Challenges for the London Plan
The Plan as an Example of
Strategic Planning
LSE - 10 February 2003
Robert Upton
RTPI
Differentiating Strategic Spatial Plans
The key questions What drives them?
Who owns them?
How do they expect to deliver?
Possible plans?
The rhetoric or the reality?
 Plan as negotiation – agreeing a future
 Plan as vision – seizing a future
 Plan as contingent instrument – re-orienting
a future
 Plan as portfolio – multiple meanings,
multiple consumers
Key issues in strategic plans (1)
What defines them  Scale – the area within which to generate
options
 Horizon – the time within which to generate
options
 Uncertainty – which increases with time and
area
Key Issues in Strategic Plans (2)
Drivers and levers  Population – ‘where shall they live’?
 Infrastructure and flows?
 Growth drivers – ports and airports?
 Environmental quality?
 Management and funding (public and private)?
 Vision?
Key Issues in Strategic Plans (3)
Internal mechanisms – hidden or exposed
 Forecasts
 Consultation, collaboration and consensus
 Scenarios (1) – as tests
 Scenarios (2) – as generators and tests
Abercrombie’s Greater London Plan (1944)
Prospero and The Tempest - Brave New World – or was it?
 Broader geographic scope than current plan (Royston –
Haslemere, Wycombe – Thames Haven)
 A scheme – no phasing, except priority for ‘quasi-satellite
towns’
 No adequate legal framework for delivery
 Uncertainty about post-war central government role
 A vision – ‘the picture aimed at’
 Emphasis on communities (the One and the Many)
Abercrombie’s means
 Massive new building requirements
 Continuing economic advantage/impetus (a north-south
advantage)
 ‘There can be no effective planning in the Greater
London region without control over the size of its towns;
there can be no control over town size without control
over the location of industry and over its subsequent
expansion.’
 Initial public sector impetus, private sector follow-through
 Attention to detail - a sense of place
Ken’s London Plan (was Nicky’s) (2002)
Samson Agonistes?
 Limited geographic scope – GLA area
 Limited time horizon – 2016
 Limited control - ‘role will be mainly proactive’
 Limited public sector funds – reliance on
Housing Corporation and SRA (as was)
Ken’s means
‘Six forces driving change - population, economic,
environmental, lifestyle, technological change, and social
justice’. But 



Global and world cities role paramount
Population set to increase by 700,000 by 2016
Cannot (should not) be stopped - cannot be diverted
Key infrastructure decisions (rail, air) – outside GLA
control
 Uncertain interface with boroughs' plans
A more ‘first space’ vision than Abercrombie’s?
Regional Plan Association –
Third Regional Plan (1996)
A Region at Risk – planning against the dystopic scenario
The Three Es – economy, equity, environment – equal the
quality of life
 ‘economic development is too often border warfare, as
states within the region try to steal businesses from
each other in a zero-sum game.’
 ‘social issues are either ignored or placated by a vast
welfare system that fails to bring people into the
economic mainstream’
 ‘environmental efforts focus on short-term solutions that
attack the symptoms rather than the causes of problems.’
Bob Yaro’s means
Planning in a no-one-in-charge-world
 the Three Es need Five Cs - greensward,
centres, mobility, workforce, governance
 No vision - or lots of disaggregated vision?
 No specific time horizon – or a canny mixture of
long-term, short-term targets?
 But a genuine spatial plan, not a land-use plan
 Keywords: Glue – Focus – Catalyst - Conscience
Strategic Planning in Hong Kong –
Visions shared and secret?
 Abercrombie’s 1946 scheme - those migration
figures …
 1972 Hong Kong Outline Plan – delivering not
originating a housing-led vision
 1990 – a major shift – from housing to employment
(flow-based)
 1990 – the secret vision – ‘accessing the deep
hinterland’ - Hong Kong vs. Shanghai
 Can you have a vision which is not shared?
Hong Kong means
Technocracy rules okay?



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Characteristics: 20-25 year horizon
Scenario generation - 'the rule of nine’
Scenario testing - all join in
Best performing hybrid option -premium
on robustness
 .. and then interpret and interpolate for
action
Strategic Plan for Prague
Planning in a post-Marxist environment
 A new approach to the management of
the city’s development
 Complex, programme document, based
on agreement
 Long term document - ‘ .. the time scale
for the Strategic Plan .. is for the period
2015 to 2020’
Prague: how much agreement
on goals? (%)
Experts
Culture
Learning
International contact
Science & research
Tourism
Services
Finance
Industry & population
Public
95
95
85
85
75
70
65
45
75
85
65
70
65
75
50
45
Prague’s Five Main Themes
‘a system of mutually inter-linked strategic aims and
directions’
1. Successful and respected city (role and economy)
2. Kind and contented city (quality of life)
3. Attractive and sustainable city (quality of the
environment)
4. Functioning city – efficient and reliable (transport and
technical infrastructure)
5. Functioning city – dynamic and welcoming (management
and administration)
Prague - some examples
‘… the self-administration, public and private sectors and
the inhabitants of the city will …’
1. Sensitive economic development … to retain and
support the uniqueness of Prague which is of
exceptional character …
2. Support .. a creative kind and enriching city [through] its
traditions, values and potential
3. Support the development of a polycentric structure
4. Influence number and use of private cars … so that
their negative effect is substantially reduced
5. Aspire to have the management and administrative
components .. continually adapt to the changing needs
of the city’s communities
A Lesson from the Port of Seattle
‘Mr. Kanagat stated that a strategic plan is different
from forecasting. He advised that a good strategic
plan would have two good outcomes: 1) based on
what is known now on critical factors to the bottom
line, what possible futures imagined now and what
could the Port do in those environments; and 2) can
do multiple iterations as things change, a basic way of
thinking about the future using same strategic
template and planning accordingly, a frame of
reference within strategic thinking.’
Don River Valley – 50 Year Plan
When a region loses purpose?
 How do you find consensus?
 What do you promise the current
generation?
 What about a low-intensity, background
programme –
 That re-creates long-term social and
environmental capital?
Some Concluding Questions
 Is strategic planning about paradigm shifts?
 Is vision the basis of courage?
 Who is really signed up?
Some Concluding Nostrums
My turn to be normative
 Give yourself space
 Give yourself time
 Use scenarios to generate ideas
 Use critical paths and phasing triggers
 Take no decisions earlier than you need
 Take no decisions later than you must