Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

TEXT OF CONSULTATION LETTER ON ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING STUDY

The Royal Commission has decided to undertake a study of Environmental Planning. The preparatory phase of this new study is overlapping with completion of the current study of Energy and the Environment. In the second phase of the new study, beginning early next year, the Commission will invite evidence on specific issues. The purpose of this letter is to help the Commission identify issues for detailed investigation in the second phase. It summarises the background to the new study, indicates the broad topics the Commission intends to cover, and invites views on what are the key issues.

Background to the new study

The use of land is connected to environmental change at many different scales and is increasingly implicated in strategies for sustainable development. Development is regulated directly through the development control system (under Town and Country Planning legislation) but land use is influenced by other policies and by a range of statutory and non-statutory arrangements. Furthermore, the success of policies in diverse sectors (such as transport, energy, water and nature conservation) depends to a significant extent on decisions about land use.

Measures to combat pollution and the system of statutory land use plans under the Town and Country Planning Acts have been recognised for a long time as being inter-related. This formed a major theme of the Commission's Fifth Report, published in 1976. Since then, the land use planning system has seen significant changes and continues to evolve in response to new pressures.

In many cases that system now requires the environmental implications of development to be assessed. It is explicitly plan-led. It is no longer concerned solely with the uses of land. The government has produced guidance on how to incorporate sustainable development principles into the preparation of plans and into development control. It has gone on to point out that sustainable development is not only about protecting the environment but is also concerned with achieving economic growth, employment, and social progress. In some respects changes of this kind echo European moves towards a more comprehensive spatial development strategy.

At the same time, the government has continued to advise, and the Courts have confirmed, that the planning system should not be operated so as to duplicate controls which are the statutory responsibility of other bodies (or of local authorities in their non-planning functions). And some significant forms of human intervention in the environment are not subject to the planning system.

Within environmental protection, partly under the influence of European Community legislation, the trend has been towards an increasingly strategic approach. A wide variety of regulatory mechanisms, strategies and plans has been put in place to achieve environmental goals at every level from the international to the local. These take many forms. Examples include the Kyoto Protocol on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the EC Acidification strategy, the UK's national and local biodiversity action plans, the National Air Quality Strategy, water resource plans produced by water companies in England and Wales, and Local Environment Agency Plans. Where targets are set nationally, it is not always clear how they should be translated into local plans and action. Conversely, decisions reflecting local priorities may sometimes be inconsistent with national aims.

Unless planning processes (in the widest sense) engage adequately with the public and take due account of the values of the wider public as well as the views of stakeholders, the outcome can be a loss of confidence in the system. Practice in this respect varies. Plans may also provide a framework within which companies are able to develop their own measures to reduce the environmental effects of their activities and products.

Legislation has brought together many environmental functions in the Environment Agencies but some policy goals are achievable only through the concerted actions of more than one body. Air quality, for example, is affected by development patterns, industrial and domestic emissions, transport sources and topographical and climatic conditions. Environmental policies have been given a strong spatial dimension by such concepts as 'environmental footprint' and 'environmental capacity', the impetus of Local Agenda 21, and the duties in relation to sustainable development which have been placed on bodies at different geographical levels (such as the Welsh Assembly, the Regional Development Agencies, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Environment Agency). The full implications of devolution have yet to become apparent.

There may be good reasons for not attempting to cover all aspects of the environment in a single comprehensive procedure. Nevertheless there are indications of problems arising, or missed opportunities, at some of the existing interfaces, and it is not clear that the present procedures, taken together, are adequate to achieve sustainable development. It is these concerns which the Commission wishes to investigate.

Broad topics to be covered

In its study the Commission intends to include the following broad topics:

a) how democratic control should be exercised over land use decisions, and priorities established, in the light of subsidiarity and devolution, regard for people's values, openness, transparency and accountability;

b) the potential conflict between national environmental strategies and local interests, and when private rights are limited in the public interest (including the interest of future generations);

c) how environmental planning systems take account of needs for particular types of development as well as the need to manage and conserve resources; concepts of 'national needs' and their alignment with local and regional environmental aspirations; the use of Parliamentary procedures to examine, and where appropriate sanction, decisions of national significance.

d) the proper roles for statutory procedures and less formal arrangements in environmental management, the appropriateness of the present statutory framework, and the extent of public confidence in the appeals systems;

e) the extent to which the quest for 'sustainable development' might jeopardise the effectiveness of present arrangements for achieving environmental objectives;

f) the extent of gaps, duplication, co-ordination and conflict in present arrangements;

g) the resilience of present arrangements in coping with foreseeable major developments such as climate change;

h) the relationships between underlying environmental processes and the geographical areas to which plans and decisions at present relate;

i) the knowledge base, including the location and availability of expertise, training, the use of environmental impact assessment, and the adequacy of data.

Invitation to submit views on the key issues

The list of topics given above is not intended to be comprehensive and the Commission would be glad to have other significant topics drawn to its attention. The Commission also invites interested organisations and individuals to provide examples of practical difficulties, or of good practice, in operating the present arrangements. Information on gaps, duplication etc (sub-paragraph (e) above) in the present arrangements would be especially welcome.

In parallel with this consultation, the Royal Commission's secretariat is assembling information on the regimes which help protect the environment and analysing existing material on relevant topics. The Commission has also asked for some reports from consultants to provide background information and help it to define more sharply the questions to which it should direct its attention later in the study (see annex A).

The Commission would welcome views at this stage on the more specific questions to which it should investigate later in the study.

Responses to this letter should be sent, by 29 October 1999, to:

John Rea
Assistant Secretary to the Commission
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
Steel House
11 Tothill Street
London SWIH 9RE

It is helpful if the main text of a response does not exceed 2,000 words. If detailed supporting material is necessary it should be confined to an appendix. Unless otherwise indicated, it will be assumed that the organisation or individual submitting a response has no objection to its disclosure to the public on request.

This letter is being addressed to some 80 organisations which are particularly likely to have useful experience. The text is also being placed on the Commission's web site.

A general invitation to propose specific issues for investigation is being issued as a news release. The invitation to submit evidence in the second phase of the Commission's study, related to the key issues selected, will be sent, not only to those receiving this initial letter, but to a much larger group of organisations and individuals.

Until August 16 all enquiries relating to this letter should be addressed to Rosemary Ferguson on 0171 273 6637. From August 17 enquiries should be addressed to John Rea on 0171 273 6642.

ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING BACKGROUND PAPERS

1. An overview of the existing regimes for environmental planning in the UK (land use planning, environmental protection, and other environmental plans) and a discussion of the links which exist between them, and any difficulties which arise.
Contractor: Institute for European Environmental Policy

2. The land use planning system as a means of achieving other policy objectives than those which relate strictly to the use of land.
Contractor: Land Use Consultants

3. A review of the literature dealing with the issues raised in the specification for the Commission's study, in particular the adequacy of present and proposed arrangements to achieve sustainable development.
Contractor: CAG Consultants

Page last updated 22nd July 1999

Back to Current Studies