Planning in the Celtic areas
Greg Lloyd
School of the Built Environment
University of Ulster
Paper presented to the ESRC Seminar
“Localism, Welfare Reform and Tenure Restructuring in the UK”
Queen’s University Belfast
Thursday 24th – Friday 25th October 2013.

 To explore the main developments in planning arrangements in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland;
 To highlight the principal points of convergence and divergence in the devolved landscapes;
 To consider the implications for Localism,
Welfare Reform and Tenure Restructuring in the devolved UK.

 Economic conditions – systemic structural weaknesses
 Spatial variations ands new geographies
 The re-assertion of the core periphery
 Institutional hollowing out
 Economic weaknesses – supply chains
& skills
 Social and community tensions
 Environmental and ecological schisms
 Short termism in trade-offs, perceptions and risks

 Neo-liberalism - thinking and values
 Austerity - policy and governance
 Modernisation – the public sector
 Culture change and challenges to the ethos of planning
 Myopia and a denial of the future
 New parameters for planning in a new world – growth or de-growth?

"All this stuff about planning ... Broad vistas and all that. But give to me the 18th-century alley, where foot-pads lurk, and the harlot plies her trade, and none of this new-fangled planning doctrine.“
Winston Churchill 1945

“No room! No room! The costs of planning “
How a re-think of our planning policy will benefit Britain.
“Planning
Famine”
“Neighbourhood
- Who Should
Plan?”
Cities
Unlimited
“Liberating the
Land”
“Reforming land use planning”
“Planning
Rape”
Bigger Better
Faster
Why
More.
some countries plan better than others.

 Land use planning – the statutory regulation and forward management of land and property development in the public interest.
 Strategic planning – the territorial management of land use and development in the public interest.
 Spatial planning – goes further than land use planning to embrace sector planning, regeneration and local service delivery.
 Community planning – well being.

 There has been a move away from national economic policy with redistribution
 There is a lack of a regional policy context – trickle down
 There is a shift away from strategic considerations in land use planning
 There is an emphasis on market spaces being created & contested

 Historical experience and performance of land use planning in the devolved states
 Governance arrangements and capacities
 Innovation in devising land use planning reforms
 Strategic agendas around policy at large
 Political economy perspectives
 Geographies, communities and environments

• Welsh Assembly/ Government
• Cardiff
• Wales Spatial Plan
• Land use planning reform
• Community planning
• Social democratic

• Scottish Parliament/ Government
• Edinburgh
• SNP
• Meso-corporatist
• Strategic planning provenance
• National Planning Framework
• Land use planning reform
• Community planning

• Northern Ireland Assembly/
Government
• Democratic Unionist Party/ Sinn Fein
– power sharing
• Belfast
• Regional Development Strategy
• Review of Public Administration
• Land use planning reform
• Neoliberal values

The NPPF in England (paragraph 158) – relevant market and economic signals:

Land prices

House prices

Rents

Affordability

Rates of development

Overcrowding

Planning Policy Wales November 2012
 Jobs growth, plus retention and protection
 Realistic assessment of demand
 Planners must speak to economic development officers
Planning Bill 2013 Northern Ireland
 Balance of economic advantage/ disadvantage
 Promotion of economic development
Scotland Single Policy Statement 2013
 Sustainable economic growth

Planning Act 2008 / Spatial plan
Independent Advisory Group Report “Planning in Wales”
2012
Sustaining a Living Wales Green Paper 2012
Planning Bill 2013
Environment Bill White Paper 2013

 Welsh Ministers taking decisions on nationally significant devolved infrastructure schemes;
 Preparation of a national framework within which local planning authorities deliver local plans;
 A statutory framework for strategic planning above individual planning authorities – city regions;
 Establishment of a planning advisory and improvement body.

“ There is a need to prepare an indicative plan for Scotland on a national scale which will show how it is intended to utilise the land for urban, industrial and recreational purposes.
“To prepare such a policy plan it will be necessary to take into account the views of planning authorities, industrialists, trade unions and many other interested parties. The structure plans of the new regional planning authorities must conform to the national indicative plan.”
(Select Committee on Land Resource Use in Scotland 1970)

 Metropolitan planning – West
Central Scotland
 Regional planning – NESJPAC
 Regional Reports
 National Planning Guidelines – a single planning policy statement

 The first strategy was published in March 2011 and articulated an ambitious vision together with objectives relating to economic prosperity, environmental quality and community well being.
 The strategy asserts 10 principles to secure sustainable land use – which stress, inter alia, the multiple benefits of the resource, the importance of regulation, an ecosystem approach to land management and the better understanding of the role of land in everyday living and working.
 It is predicated on a more holistic understanding of the land ecosystem and the case for an integrated approach to facilitating land uses.

Northern Ireland
•Centralised institutions
•Fragmented organisations
•Technocratic & administrative inertia
•Democratic deficits
•Advocacy politics

Components of Planning in Northern Ireland
Regional Development Strategy
Planning Policy
Statements
Development Plan
Planning Applications

Planning Act 2011
Planning Bill 2013
Marine Bill
Strategic Policy reform
Community Planning
Local Government Reform
Programme for Government
Economic Strategy
Investment Strategy
Regional Development
Strategy

Elements of land use planning reform
 Emphasis on plan led thinking
 Strategic agendas
 Front loaded civil engagement
 Proportionate decision making
 Enforcement
 Third Party Rights of Appeal?

Authoritarian – individualistic Democratic - corporatist
Silent conversations - shouting loudly
Non - strategic
Culture change – reflective practice
Strategic
Fragmented
Blind growth
Integrated
Limits and parameters

 Economic limits to growth and action?
 Political innovation and leadership?
 Social anger and exasperation?
 Community divisions?
 Institutional capacities?
 Environmental parameters?
 Environment extremes?
 Resource limits?
 Dystopia not utopia