Planning minister Nick Raynsford has been waxing lyrical about the best practice guide "On design" published earlier this year by his department and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
The urbane Mr Raynsford insists the document is "crammed full of excellent ideas and sets out how good planning can help promote good urban design".
Well, that's the intention and much of it is realised though, like others, I do find the tone in places rather patronising and sometimes positively banal.
For example: "Minimising walking distances between the major land uses and public transport stops makes public transport easier to use and available to as many people as possible"; and "Negotiations between an applicant and local authority should aim to be effective and successful for both parties". See what I mean; not exactly rocket science, eh?
Putting stylistic issues on one side, one has to question whether guides aimed at the planning system can achieve the sort of returns hoped for by the authors - and ministers. At the end of the day so much depends on the predilections of elected councillors. Their record on blocking the bad is a deal better than their encouragement of the more visionary.
Has the minister got a "vision"? Like many policy pronouncements in documents like PPG3, transparency is not always the word that springs to mind.
When Raynsford spoke at the Town and Country Planning Association annual conference back in the summer he did stake out his position on urban design and housing mix. In the case of the latter he was anxious to set the record straight. "I should stress that this Government does not advocate tiny one-bed flats in dense urban areas as the solution to accommodating the rising numbers of smaller households. There has been some scurrilous reporting of PPG3".
As for urban design, he called it "a vibrant and creative field". He added: "Most people have an opinion on design! Housebuilders should heed what people are saying. We should be building places, towns, that people want, not "anywhere places" built around standardised road layouts. We should not assume that just because these houses can be sold people would not prefer something better.
"We know this to be the case because there are examples of excellent, highly popular developments coming forward, and all credit to the companies which put the effort into producing a quality product. But what troubles me is why this is not the norm. Why is it that I have to say in speech after speech that change is needed, and quickly". Clear, now?
...and making PPG3 work
Raynsford also used his contribution to the Town and Country Planning Association event to be blunt about the Government's insistence that PPG3 be taken seriously. He stressed two things. Plans need to be rapidly brought up to speed with PPG3 policies and all housing proposals must be considered in the light of PPG3.
It is clear that the Government is convinced that not everybody is on message about this. The minister stressed: "PPG3 policies are not to be shelved prior to authorities getting round to revising their plans. We are not going to sit back and wait. We will intervene when necessary and particularly with regard to greenfield sites".
Not much ambiguity there, then. The department has recently called in a clutch of major greenfield proposals. It does seem that ministers mean business.
Of course, both the planning system and the industry are feeling their way as far as the much vaunted sequential approach is concerned, not to mention the new imperative to "plan, monitor and manage" (the acronym is PMM!).
The recent panel report on the public examination of the draft regional planning guidance for the South West has some relevant observations on both those.
The panel commented that it did not think "the sequential approach on its own is especially helpful in guiding development plan production since it does not help local authorities to deal with the conflicting claims of different land uses". The argument is that housing is not the sole option for previously used urban land.
The other point rammed home by the panel is that the PMM approach is in danger of being used as a way of avoiding or putting off difficult but inevitable decisions. What should be involved is managing the delivery of housing. And that does mean managing. The panel argues strongly for "mechanisms for making land available through the planning system at the right time".
To use the current jargon, "it's outputs, stupid". Will ministers bite the bullet? Perhaps, now that the opposition is making waves on this. Watch this space.
Source
Building Homes
