7 Making and executing regional spatial plans
7.2 Achieving integration – substantively
There are essentially four ways this may be achieved, and all are present in varying degrees in current practice. They are: regional government – the highest potential, but non-existent in most of the UK; central government drives – the really most powerful, but often very imperfectly integrated spatially;
within plan techniques; and sub-regional methods. The last two are the prime terrain of regional planning skills.
7.2.1 By regional government
In Scotland and Wales elected governments have been in place since 1999, responsible for spatial planning at all levels above local authorities. As we saw in Chapter 6, they have moved to create new regional planning systems. The Making and executing regional spatial plans 125
Assembly in Wales and the Executive in Scotland have the legitimacy to impose an integrated model on a range of sectoral agencies – at least in prin- ciple, whether or not they choose to or manage to do this.
Their success in achieving integration has been variable. In 2004–2006 the Assembly made some agencies previously operating as quangos (Welsh Tourist Board, Elwa – Education and Skills, the Welsh Development Agency) into directly controlled parts of the government, a move interpreted by some as admitting the difficulties of integration with these bodies working at arm’s length. In 2003 the Assembly agreed on an overarching strategy for the govern- ment, Wales – A Better Country, and this was followed by the Wales Spatial Plan in 2004. However, it is not clear how strongly integrative these are in rela- tion to the many sectoral strategies (Economic Development, Sustainable Development and so on).
Scotland’s 2005 National Planning Framework is seen by some as suffering from similar weaknesses, being little more than a general infrastructure frame- work. It doubtless remains for the next level down, under the emerging new planning system, to provide the integrative drive needed in the major city regions, above all to knit up the growth, movement and regeneration challenges in the Central Scotland region.
In London some of the same doubts are present, but the first six years of the new London government have seen at the very least a strong integrative push from the London Plan (Greater London Assembly 2004a), the statutory plan prepared and finalised by the Mayor. Given the limited powers given to the Mayor, the attempt via the Plan to bring together the sectoral elements (regen- eration, housing, transport) has impressed many planners, even though doubts remain as to whether the direction of integrated strategising is the right one, and whether it can really be implemented (Newman and Thornley 2005; Hall 2006). The Plan pushes for growth, of population and economic activity, and all the policies are oriented around this, reading across to other areas more or less controlled by the Mayor – mainly economy and transport. Much of this initial integrative success results from the political leadership given by quite a strong mayor, based on his electoral legitimacy, though other factors must be helping, among them some of those shown as further techniques below.
It appears then, that elected governments at this regional/national level, even when equipped with major powers as in Scotland and to a lesser degree Wales, cannot guarantee convincing integrating frameworks – for their chances of implementation we will have to wait some years. The key in this is doubtless strong and continuing political leadership, most marked in these three cases in London, as much as the formal powers. But the size and varied political life of Scotland and Wales may problematise integration, as may the tendency in all governments for fiefdoms or silos to emerge. There are clearly complex political dynamics at work here in the creation of devolved governments, dynamics which certainly operate in other federal or semi-federal states (Belgium, Germany, Spain). Time may be of the essence, in that the judgement on Scot- land and Wales may be very different in a decade’s time.
7.2.2 By national government policy steers
In the twentieth century the major drives in regional planning often came from national government – the new towns programme, the transport invest- ment programmes (rail nationalisation, motorway and other roads pro- grammes), housing programmes, regeneration or inner city programmes and so on. In a sense these are unavoidably integrating, because implicitly the government decides priorities, spatially and in the allocation of resources.
Even apparently non-spatially conceived national planning tools like PPGs and PPSs have buried within them spatial implications. For example, the push for sustainable development including the sequential test, concentrating development in existing urban areas, as pursued since the mid 1990s, leads on balance to a certain spatial prioritising across all England – investment in larger towns and cities.
Examples of explicit spatial steers in the 2000s have been the Sustainable Communities Plan (SCP) of 2003 (Figure 7.1) and the Northern Way (plus similar exercises in the Midlands and the South West) from 2004. The SCP mainly directs growth in the South East (including re-emphasising the Thames Gateway initiative pressed by central government since the early 1990s), and seeks to reverse decline in some struggling northern and midlands localities. The criticisms of the Plan are that it is far less integrated than it needed to be, if the various initiatives are to be successful. But its proponents argue that for the first time central government departments have come together to allocate resources to sub-regions, with government leading Making and executing regional spatial plans 127
Milton Keynes &
South Midlands
London, Stansted, Cambridge
Thames Gateway
Ashford
Urban Areas 1991 Greenbelt
Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty Growth Study Areas
Figure 7.1 Growth areas in South East England identified in the SCP. (Source:ODPM (2003).)
specially created implementation vehicles in each area, after the catalysing of plans to cover each zone.
The ‘Ways’ have variable solidity, the Northern Waybeing that with some drive and resources attached. Here the RDAs have led the initiative, with the encouragement of the Government Offices. There is no doubt that the identifi- cation of city regions as the prime hopes for economic success by the Way docu- ments has affected the RSSs prepared by the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. Given that the RSSs must be compatible with the RESs, this is not surprising: the RDAs’ priorities must, up to a point, be those of the Assembly and thus of the RSS. The Northern Way has had its critics, as spatially and sec- torally incoherent (Goodchild and Hickman 2006). At any rate the emergence of these multi-regional or cross-regional strategic initiatives, led by central government, has been of real significance, reducing the autonomy of regional strategists and politicians and in some sense having an integrating effect, even if not one the region might have wanted.
The impacts of central government may therefore be placed along a spec- trum. At one end are policies emerging from departmental silos. Examples are well known in science and technology, such as the 2000 decision to locate the synchroton in Oxfordshire in the south east, not in the north west which already had much expertise and investment. Countless other examples could be found, from the policies for designation and investment of universities, to defence and arms procurement decisions, and agricultural support systems: all have regional and sub-regional effects, few if any were ‘proofed’ for these effects.
Further along the spectrum are planning policies which will have been thought out with some reference to spatiality, such as that mentioned above on compact cities. But here the taking of space into consideration is rather general and implicit. More clearly spatial are the planned drives such as the SCP. These are intended to be integrated initiatives from central government down, and they will in the best of cases work effectively, perhaps more than any other technique, if central departments can really be persuaded to resource them. But they may well suffer from the classic silo processes observed for decades by stu- dents of the UK government. In that case, for good or ill, they will be only par- tially integrative.
7.2.3 Within plan substantive goals
All RSSs have visions for their regions, and then a hierarchy of goals which flow down from these visions and are intended to frame the whole plan, in both its sectoral and its sub area dimensions. In many cases in the early 2000s the over-riding mantra was ‘sustainable development’. Thus for the South East the vision is: ‘Through the Plan and other measures, the South East will show a sus- tained improvement in its quality of life over the period to 2026, measured by the well-being of its citizens, the vitality of its economy, the wealth of its environment, and the prudent use of natural resources’ (SEERA 2006a p. 28).
And there are ten elements of the spatial strategy below this. The question is
the extent to which this type of process, common to plan making in Britain since at least the 1970s, works to integrate policies. Can planning be goals led in this way? – an old question of planning theory (Faludi 1973). Recently the practice of ‘visioning’ has been examined, to evaluate its real impacts (Shipley 2002). The whole area connects back to the wider debate on rational planning introduced in Chapter 3. It is far from easy, even for an experienced planner familiar with a region, to assess how far a plan really does follow through in this way, or whether a lot of rhetorical tricks are being played, covering up the ‘real’
decisions embedded in the plan. These may really have emerged from complex negotiated processes, and then are encapsulated within the plan later – ‘finding a form of words’.
Two points are relevant here. First, it is clear that plan makers have little alternative but to believe that a rational schema of this kind must have some integrative potential. Otherwise there would be little point in the current forms of strategies, with their many words. Could these not be replaced by maps and investment lists? Immediately this is asked, it is clear how difficult this would be for long-term plans for large regions. The framing objectives are essential, however ambiguous or difficult these may be to track. Second, whatever its limits, rationality in some form remains the only effective tool for planners when negotiating with interests, the only one with some chance to balance or integrate priorities. In principle, it is clear that real planning is done in many areas of human endeavour with some success – a corporation seeking a certain profit level, a state intending to win a war. The reality that regional (and all other forms) planning faces, is that stronger integration needs strong cross agent commitment, something often in short supply. But substantive visions have to remain as one way to garner such commitment.
7.2.4 Sub-area integration
The fourth track to better integration is that always used by planners, to zoom in on smaller localities. In the English RSSs this means the use of sub- regions or sub-areas within the Plans. One of the main justifications of the 2004 reforms was that better bounded sub-regions could be found for integ- rated planning, once outdated county boundaries were dropped. Thus the Yorkshire and Humber 2005 draft RSS has a ‘context diagram’ (Figure 7.2) for the Leeds City Region, which covers a large part of central Yorkshire (more than the old county of West Yorkshire, reaching out to Barnsley, Harrogate and York).
A number of potentially integrative techniques can be seen in this diagram:
• a hierarchy of centres and settlements, from Leeds downwards (the inevitable shades of central place theory and German planning’s tradition of hierarchical investment allocation);
• zones shown for regeneration/investment opportunities – aiming to priori- tise areas for regeneration;
Making and executing regional spatial plans 129
• zones of high-quality environment – prioritising protection; and
• indications of ‘main linkages’, with the transport implications.
All of these work potentially to make public and private strategies and invest- ment consistent through the plan period, thus to integrate. Instead of this spatial framing being done by another plan (the structure plan), this element of broadbrush prioritising is done within the RSS. Still much is left to the lower- level plans, the LDFs. But all new RSSs now have this sub-regional level, and all effectively put much faith in this as an integrating tool. For the moment it is not at all clear as to what weight these framings will carry, once carried down to identifiable land allocations and pressured by the market investors (and maybe state agencies) who want to go to one place and not another, quite possibly contrary to the RSS. But it is clear that all plan makers are obliged by the new system to use this technique to its utmost, to make more concrete the vision and objectives elements of their plans, and to deal as best they can with the central government drives affecting their region. The problem is that, in the absence of regional government, only central government drives provide strong steering forces. The rest is up to planners’ regional planning skills.
Transport
East coast mainline railway Local connection priorities Other strategic rail links Inland navigation
Development patterns
Area of regeneration opportunity Regeneration/investment opportunities of sub-area significance
Airedale Bradford/Leeds Coalfields
Aire Valley south/east of Leeds South Dewsbury Area of high quality environment
Settlements
Regional centre Sub-regional centre Principal service centre
Emerging housing market renewal strategy main area Main linkages
Figure 7.2 Diagram for Leeds sub-area in Yorkshire and Humber Draft Plan December 2005. (Source:Yorkshire and Humber Assembly (2005).)