been addressed to try and equal it with the social and economic legs. Even the Government's interpretation of sustainable development ^[5] seems slightly 'unstable' with its lack of reference to environmental enhancement (second objective) and its fourth objective of 'maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment'.

The Commission's investigation of environmental planning must examine how all planning processes can help to ensure that the environmental consequences of land use actions, both positive and negative, are fully understood and that all efforts are made to avoid adverse environmental effects and enhance the environment wherever possible.

A decision making approach for all planning authorities
Important environmental assets, such as the UK's outstanding biodiversity, must be identified strategically and given the highest level of protection appropriate to their importance. This means strong, robust and unambiguous policies to protect them, including in national (town and country) planning policy guidance, Regional Planning Guidance (where applicable) and development plans.

Determining authorities should only permit development where no alternative is available, and it is clearly demonstrated that the need for the development outweighs its adverse environmental implications. We suggest the following as a model approach to considering all potentially damaging development:

• have a clear understanding of the environmental, (and social and economic)importance of assets affected, and the potential impacts of development (including cumulative effects) - through the use of environmental or sustainability appraisal, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), etc;

• always seek opportunities to positively enhance the environment through development;

• avoid adverse environmental impacts wherever possible. Search for alternative solutions (including the 'do nothing' option), and for non-damaging or, if not possible, less damaging locations;
• where no alternative is available, clearly demonstrate that the benefits of the development outweigh the environmental disbenefits;

• where development proceeds, offset adverse impacts through the use of mitigation measures; and,

• if adverse impacts will still occur, compensate wherever possible, (however, recognise that the ability to achieve adequate compensation is often over-estimated and the cost underestimated).

Key issues

1. Town and Country Planning
   The RSPB considers the town and country planning system to be one of the key elements of environmental planning. We identify the following 'practical difficulties' which need to be addressed by the Commission in its study:

1. Decisions not taken at the right planning level
   The planning system sometimes fails to take decisions at the right level. The Commission's letter highlights the tensions that can occur between top down and bottom up imperatives (topic (b)). Some decisions fail to recognise the importance of an environmental asset, for example, and 'trade' the asset for development of lesser importance. In practice this means that nationally important (eg Sites of Special Scientific Interest) and internationally important (eg Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation) wildlife sites have been sacrificed for development that is, at best, of regional significance, and sometimes just local. This is often the result of strong local political pressure to create jobs and the lack of local political pressure to retain nationally or internationally important biodiversity. It is often symptomatic of authorities failing to take a long term view.

   Decisions should be taken at the appropriate level - it is unfair to subject local planning authorities to intense local political pressures when the principles of the decision are regional or national. The Commission should examine this further.

   The Government has been critical of slow planning decisions, eg Terminal 5 at Heathrow. The delay to these major infrastructure projects, through long inquiries, is due to a lack of a clear national strategic policy on major infrastructure. A Public Inquiry like Heathrow Terminal 5 should not take over 4 years, but the fault lies with Government. This is true of sea ports, water, waste, etc. In the absence of clear national sectoral and planning policy inquiries are forced to debate national policy issues. The Government needs to set out its strategic and planning policy for major infrastructure provision and provide political leadership. All major infrastructure policies and proposals should be subject to Strategic Environmental (or sustainability) Appraisal. The Commission should investigate the relative lack of clear. national sectoral and spatial policies.

2. Planning Guidance does not reflect the sustainable development agenda
   The planning policy guidance series in the UK is sometimes considerably out of date and is increasingly fragmented. It is lagging behind the Government's sustainability agenda and this needs to be rectified urgently. The lack of integration between guidance notes frequently results in contradictions that are exploited in the planning process, for instance at public inquiry. Many guidance notes contain ambiguities that are similarly exploited.

   Guidance needs updating to accord with the Government's sustainable development strategy A better quality of life, and other environmental progress in the last 10 years, such as the UK Biodiversity Action Plan process and various EU Directives on the environment. Mineral Planning Guidance also needs to better reflect this agenda, especially the 'prudent use of natural resources', one of the four Government objectives for sustainable development (see above).

   A planning strategy that brings together, meaningfully, the disparate and varied elements of all the guidance notes is needed. This has been attempted in Planning Guidance (Wales) Planning Policy, but this is short on content and of little help to Local Planning Authorities (LPAs). In Scotland the Royal Town Planning Institute has formed a working party to explore the potential for a 'national planning framework'. This could be considered elsewhere in the UK. The Commission should consider whether a national planning framework is needed and whether all planning decision should include a brief description of how environmental/ sustainable development issues have been taken into consideration.

3. Inappropriate trade-offs
   The planning system has 'salami sliced' the natural environment, making decisions that result in loss upon loss of habitats (and species), which in themselves may be small scale, but which in combination are significant. The planning system has tended to continually 'balance' conflicting demands. This has resulted in a failure to protect some outstanding natural assets because the full effect of the trade off wasn't appreciated: the loss of the natural asset was deemed to be small; the economic worth of the development was over-emphasised or the environmental worth downplayed; and /or the authorities failed to take the necessary historical perspective - the starting point for decision making is not 1999.

   Development plans and planning decisions must recognise the scale of historical loss suffered by our natural environment. Decisions must no longer be dressed up as 'balance'. LPAs should have a full understanding of the habitat losses and environmental changes of their area before reaching decisions, (Local Biodiversity Action Plans are a good way of assessing the former). They should take decisions based on this understanding, and assess the cumulative impact of previous decisions and of decisions outside their area. The Commission should examine how the planning system can more effectively assess cumulative impacts of different proposals (and in different local authority areas).

   This problem is compounded by public funding for infrastructure projects, as the 'in principle' decision on subsidy often precedes that on planning. Political momentum then creates a major (sometimes insurmountable) obstacle to objective consideration of the environmental/economic trade-offs. Current examples include Cardiff Bay Barrage, the Cairngorms Funicular Railway (Highland), the threat to Lough Foyle from expansion of Derry City airport, and threats to Rainham Marshes in east London (Borough of Havering). The NFFO subsidy regime for wind energy developments can have similar effects. The Commission should examine the use of public funds to promote damaging proposals.

   In some instances the economic importance of development is over-stated, for example, the jobs promised do not materialise. The Commission should examine whether there is a need for an economic appraisal of development where it affects assets of national and international importance.

4. Lack of vision and planning gain
   The land use planning system in the 1980s and early 1990s was characterised by a focus on development control. Planners were to presume in favour of development unless it would cause 'demonstrable harm to interests of acknowledged importance' ^[6]. The advent of the 'plan-led system' has changed this presumption to one in favour of the development plan. Local authorities can now more readily use their plans to set out a vision for their communities. In practice, however, development plans still lack vision, with many merely extrapolating and projecting past trends. Real gains that can be made through land use change and development have often been ignored or marginalised.

   There are increasing opportunities to promote positive action through the land use planning system. This means creating a planning regime and development plans that not only protect features and control activities, but which also seek to re-create or re-establish features and manage features and activities. For instance, there are significant habitat creation opportunities associated with minerals and housing development.

   Planning should be more positive and proactive. Local authorities should be encouraged to plan for the environmental, economic and social well-being of their communities, to manage demand, and to manage change. The Commission should investigate how the development plan system, and planning in general, can be made more visionary and positive and recommend how this vision might be more effectively realised.

5. Outdated mineral planning consents
   The minerals planning system faces the issue of old minerals permissions. Minerals permissions are long lasting, although review procedures have been introduced ^[7]. Many are today recognised to be inappropriate and damaging.

   Some 220 SSSIs are affected by 350 old minerals permissions. Powers exist to revoke damaging permissions where they are no longer deemed to be acceptable, but compensation rights apply to the operators. There is now a will amongst some mineral planning authorities to revoke damaging permissions, but the financial resources for compensation are not available.

   For example, permission for many peat sites was given in the 1950s when cutting was by hand and the importance of peat mires as a wildlife habitat was not widely recognised. Lowland raised peatbogs are now recognised as of being international importance, yet only 6% of the former coverage remains in near natural condition in the UK. Nine peatland SSSIs are being worked, on an industrial scale never envisaged when permission was granted, and three of these - Thome and Hatfield Moors and Wedholme Flow, all proposed as sites of European importance - account for 50% of UK peat production.

   The Commission should investigate the issue of outdated permissions and how revocation might be achieved, either by resourcing local authorities to pay the full compensation liable, or by changing compensation rules.

6. Environmental costs
   The planning system does not fully incorporate environmental costs of decisions into its process. Planning agreements, obligations or gain are the best instruments available, but these tend to be used in an opportunistic way rather than systematically. None of these instruments really address the 'externalities' of a development, that is the environmental costs imposed on others as a result of the land use change or building works. The Commission should examine how environmental planning regimes can more effectively ensure that the full environmental costs of development and land use change are internalised. It should examine what instruments could most effectively help achieve this.

7. Lines on maps
   The planning system copes relatively well with issues that can be defined by a line on a map. It is much less successful in dealing with 'dispersed issues' that are less site specific. Consequently it can, for example, assess the impacts of a housing development on nature conservation in an SSSI (provided the local planning authority has the right expert input) ^[8], but much less well the effects of a development away from but likely to affect an SSSI. The system is extremely poor at capturing and dealing other issues, like the potential effects of development on a dispersed species of recognised importance, which is not delineated on a map. The Commission should examine how 'dispersed issues' can be more effectively dealt with through the planning system.

2. Agriculture and Forestry
   The exclusion of agriculture and forestry from controls similar to those of the town and country planning system seems anomalous today. Much of the damage to habitats and species in the post war period ^[9] has been the result of changing land use practice in agriculture. The reason for the exclusion of these land uses, the self-sufficiency needs of post-war Britain, are no longer paramount.

   Greater harmony is needed between decision making processes for rural land uses. A system of strategy development, plan preparation, plan appraisal, and proposal consideration, deemed necessary for physical development, has not generally been applied to forestry or agricultural. This anomaly has begun to be addressed, for example through Indicative Forestry Strategies and the proposed application of environmental impact assessment to conversion of semi-natural habitats to agriculture. The Commission should examine the 'planning' regimes applying to agriculture and forestry and assess whether they provide sufficient environmental protection in today's rapidly changing rural environment.

   Another 'gap' in planning coverage is that local authority planning control ends at mean low water mark, resulting in a fragmented decision making process for coastal development ^[10]. The Commission should examine the 'planning' regimes applying to the coast and assess whether these are appropriate.

3. Existing development
   As far as the built environment is concerned, the town and country planning system only covers new building and changes of use. The major part of our built environment is not addressed by the system, unless it is rebuilt or regenerated. There is much to be achieved for the environment by using our existing buildings more efficiently - not allowing them to stand empty when they are capable of a new economic use, and ensuring they are more resource efficient. The planning system cannot compel landowners to use vacant buildings, and investment is needed to improve the energy efficiency of our existing built stock. The Commission should examine the 'planning' regimes that apply to existing development and whether these meet our environmental needs.

4. Resource Conservation
   Resource conservation in new buildings offers the potential to reduce some adverse environmental impacts. However, Building Control does much to determine the energy efficiency of buildings. The role of town and country planning should be increased in this area, or at least harmonised with Building Control powers. Building Control needs to set higher standards for energy efficiency and water conservation.

   Planning should have a much stronger role in managing the demand for water, so that developments can be refused if inadequate water resources are available in areas of water stress. The co-ordination and integration between water 'planning' regimes and planning are not as effective as they should be, for example the amount of development permitted in flood plains contrary to the advice of the Environment Agency. This lack of integration needs to be addressed. Likewise the planning system is not permitted to take account of matters controlled by other statutes, like pollution control, yet this can lead to fragmented decision making. There is need for greater integration.

   In general there is a need to co-ordinate the range of planning instruments that now affect land use activity. Policies in development plans need to draw on and from community plans, local transport plans, Local Environment Agency Plans (LEAPs), local authority economic development plans, health plans, shoreline management plans, etc. The Commission should investigate the issue of natural resource planning, and the issue of plan complimentarity and the potential for duplication or plan overload.

5. Land Management
   Much can be achieved through managing land more effectively and efficiently, but this is outside the planning system. Local Transport Plans have been created because development plans could not deliver the management elements of these plans, yet these are the parts that promise the most. The Commission should examine the need for more efficient management planning for the environment.

6. Public participation
   One of the major advantages of the town and country planning system is its involvement of the public. In this respect it is more open than other 'planning' regimes. There is a concern, however, that the public still focus on localised planning decisions (planning applications) but that under the plan-led system they need to be more involved in strategic decisions (development plans). There is a risk that this involvement 'gap' will lead to disillusionment with the system - a belief that views (on applications) don't matter because the decision has already been made (which in principle they already have). The Commission should look at how the public can be encouraged to become more participative in strategic planning decision making, and how planning decision making may be made less adversarial. It should examine how public participation can be extended more effectively to other planning regimes.

Back to Index of comments on the scoping of the Environmental Planning Study