7 Making and executing regional spatial plans
7.6 The stages of regional planning
may be some strengthening of the national spatial dimension, depending on the decisions after the Barker 2006 review. Second, the practice of sub-regional planning may well be given a more standard form, as the first round of RSSs emerges, as counties accept the loss of their planning powers, and assemblies become adept at steering asymmetrical sub-area and sub-regional frameworks within their RSSs. Whether either of these shifts will begin to deliver a really
‘appropriate’ scalar architecture for English planning remains a thoroughly open question.
The first step is to set the objectives of the Plan. This is often presented in the form of a short vision statement, followed by a longer set of objectives. Some- times these are framed in a different way, as in Yorkshire, which says what it expects the region to be like by 2021 (see Box 7.1). These broad framing aims are set early in the Plan process from a combination of professional, political and consultative sources. Sometimes the objectives of the Integrated Regional Strategy (or similar document) may be adopted, as in the Yorkshire and Humber draft of 2005. It is usually quite difficult for either vision or objectives to be especially distinctive, in that all regions aspire to similar objectives. There is a reluctance to prioritise. It is difficult to find a plan which says that the most important objective is – economic growth, or social progress. Some public or political interest is likely to object to such open prioritisation. Thus the objec- tive of ‘sustainable development’ has been adopted in some cases, simply because it is very ambiguous, particularly in its usage after the government White Paper of 1999 (DETR 1999a).
It is usually at the level below the overall objectives that policies begin to have some ‘bite’. Thus the Yorkshire and Humber plan in its ‘Core Approach’
chapter seeks in policy YH 1 to ‘reverse the long-term trend of population and investment dispersal away from cities and major towns’. When combined with part of policy YH 8 to ‘concentrate the majority of new development and rede- velopment on the Regional and Sub-regional Centres’, and with YH 3 (see Box 7.2), this may constitute a more solid base for a spatial strategy. The only threat to the clear definition of such goals comes from the possibility that either the whole set of general policies (here YH 1 to YH 8) may have internal contradic- tions, or more detailed parts of the plan may go against this package. This is where processes of public debate and the arguing through at the EIP may serve to cohere the document internally.
The second step concerns the data needed at regional and sub-regional levels, about each topic of planning. This must build up a picture of the working of each space to be planned for. The aim is to develop as full an understanding of spatial relationships and processes of change as possible. Regional planners working up to about 2000 had to draw mainly on generally available statistical data, and on the knowledge of strategic planners working in their own local authorities, who needed data to prepare structure and unitary development plans. Regional planning bodies such as the London and South East Regional Planning Conference (SERPLAN) had some capacity to do limited wider research, but most did not. After about 2000 regional planning teams and budgets were expanded with the help of funds from the central planning min- istry, and so there was scope for increasing both some inhouse research and much commissioned work, on, for example, housing needs and markets, trans- port modelling and employment land stocks and changes. Given these, albeit still limited, budgets, consultancies did start to build up specialised skills in a range of areas, as to an extent did the regional planning teams.
Other agencies would be effectively contributing to this creation of an ever larger database, for example:
Making and executing regional spatial plans 141 Box 7.1 Vision and objectives in Yorkshire and Humber Draft Plan December 2005
THE PLAN’S SPATIAL VISION
In delivering the overall vision for the Region that:
Yorkshire and Humber will be a recognisably world class and international Region where the economic, environmental and social well-being of all our Region and its people advance rapidly and sustainably.
The RSS will:
Achieve a more sustainable pattern and form of development, investment and activity in the Yorkshire and Humber region – putting a greater emphasis on matching needs across the Region with opportunities and managing the environment as a key resource.
By the end of the Plan period, in 2021, Yorkshire and Humber will be a region:
1 continuing to change and adapt to meet new economic, social and environmental challenges;
2 where all its cities, towns and rural areas are working together to the benefit of the whole Region;
3 with lively cities and and vibrant towns and rural areas, fit for purpose in terms of twenty-first-century living, working and move- ment;
4 with an even stronger regional identity, whose special character and distinctiveness has been protected and improved;
5 with safe, attractive and high-quality places offering a wide range of living, working and investment opportunities;
6 that is adapting to the threats and opportunities caused by climate change and is moving to a low carbon economy;
7 that has optimised the use of its land and infrastructure, offering a clear competitive advantage over the South of England;
8 that has reduced inequalities across its area;
9 whose economic performance is closer to the UK average, with more and better jobs;
10 that is collaborating internally and externally to deliver a more sustainable, competitive and better performing North of England.
• the work by the Environment Agency and the regional sustainability network or body in making State of the Environment Reports;
• the ongoing work by RDAs, making a fuller picture of regional economies, particularly focused on particular economic clusters of interest to them but also on infrastructure issues, and in some cases more sophisticated work on input–output modelling or other more fundamental approaches;
• work from 2003 by the Regional Housing Boards (RHBs), on affordable housing need, and on allocation of available public spending;
• work stemming from the multi modal studies of the period 1998 to 2003, which had built up greater knowledge on regional transport flows and options.
From around 2000, the government was putting increasing emphasis on this data or ‘evidence base’ side of making plans, in common with its approach in other policy fields. This may have been due to a greater wish to be able to argue with what it regarded as often weakly founded strategies, which were not giving enough importance to many kinds of growth pressures. The growing importance of the Treasury increased this tendency, with economic arguments given special value, as shown by the first Barker review, on housing supply (HM Treasury/
ODPM 2004). Doubts among many planners as to whether strategic planning could respond in the same way as some other policy fields were to an extent silenced by the satisfaction for planners of extra resources being provided to do much needed work.
Another step, intimately linked to the last, is to think about the future of the Box 7.2 Yorkshire and Humber Draft Plan December 2005, showing one of the eight core policies of the Plan (YHA 2005)
Policy YH 3: KEY SPATIAL PRIORITIES
All plans, strategies, major investment decisions and programmes in the Region will, where relevant, aim to:
1 transform economic, environmental and social conditions in the older industrialised parts of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and the Humber;
2 manage and spread the benefits of continued growth of the Leeds economy as a European centre of financial and business services;
3 optimise the opportunites provided by the Humber Ports as an inter- national trade gateway for the region and the country;
4 support towns as hubs for the rural economy and as service centres;
5 enhance the environmental character and qualities of the Region’s coast and countryside including for economic and social develop- ment.
region. Various techniques are used here, with the repertoire somewhat extended in the latest RSSs. The simplest and oldest is extrapolation of existing trends, or, more precisely, thinking about whether or how such trends might change in one direction or another in the short, medium or long term. The temporal dimension was becoming increasingly critical, as the time horizon moved towards 20 or even 25 years in RSSs. Plans might thus say that a trend was not likely to be alterable in the first five or ten years, but might be bent after that.
Extrapolationremains at the base of all planning, but increasing computing power, shown, for example, in the work of the big economic or transportation consultancies, has not by any means removed its problems. Consultants, if asked, will happily predict the number of jobs or the amount of gross value added in a region, and perhaps employment land needs, many years into the future. But they and the regional planning bodies are aware of the risks involved in putting much weight on these predictions. The same goes for the more con- ventional demographic and household work, always dependent on migration assumptions and on household size changes.
Related to extrapolation is the option of large-scale modelling. This was common in the 1960s, when many US cities (and some planners elsewhere) built up large land use transportation programmes to model changes in move- ment and land use over years to come. This was vigorously attacked in the 1970s as a waste of resources, given the weakness of the various inputs, and the difficulty of effectively linking sub-elements reliably together (i.e. spatial systems were seen to be insufficiently understood to be modelled). Modelling has made some comeback since the 1990s, but has still been relatively little used in regional planning, outside the transport field. It seems likely that current governments may be attracted by its apparent technological sophistica- tion, and fund more work in this area.
Planners have sought ways round extrapolating past trends. Perhaps the way most attempted in recent years has been that of scenario building. This has been a common technique in businesses, and became part of the armoury of strategic planning for cities from the 1980s (Marshall 1997; May 1996). For example, in the preparation of the South East Plan, consultants identified the main likely drivers of change, so that these could be used to ‘futures proof’ the emerging strategy (Forum for the Future 2004). The aim is to sensitise planners to vari- able possibilities. A similar technique involves ‘backcasting’, where preferred regional outcomes for a certain date are tracked back to the present, to see what measures would need to be put in place to have a good chance of arriving at the destination. This might include negative backcasting, designed to head off particularly those outcomes to be avoided.
Altogether these techniques give planners something to work on, but all are aware of their limitations. For example, the South East Plan emphasised the risks of trying to base policies on predictions of economic change (and hence surely all other change) beyond perhaps ten years into the future – a serious admission of uncertainty on a central matter, in probably the best resourced Making and executing regional spatial plans 143
plan of recent decades. In the end all planners may be left with the option of choosing a set of values around preferred futures, and adjusting this to plausible extrapolations, backed by modesty in their confidence in achieving what is planned for. Such a view of the future goes somewhat against the hyperbole or rhetoric often expected of public policy, but may be more appropriate to the panorama presented here for the field of regional planning.
The final and culminating step is actually generating the proposed set of pol- icies, and making a spatial form for these. In the early 1970s UK sub-regional planners experimented with several techniques for distributing growth around an area (Cowling and Steeley 1973). The essence of these was to ‘sieve out’
places which for one reason or another were not suitable for varying types of development, leaving the remaining areas as the likely locations. Sieve maps would be prepared as overlays. Another technique much discussed involved identifying thresholds for varying levels of development, so that the costs of developing in one form or one place became clear: a new town of 50,000 in one place might be much cheaper than two of 25,000 elsewhere – or several urban extensions might give better value, given the chance to use existing infrastructure. Another approach starts at the other end, selecting plausible spatial forms – say concentrating development in axes radiating from London, or in the M62 corridor across northern England, or in five main poles in the region. This type of spatial simplification has a long history, and is attractive to those of a design or spatial training (architects and engineers), and perhaps to national politicians. Planners and those most familiar with regions usually are less taken with the results of such schemas, although they may serve to elaborate options.
In principle these and other techniques should be used to generate spatial options, which could then be evaluated in relation to the goals of the Plan, including by means of sustainability appraisal (see Chapter 11). All plans show stages where options were presented to the public. For example, the South East Plan moved first of all to consider six options based on a grid of three policy directions (RPG 2001, more economically driven, or more driven to reduce intra-regional disparities) and two spatial distribution models, one concentrat- ing very much on 17 transport hubs, one a little less concentrated on all the urban areas. After workshop consultation and further work, these were cut down to two options, continuing RPG 2001, or ‘sharper focus’ which put more emphasis on both the areas with most economic potential and those needing regeneration (SEERA 2006a pp. 30–31). These two options were then turned into spatial options and attached to the chosen housing levels, as shown in Figure 7.5. How much difference all this made is hard to tell, but it did constitute relatively transparent working through of both policy emphases and spatial options.
In Yorkshire and Humber a related exercise was undertaken. Here the three policy options were responding to market forces, matching need with opportunity and managing the environment as a key resource. This was then mapped onto the six sub-areas, and also detailed down to specific localities.
Milton Keynes Aylesbury Oxford
Slough Reading
Basingstoke Woking Guildford Reigate
Crawley
Chatham Maidstone
Ashford
Brighton Southampton
Portsmouth
Average number of dwellings per annum (2006 to 2026)
5000 to 6000
4000 to 5000
3000 to 4000
2000 to 3000
1000 to 2000
1000 to 1500
500 to 1000
1 to 500 Hub
Milton Keynes Aylesbury Oxford
Slough Reading
Basingstoke Woking Guildford Reigate
Crawley
Chatham Maidstone
Ashford
Brighton Southampton
Portsmouth
Average number of dwellings per annum (2006 to 2026)
5000 to 6000
4000 to 5000
3000 to 4000
2000 to 3000
1000 to 2000
1000 to 1500
500 to 1000
1 to 500 Hub
Figure 7.5 South East Plan consultation January to March 2005 – options. This shows the two alternative options offered for accommodating 32,000 new houses per annum, the top one being ‘sharper focus’, stressing both the more economically successful areas and regeneration areas, the lower one with a slightly more even distribution. (Source:
SEERA (2005).)
This became the material for the consultation of winter 2004/2005 on the pre-draft RSS (YHA 2004b). The consultation resulted in support for a mix of the social and environmental options, which then fed through to the final draft. In the South West, the main options consultation stressed spatial ele- ments, rather than either the policy alternatives of Yorkshire or the com- bined attempt of the South East. Thus, there the options were continuing the RPG 2001 emphasis, going for an even more concentrated urban model, or varying development much more, with different approaches in different parts of the region, effectively allowing more dispersion in some places (SWRA 2004).
There are then attempts to think through and offer up options for public debate, though the range and type of options offered varies, as these three regions show. The impression is that this remains very much an inexact science.
In the end, policy makers have to plump for certain of the most plausible altern- ative emphases, on the basis of the research done and a range of policy pres- sures, from government and stakeholders, and then go public. How wide a range of options this really covers, and whether it deals with the critical decisions, is hard to say. There doubtless remains much to learn about innovative and honest strategy generation.
7.6.2 Implementing regional plans
Plans are of course only as good as their implementation, or so most people would think. The Blair governments have put increasing stress on ‘delivery’ as their progammes have hit various barriers over their years in office. Therefore PPS11 made clear the importance of implementation, requiring RSSs to contain an implementation plan, and to explain in their Annual Monitoring Reports why any matters not being progressed were not going well, and what the RPB was doing about these failures. Assemblies have, therefore, all prepared increasingly full Implementation Plans. The London Plan led the way in 2004, showing a wide range of ways in which the Plan would be implemented, includ- ing work by agencies within the Greater London Authority (GLA) ‘family’ (for transport and the economy), and appropriate partnership and persuasion work with numerous other actors – central government, developers, the London bor- oughs (whose plans had to conform with the Plan).
The South East Plan described four types of instruments available for imple- mentation (SEERA 2006d):
• behavioural change, for example, in travel habits, or energy or water con- sumption;
• using regulatory frameworks, for example, government’s ability to alter the pricing and investment systems of utilities, but also of course including planning’s own regulatory instruments – planning permission etc.;
• managing existing infrastructure assets effectively; and
• adding new infrastructure capacity, through national, regional and local investment programmes.
Naturally it is the last category which tends to dominate the Implementation Plan of this and other RSSs, with the making of long lists of requirements for investment. For the South East this is split into the needs under each Plan topic heading, and then broken down into lists for each of the Plan’s sub-regions. The Plan also puts great emphasis on the need to align major national spending pro- grammes with the Plan (see Figure 7.6). It also attempts to calculate the infra- structure costs involved in implementing the Plan, a highly ambitious move unusual in regional planning practice (see Figure 7.7).
There is clearly, in England at present, a very strong push behind this element of regional planning. We can see this in the creation, by central, regional and, to an extent, local bodies, of special purpose ‘delivery vehicles’, made to deliver particular growth area results, often in the style of the Thatcherite Urban Devel- opment Corporations of the 1980s. The push is also evident in the resources being put by RPBs into ensuring that the new round of local plans will conform with the RSSs. Equally, sub-regional planning is strongly emphasised, if only to make up for the loss of the structure plans and the accompanying loss of the commitment of the English counties to their implementation.
The question is: Will this deliver the objectives of the RSSs, which are in some cases ambitious, and are designed to operate over long timescales? The prob- lems relate in part to the issues raised in the next two ‘stages’, and as to whether the whole process can be made to work together. Furthermore, it is most likely that we will see very variable success in different fields. Far more government resources and effort are going into some sectors within RSSs than others. For example, the economy is served by relatively well-resourced publicly funded agen- cies, the RDAs, with the ear of central government. Transport on the other hand, depends very largely on private companies, with much more public funding of road building and maintenance than any other element. The same goes in differ- ent ways for some other key areas – housing, retailing, energy and waste, though some have regulatory regimes with potentially strong public levers. It is unlikely that government will confront these basic underlying factors which permeate the implementation prospects of RSSs. This means that they are likely to remain very unevenly implemented, with some parts ‘real’ and other parts more aspirational.
It is quite possible that the political economy within which English regional planning sits will scupper effective implementation. A neoliberal state may expel such an attempt at serious planning, however much this is based on networked and partnership forms. All we can say at present is that some efforts are starting to be made in some areas. In this respect regional planning practice in England is likely to be fast changing, with innovation and development of new approaches needed to make progress.
7.6.3 Monitoring regional plans
Government policy also stresses the importance of monitoring. There is some ambiguity about whether this means simply securing the exact targets set in plans, or whether a more subtle steering role is intended. Key elements were Making and executing regional spatial plans 147