ROYAL COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

Introduction

1. The letter announcing the Commission's Environmental Planning Study was sent to 87 organisations in July 1999. Forty-five responses were received. This paper attempts to draw out the themes emerging from the responses.

Views on Commission's Decision to Study Environmental Planning
2. None of the respondents objected to the Study being carried out. On the contrary, most welcomed the Commission's announcement, although several organisations expressed concern at the breadth of scope envisaged.

3. The Commission has indicated that "environmental planning" extends well beyond the current system of land use planning, but has not provided a precise definition of its scope. A key question will be whether that should be done at the start of the second phase of the Study. Most of the responses focus on land use in general, and the operation and failings of town and country planning legislation in particular.

4. One point that has emerged is that the term "environmental planning" can be interpreted as being inconsistent with "sustainable planning" by ranking environmental protection above social and economic sustainability goals. This was not the Commission's intention - in response to questions about the interpretation it places on 'sustainable development', the answer given has been that the Commission has always recognised that sustainable development has economic, social and environmental components, but within that framework the Commission's particular function is to ensure that environmental sustainability is not being prejudiced.

Views on Town and Country Planning

5. There is a consensus that the Town and Country planning system is in need of improvement. Solutions, where they are proposed, tend to fall into two main camps - evolution or revolution. It has been argued that the presumption in favour of development or the development plan is equitable, given that the 1947 Act took the freedom to develop away from landowners. But equally, the case for making planning less developer-dominated has been argued strongly. Some consider there should be a presumption against change, which should be permitted only when it has been demonstrated that the need outweighs the adverse environmental implications.

6. Those in favour of evolution of the existing system can again be sub-divided into those who think the current system is sound, but could do with some modifications, and those who agree with the principles of the system but are unhappy with aspects of its current operation. The former, largely consisting of landowners and industry, include suggestions such as the use of a 'development team approach' which would evaluate planning and environmental regulation issues in a multidisciplinary way, with the agencies represented then carrying action forward in a consistent way under their own legislation.

7. Other suggestions for modifications of the current system include:

1. There should be an economic appraisal of development that affects assets of national or international importance. The use of Compliance Cost Assessment and Regulatory Impact Appraisal should internalise the full environmental costs of development.
2. The use of public funds to promote damaging proposals should not be allowed. A means should be found for revoking outdated permissions (eg minerals extraction).
3. A more inquisitorial and deliberative approach should replace the old adversarial one.
4. Non-statutory plans (such as LEAPs) which canvass a wide range of views and promote a geographically based system of planning might be used more widely.

8. More radical evolutionary suggestions include strengthening capacity for environmental assessment as an input to planning decisions, streamlining it and making it more holistic, providing a clear vision of the goals to be achieved. A common criticism is that the planning system does not assess the cumulative impacts of different proposals.

9. Proposals for revolutionary changes are largely in response to a perceived failure of the current system to adequately protect the environment or deliver sustainable development. They claim that planning should be reinvented so that its principles and systems focus on increasing human well-being and environmental benefits, enabling people to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, managing change on the basis of agreed values. Planning would be a mechanism for the long-term protection and enhancement of countryside and wildlife, and would promote a new model for development based on full understanding of existing and potential importance of the land and integrate economic, social and environmental considerations.

10. Such a new system would enhance the scope for communities to influence plans and development control. The first stage would be full consultation with all interested parties, followed by environmental assessment, and a decision for or against the proposal. Another way would be to start with environmental assessment, analyse potential impacts of proposed development, search for damage-free solutions or minimal impacts, demonstrate that benefits outweighs environmental disbenefits, offset the latter by mitigation, and compensate the disadvantaged. Several concepts recur in these responses, such as the environmental capital approach, and extending the application of environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Building on this, a further idea is to move towards a system of economic instruments that steer developments that the planning system may not adequately control - for example, use of a development tax to favour development of brownfield sites. Other economic instruments could be used to encourage regeneration initiatives and expenditure. In part, these ideas would replace the current practice of planning gain, which itself attracted views ranging from opposition, through suspicion, to support.

11. A further difference between the evolutionists and the revolutionaries is their respective attitudes to a fundamental pillar of the current system - that there is a presumption in favour of development. This can be neatly summarised as changing from "Is the development bad enough to refuse?" to "Is the development good enough to allow?" In this respect one needs to be aware that the two sides use "compensation" to mean very different things. To some it means the recompense paid by government to landowners for not being able to develop their land as they wish, including the forgoing of previously granted consents. To others, it is the provision that the developer ought to make for the common good, either as a betterment tax, or in the form of creation of habitat or facilities elsewhere.

12. A fundamental concern in many responses is that the environment is undervalued in planning decisions. This assumes that a meaningful value can be placed on environmental benefits forgone by the acceptance of a development. The environmental capital approach helps in this regard, but still does not provide the kind of answers that would translate easily into the operation of economic instruments.

Sustainable Development

13. There seem to be a number of issues wrapped up in the various comments on sustainable development. There are very different perspectives on the current balance between social, economic and environmental goals in planning policy and practice, with some suggesting that, in rural areas at least, environmental protection is greatly hindering necessary social and economic development. Others hold an entirely opposite view.

14. Likewise, while most responses acknowledge the need to integrate sustainable development further into planning processes, there are divergent views as to whether this will increase or decrease the influence of environmental protection compared to economic and social goals.

15. It is clear from this that there are very different views as to how land use planning should interpret the sustainable development agenda, and even what that agenda is. In determining the link between sustainability as a concept and planning as a process, care is needed in the definition of the concepts and terminology involved.

16. Several responses make clear their opposition to the concept of balancing, or trading off sustainable development objectives against one another. One response suggests the development of a concept of Best Sustainable Environmental Option.

17. A further theme is the difficulty of integrating national or European Union strategies for sustainable development into local level plans. It has been suggested that local authorities should have a statutory duty to promote sustainable development. This also has a bearing on the issues of public participation and democratic control of the planning process. To measure attainment, sustainability indicators and community involvement in interpreting trends in well-being and empowerment will be needed.

Relation of National to European Policy

18. UK planning needs to be related to EU policies for sustainable development. European directives are increasingly bearing on national land use policies, for example driving the requirement for environmental assessment, habitat protection and biodiversity conservation. The forthcoming Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive may expose weaknesses in the UK development control system, as will forthcoming Multi-Modal transportation studies.

Public Participation and Democratic Control

19. Many of the responses comment on the inherent tension between delivering national policy targets and ensuring adequate local accountability in the vicinity of the development. This can cut both ways with national needs imposing local environmental degradation against the wishes of the local population, for example on housing provision, or the sum of local planning decisions across the country not delivering government environmental protection targets, for example carbon dioxide reduction targets and waste disposal provision.

20. Some seek a democratic structure that can control development at all levels. They also contend that positive planning demands a strongly participatory approach. If people are to be given more chance to participate in the planning system, they will need better information about plans at local level. The Local Agenda 21 process is suggested as a model for achieving greater public accountability, although others warn that care is needed in the use of 'consensus forums'.

21. A further consideration is the existence of different bodies and systems in each of the devolved administrations. In Scotland, all new legislation will now be assessed from its environmental impact. Devolution will clearly have a major impact on the planning process. The differing pressures on land in different parts of the UK and the distinctive nature of the planning system and institutions in Scotland are bound to lead to distinctive solutions. New Scottish policies on land reform, National Parks, Scenic Areas and SSSIs will all have an impact. Northern Ireland is even more distinctive, with the former DOE(NI) as the sole planning authority, covering central and local responsibilities, and with district councils having only a consultative role.

22. While some recommend removing some of local authority powers to block national policy, others caution against over-integration of the planning system to overcome these problems, emphasising the need for both legitimate debate at local level, and the implementation of national needs. Many responses refer to the principle of subsidiarity, where decisions are taken at the most local level commensurate with the needs of those for whom the development is intended. This might mean some decisions being taken at parish council level, while others would move upwards out of local authority hands and into those of regional or national government. The role of regional bodies as a bridge between national policy and local concerns is stressed in responses from a wide variety of bodies.

23. The introduction of third party rights of appeal is advocated in several responses from environmental organisations, though others, such as industry, would undoubtedly oppose this.

Pollution Control and Planning

24. At present the planning system enables development while environmental regulation limits it. Three themes are apparent here:

1. The main complaint is the separation of the granting of planning permission from decisions on process authorisations, which, it is claimed, introduces duplication and uncertainty. It has been suggested that the EIA process should be combined with IPPC authorisations and that the Environment Agency should promulgate guidelines that can be used by planning authorities in judging whether a development (eg an energy from waste plant) is likely to be environmentally acceptable.
2. The accountability of pollution control decisions is compared unfavourably with that of planning controls.
3. Other responses are critical of the speed and consistency of the Agency's contributions to the planning system.

25. There is a view that environmental protection policies should themselves be better coordinated, and indeed that the Environment Agency should itself be integrated better. There are calls for a more integrated system, bringing town and country planning, environmental pollution control and other environmental regulation under a single umbrella.

Areas Not Adequately Covered by Planning Processes

26. Stricter planning regimes and greater coordination are proposed for a number of issues. Several responses draw attention to the need for enhanced protection of coastal and shoreline areas. The statutory agencies might be assigned formal joint responsibilities over decisions relating to coasts, sensitive landscapes and freshwaters. These are probably the main comments in response to topic h) in the Commission's announcement letter.

27. There are other comments on planning and water in the context of climate change. Many responses comment on the availability and provision of freshwater resources. As well as the immediate impact that abstraction for development may have on aquatic habitats, the long-term sustainability of water provision for new developments is questioned. A particular criticism is that the latter is not currently a "material consideration" in planning decisions. Similar arguments are put forward on the subject of the sustainability of river and coastal floodplain agriculture and developments. Just as water companies are expected to provide water supplies for planned developments, the Environment Agency is expected to provide flood protection, regardless of its long-term sustainability.

28. More controversially, several organisations have called for the extension of the planning system to cover agricultural land. Unsurprisingly, the farming bodies oppose this.

Impact Assessment

29. As mentioned above, many see techniques such as EIA as a very powerful tool for aiding planning decisions, and wish to see their application extended. This raises questions about our technical understanding of the environment, and the availability of relevant information and skills. Do we have, or can we develop, the basic understanding of how development affects habitats to make EIA less subjective? This could be helped by follow-up research on the real impact of developments that had been subjected to the techniques, and some responses call for this to be made a condition of planning permission. Even when the techniques are available and have been validated, there is still the problem of gathering the necessary site-specific data.

30. Several responses emphasise the need for such assessments to include consideration of the human health impact of the development. Town and country planning regulations and DETR Guidance Notes could be amended to include explicit and formal requirements for assessment of the potential impacts of all developments on health, and planning conditions used to make developers mitigate potential adverse impacts and monitor consequences.

31. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all in the application of both formal EIA and the informal assessment processes used for more routine decisions is that of ensuring that planners have the necessary skills and access to information to apply the techniques and make sense of the answers. Education of planners and availability of environmental data and expertise are common themes in many responses. More generally, new monitoring and evaluation systems are needed, so that the actual performance of the planning process is recorded. It is important that scientific understanding of long-term trends with major implications for the planning process (notably climate change) is communicated to planners, so that bad examples (eg of building on flood plains or in unstable locations) can be minimised.

Examples of Good Practice

33. The lengthy public inquiry system for large controversial developments comes in for much criticism from many respondents from a variety of backgrounds, in particular the Heathrow Terminal 5 inquiry. Some suggest that a Planning Inquiry Commission procedure could be considered, but are concerned that parliamentary processes should not be used to by-pass the more open and participatory public inquiry system.

Conclusions

34. The 45 responses to the Commission's announcement of the Environmental Planning Study cover a wide variety of issues. In drawing conclusions from them it is important to remember that, while environmental organisations, learned societies, planning organisations and trade bodies are reasonably well represented, developers are not.

35. Land use planning is being used increasingly as an instrument to deliver broader policies, including those for sustainable development and biodiversity: the relationship between the longer term environmental agenda and the short-term decisions about development planning needs thorough examination. But some question whether planning can be a main tool for achieving all environmental goals, and doubts have been expressed about giving greater emphasis within it to pollution control and environmental protection, or to agriculture as a rural land use. Others call for a much more holistic approach is needed to planning and environmental protection.

36. Most responses have focussed on the use of land in general and the operation of town and country planning legislation in particular. It is clear that many feel that environmental and sustainable development policy targets are bolted on, rather than integrated into the system, with less than satisfactory results. Respondents are divided between those who think the current system can be made to work better, and those who wish to see a more radical solution.

37. Several responses concentrate on water and waste management issues, and the relationship between planning and pollution control is also commented on. However, there are few comments on non-statutory plans, such as Local Environment Agency Plans (LEAPs) and the Agenda 21 process (which aims to promote sustainable development at the local level), perhaps reflecting a low profile among respondents.

38. The responses from organisations within the devolved countries not only make clear the existing differences in systems and issues in each of the devolved administrations; they also point out the potential for further divergence.