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Comments from the University of the West of England
on the scoping of the Environmental Planning Study
From: Caroline Brown,
Centre for Environment & Planning, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of the West of England,
Bristol BS16 1QY
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Following a seminar of teaching and research staff, the material below was put together in response to the consultative letter. For reasons of brevity the material is presented as short bullet points, arranged in the familiar Strengths Weaknesses - Opportunities - Threats format. Many of the points raised have several facets, and appear in both positive and negative form within the list. The starting point for the discussion was - of course - the town and country planning system, and the material presented here centres around this system and its ability to deliver environmental objectives.
Strengths
- Mechanisms for public participation in the planning system compare favourably with participation in other systems of environmental protection and regulation (e.g. pollution control; environmental impact assessment).
- The use of locally determined and locally sensitive legal agreements (S106) as tools for securing environmental gains and protection (e.g. the provision of subsidised bus services and cycle facilities; the requirement for air quality monitoring and further remedial action where specified levels are breached)
- The EIA process, which requires the assessment and consideration of environmental impacts in large development proposals.
- The flexibility and breadth of the planning system when considering planning applications. Material considerations may include anything relevant to the application in question.
- The network of planning schools accredited by the RTPI, and the high standards of planning education - particularly in relation to environmental issues and sustainability. Environmental education is a key requirement of the RTP1 in the education of town planners.
Weaknesses
- Public participation in the planning system is often (although not always) limited to NIMBYism.
- The weak democratic basis for the emerging regional institutions (particularly regional development agencies), and their weak capacity to act on planning matters or make strategic decisions.
- The opacity of S106 agreements as part of the decision-making process; and their inconsistency between local authority areas.
- Research by James McGill at UWE (into planning for efficient resource use) suggests that the values intrinsic in the planning system are related to a 'soft' conception of the environment (environment with a small 'e'). This conception appears to be related to the narrow scope of the planning system.
- The co-ordination (or lack of) between planning and other expert bodies (statutory consultees) who are relied on to make comments about development applications. These organisations need to work together in pursuit of environmental gains, and bodies such as Highways' and the Environment Agency should be much more aware of the role that they can play in (positively) influencing development decisions and outcomes.
- An associated issue relates to the interaction of planning and other 'technical' disciplines (building control, highway standards, etc.). While planning officers may be working hard to achieve certain environmental objectives, this is often not supported and can be undermined by other processes. For example, while Bristol City Council were working hard to reduce the transport and air quality impact of a large retail development, the environment agency required the developer to construct a concrete bund as a flood defence, as the site is adjacent to a river. While the construction of the bund was not in contention, the developer successfully argued that the bund should be constructed from earth - as this would save both on waste disposal costs and the consumption of construction aggregates. Similarly, the same developer managed to negotiate away a building insulation requirement set down by building regulations, as this would increase running costs in a building which requires more cooling than heating.
- In relation to the flexibility of material considerations, local planning authorities cannot be confident about making decisions on the basis, of environmental issues, unless the development plan or other policy provides some back-up. While this raises a general question about the strength of the appeals process in upholding environmental objectives, it also points to the difficulty local authorities have in pursuing a wider definition of planning than that accepted by national government. Where local authorities set out policies that are not strictly land-use based, central government is liable to request their removal from the development plan. This means that despite the role that central government envisages for planning in the delivery of sustainable development, local planning authorities are restricted in the scope of their planning activities and the content of their development plans by the interventions of central government.
- The skills base in the planning profession, while shifting strongly towards environmental planning, is still limited particularly in the ability to deal with and encourage innovation. For example, the best examples of low-energy building design tend to look quite different to the average building, and do not fit into the standards that most planning officers are familiar with. Unfortunately, the tendency is for planning officers to discourage rather than encourage non-standard approaches - partly as a result of lack of skill in dealing with non-standard design, and partly as a result of other pressures in the planning process (particularly the 8 week determination target).
- The point at which planning becomes involved in the development process is often too late to secure anything other than minor changes. This places the onus for innovation with developers and provides little opportunity for planning to stimulate innovation.
- Many of the points raised thus far relate in some way to the scope of the system. As a narrow land-use based system, planning officers often feel restricted in the issues that they can and cannot influence. Energy efficiency is a good example of an issue that is recognised by planners, but which is usually felt to be outside the scope of the system (and left to building control). It seems absurd that planning permission may include conditions about noise insulation, but rarely includes conditions about energy saving insulation. In addition, other areas of weakness include control over agricultural and rural land-uses, and coastal zone management.
- The assessment of cumulative environmental impacts also appears to be a weakness of the planning system. This is particularly true in relation to issues such as C02 emissions and pollution, and can be linked to the absence of a regional tier at which to make strategic assessments of critical capital and carrying capacities. Although, it might also be argued that national government has a role to play in bringing together the relevant information to assess these impacts and deal with long-term issues.
- Environmental Impact Assessment - while a crucial element of the planning system and environmental protection - suffers from its technocratic and user-unfriendly nature. The reliance on technical data and solutions is not only impenetrable to most members of the public, but is often difficult for planning officers.
Opportunities
- The creation of a regional level of planning offers the opportunity to take a strategic view of resources (habitat, minerals, infrastructure etc) and balance local development pressures with regional resources and large-scale environmental processes.
- EIA and SEA offer the opportunity to integrate environmental objectives into both plan-making and development control decision-making.
- There is an opportunity for strengthening environmental planning at both the national and local (authority) levels by integrating sectoral policies under the sustainability umbrella. This moves on from the integration of transport, environment and land-use, to the integration of energy efficiency (resource consumption) and environmental health for example, with land use. Local authorities such as Leicester appear to be leading the way in this type of integration, with initiatives linking social issues with health and the environment through schemes tackling energy efficiency in housing.
- The interaction of other systems and other organisations with the planning process offers plenty of opportunities to maximise the environmental performance of new development, both through the co-ordination of policy objectives and through the contribution that outside bodies can make to planning decisions.
- The Best Value initiative in local government may offer the opportunity to include qualitative environmental indicators in the evaluation of planning services. Work by Jim Claydon (Head of the UWE School of Planning and Architecture) and John Baker (of John Baker Associates) in Guildford has looked at the performance of planning in relation to design criteria, and there is potential for developing other measures of environmental enhancement or quality of life issues.
- The non-statutory tools of the planning system - development briefs and pre-application discussions in particular - offer a good opportunity to:
- Encourage innovation and novel solutions
- Provide an earlier opportunity to intervene in the development process
The plan-led system provides an opportunity - with central government support - to move towards proactive planning, which encourages innovation, supports appropriate types of development and promotes environmental objectives.
Threats
- The main threat to environmental planning comes from (particularly in declining areas) the pursuit of economic development and inward investment. Where local authorities are keen to attract investment and create jobs, environmental considerations are often the first to be sacrificed.
Conclusions
The points raised above represent - in our view - areas of conflict and potential that the Commission should consider in its investigations. Many of the points raise further questions that might be investigated by the Commission, although the core issues to emerge appear to cluster round the following subjects:
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