Tomorrow’s front pages today…

By , Tuesday, 13 September 2011, 4 Comments

Having last week launched its “Hands Off Our Land” campaign, the Daily Telegraph appears to be going to extraordinary lengths to keep the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) on its front page. Other newspapers – notably the Times and Sunday Times – have followed suit.

But a number of the most recent stories to get prominent coverage in the national press have left us here at Planning Blog towers scratching our heads. At the weekend, the Sunday Times ran a story on its front page with the headline “Wimpey boss wrote Tories’ new planning law”. Those following the development of the draft NPPF more closely than national newspaper journalists will know that this story refers to the practitioners’ advisory group, which was appointed by planning minister Greg Clark in 2010 to produce a suggested draft version of the NPPF and of which Taylor Wimpey planning boss Pete Andrew was a member. The story is hardly new. We reported on the publication of the group’s suggested draft of the NPPF in May and flagged up the fact that the content of the suggested draft and the government’s own draft bear a “remarkable similarity” in July.

Meanwhile, today’s Daily Telegraph front page splash story is based on comments made by planning consultant John Rhodes – another member of the practitioners advisory group – in December LAST YEAR. This was many months before the draft NPPF and presumption in favour of sustainable development were published.

Another example of the national newspapers being slow to pick up on significant NPPF-related developments was the Daily Telegraph’s report on 6 September with the headline “New planning rules already in force”. We had exclusively reported on the existence of the Planning Inspectorate advice that the Telegraph’s story was based on on 4 August, more than a month before the newspaper’s story was published.

So – as we’re a considerate bunch – we thought we’d give the national press some pointers. Here are three NPPF-related stories that national newspapers have yet to pick up on (we’ve even written the headlines and introductions to the stories to save them the work). Who knows – maybe we’ll see one of the following splashed all over the front page of the Daily Telegraph in the not too distant future.

1. Developer warns that NPPF will leave councils ‘sitting ducks’
A senior figure at one of the UK’s largest developers has warned that planning reforms will leave many councils unable to have a say over development in their own areas.

National newspapers have yet to grasp the fact that the draft presumption in favour of sustainable development – as enshrined in the NPPF – would require councils to grant permission where a “local plan is absent, silent or indeterminate”. Adrian Penfold, head of planning at British Land, raised the issue last week at the Planning Summer School in Swansea. Penfold said the ball is in local authorities’ court to get local plans in place: “If you don’t, it will be the NPPF that determines what happens in your area. I know how complicated these plans are to produce, but if you haven’t got one you’re a sitting duck.”

2. Localism chief warns councils may lose control of development in their areas
The government’s controversial planning reforms will leave more than two-thirds of local authorities unable to determine how development will occur in their areas, the civil servant in charge of the government’s Localism Bill has suggested.

For national newspapers it appears that, when reporting NPPF-related news, normal rules of journalism – including the crucial rule that news should be new – don’t need to apply. With this in mind, these comments, made by Department for Communities and Local Government director-general Richard McCarthy in March, should be perfect.  McCarthy said that where there is no local plan in place, a decision on whether or not to grant planning permission would be made according to national planning policies, including the presumption in favour of sustainable development. He said: “You want to shape your place? You want to determine how development is going to occur? Get on and plan.” Recent government figures showing that only 30 per cent of authorities have adopted local plans in place could add extra spice to the story.

3. NPPF author says reforms pose risk to natural environment
An environmental campaigner appointed by ministers to help draw up new planning reforms has warned that the government’s draft National Planning Policy Framework could make it harder for local authorities to refuse permission for proposals that would damage the natural environment.

As mentioned earlier, the national press seems to be fascinated by the existence of the practitioners advisory group, appointed by Greg Clark last year to produce a suggested draft of the NPPF. But as far as we know, the papers have yet to pick up on this blog entry published in July by the RSPB’s Simon Marsh, who was one of the four members of the advisory group. In his blog entry, Marsh warns that the draft NPPF clearly places one “pillar”  of sustainability – economic growth – “higher than the others as an objective for the planning system”. He writes that the reforms “could make it much harder for a local authority to refuse permission for a proposal that would damage the natural environment”.

Remember – you read it here first.

jamie.carpenter@haymarket.com

  • SCH

    Although the mainstream media may be way behind the specialist press in reacting to these events and proposals, which in a way is not a great surprise, isn’t the important thing the fact that the changes are receiving any attention at all? For a long time now it’s been an accepted wisdom that the only major element of planning that the public really recognises is the existence of a green belt. At least now it’s starting to filter through to the public, via their daily papers, that there are other equally important processes that form part of the planning whole. If it lets people engage more actively with the process, even if it’s only because they read something in the Daily Mail or the Telegraph, then that’s surely a good thing. The important thing for us is to ensure that what is being reported is accurate as far as it can be, even if it is months behind the times.

    Even my dad has started expressing an opinion on the proposed changes to planning based on what he’s read in the papers … and the world shifted slightly on its axis as he did.

  • http://fordenterprisehub.co.uk Harold Hall

    We will have to wait some time before we can judge whether or not wider public interest in land use strategies and the promise of meaningful involvement brings ‘better’ planning. The public appetite for dealing with nebulous concepts is not great and nowhere near as keen as it can become at the development control stage. It almost certainly will generate greater resistance to any government programme for economic growth – not at all what the PM and his colleagues intend.

    Witness local government in the South reacting to leads from the National Trust and CPRE, no longer content to be thought of as non-political organisations, brought to white heat by opportunistic broadsheets. All are vying for the NIMBY’s praise in votes, subscriptions
    or both.

    A Localism Bill with responsibilities comes as a shock to councillors who thought lifting the yoke of regional planning would arrive without strings attached. Whoever is in government policies and strategies designed to deal with national problems must be made at the centre and from there down local aspirations are subordinate. The risk of near anarchy in planning, present in current attempts to decentralise, will bring the wheel full circle and back to top-down processes, regional strategies and structure plans, all re-badged of course.

    • SCH

      This is an interesting comment and raises a number of points.

      Public involvement in all but the most controversial issues has been lacking to date, as you intimate, and lack of public involvement has been the elephant in the corner of most of the plans and proposals I have come across in my career. This despite every administrative push and legislative requirement building in a need to consult / publicise / invite comments etc. It is interesting that this lack of engagement at the stages where changes can be made and positions are not entrenched parlays into fierce opposition on often inadequate or indeterminate grounds at later stages, when the planners and councillors charged with making decisions have moved forward to a point where conflict becomes inevitable. I wonder – is it our fault as professionals / politicians? Do we miss the opportunities through our own lack of understanding or inertia to engage “properly” and explain things and start conversations or is it that people really just don’t want to engage until it is something next door or down the road or across the border that affects them?

      The current debate, imperfect though it might be, at least has the virtue of being about a “nebulous concept”, and I trust that people will thus start to appreciate something of the character of the planning beast – a tail here, a trunk there – and will be able to start associating what happens during this concept stage with what might happen five years down the line in the wider planning arena (their local plan, their core strategy, whatever). No, probably not, I know, but it’s a nice thought.

      Economic development – I have said here ad nauseum that people need jobs to be able to buy / rent housing, but that doesn’t seem to translate through to the way people and some politicians view planning. If the NPPF is going to promote sustainable development, then that means appropriate employment land provision in appropriate proximity to housing (new and existing). It’s a simple concept, no? But people don’t want employment (B1 – B8 and other forms of employment-generating activity) where they can see it, or smell it, or hear it. On the other hand, as a concept they also don’t want to have housing built out in the countryside. Gone are the days when we had an intensive urban fabric made up of factories cheek by jowl with the houses their workers lived in, and that’s probably not a bad thing, but the effects of that have given us the more diffuse patterns of development that people are complaining about today. Something has to give.

      I think the last paragraph very neatly sums up the problem with the current administration’s approach to strategic planning. I am genuinely interested in your opinion and this is a genuine question – do you mean you think there is a role for regionalism / larger-than-local levels of planning? If they came back (which I think will happen) would that be a bad thing?

  • Captain Pugwash

    And another couple…
    1. Infrastructure will be delayed by new planning reforms

    Senior figures in the energy, waste and transport industries have expressed concern that reforms to England’s planning system may delay the building of much-needed infrastructure.

    [The National Policy Statements contain references to PPSs, supporting technical guidance and successor documents. When the NPPF is published existing PPSs will be cancelled, which could cause uncertainty for the IPC, developers and Councils if the NPPF is silent]

    2. Confusion among Ministers and advisors on the impacts of planning reform
    In their rush to appease the National Trust, Daily Telegraph and other campaigners against the planning policy reforms, Government ministers and advisors seem to be reading a different version of the NPPF.

    [Eric Pickles (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/14/democratic-design-communities-planning?INTCMP=SRCH), David Cameron, George Osborne and John Howells (http://www.planningresource.co.uk/news/1089684/Vow-ease-local-plans-NPPF-conformity/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH) all seem to be using a different version of the draft NPPF that doesn't refer to granting permission 'wherever possible', and repeats the presumption ad nauseam].

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