I'm Dreaming of a White Paper... on Strategic Planning*
Hot on the heels of Sunday's working paper on nature recovery, we have yet another festive delivery.
Today, the Government has released the “English Devolution White Paper: Power and partnership: Foundations for growth”. Which is not a white paper so much as it is a roadmap for completely re-structuring local government in England.
In short, this is BIG news.
It is also a big white paper, and I am deliberately ignoring large chunks of it.
This post is focused solely on the proposals relating to strategic planning. The environmental and climate change related elements (there are a few) will be covered in this week's environmental update.
By way of scene setting: the Government's intention is to move from our current system of local government, which includes a multitude of different structures**; to a more uniform system in which all councils are unitary authorities.
They are also looking to create a new form of “Strategic Authority”, which will either be:
- A Foundation Strategic Authority: this category will include non-mayoral Combined Authorities and Combined County Authorities automatically, and any Local Authority designated as a Strategic Authority without a Mayor; or
- A Mayoral Strategic Authority: this category will include the Greater London Authority; all Mayoral Combined Authorities and all Mayoral Combined County Authorities will automatically begin as Mayoral Strategic Authorities. Those who meet specified eligibility criteria may be designated as Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities. This unlocks further devolution, most notably an Integrated Settlement.
The Strategic Authorities, once created, will gain a bunch of new powers, responsibilities, and funding***.
Crucially for the rest of this post, one of those new responsibilities (which does not appear to be optional) is strategic planning.
One important nuance, before we get into the strategic planning bit. It is recognised by MHCLG that moving to a fully unitary local government system will take time, and probably a lot of it. Which means that Strategic Authorities will be created well before that particular strand of local government reorganisation completes.
For two tier areas, the Strategic Authority will be a Combined County Authority that the government will create by grouping county councils together. District Councils will, therefore, not be a part of the Strategic Authority for their area; albeit that the government is expecting “effective levels of collaboration” between the Strategic Authority and the District Councils within the relevant area.
Enough about local government reorganisation, I hear you cry!*!; what does this mean for the planning system.
Well, as it turns out, quite a lot.
The Government is fully committed to getting to the point where ALL of England is covered by a strategic plan*&. So committed, in fact, that they are going to do this before the whole of England is covered by a Strategic Authority.
Where there is no Strategic Authority, or at the very least no plans for one, the government will introduce a power in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to direct specific groups of county councils, unitary authorities etc. to act in its place - at least for strategic planning purposes.
The fundamental plank of these proposals is the creation of a Spatial Development Strategy or SDS.
The SDS will guide development for the Local Planning Authorities in the area, and their Local Plans will need to be in general conformity with it.
The SDS is intended to be a “deliberately high level” document that leaves detailed policy and site allocations to the local plans of constituent LPAs.
It is however intended to include:
- the identification of strategic growth areas and key infrastructure requirements;
- a total housing need figure - which is created by adding up new standard method figures for the whole area; and
- details of how this is to be apportioned between the constituent LPAs
The apportioned figure set for each LPA would then be the minimum housing requirement for its next Local Plan and is, therefore, pretty mandatory.
As a result, there will be a formal duty for the body drawing up the SDS to consult district councils on its development and an ability for district councils to raise concerns with the planning inspectorate about its content.
All of this will be backed up by MHCLG wielding a fairly big hypothetical stick. Namely, the creation of new intervention powers, which will enable the government to step in where SDS's are not produced quickly enough.
These will include:
- giving directions on timetables or particular policy content such as the distribution of housing need
- taking over the preparation of an SDS and adopting it on behalf of strategic planning authorities.
and everything in between.
And when they say “quickly enough” MHCLG are not messing around. They want SDSs covering all of England by the end of the parliament.
In short, if fully adopted these proposals will be nothing short of transformational. Our planning system will be very different to how it is now, albeit somewhat familiar to anyone whose planning career pre-dates 2011.
They will also be controversial. Anything that involves this level of government reorganisation is pretty much guaranteed to prompt concern.
Whether that concern translates into meaningful oppostion to the Planning & Infrastructure Bill or the English Devolution Bill remains to be seen.
What is certain, however, is that both pieces of legislation are going to have a LOT riding on them.
So, to finish with the now traditional festive song:
I'm dreaming of a white paper
Just like the ones I used to know
With strategic plans
Across the land
Agreeing where developments should go
I'm dreaming of a white paper
With every consultation response I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your strategic plans be right
*and a LOT of other stuff that I am ignoring for the time being
**including, but not limited to, district councils, county councils, unitary authorities, mayoral authorities and national park authorities
*** this is, I believe, the carrot in the equation
*! no? just me? oh well, it has been a long day.
*& I am refusing to use the phrase “universal coverage” as the universe is larger than England and I am a pedant.
Areas will be able to set SDS to enable their area to grow, identify the infrastructure that is needed and strategic locations for development. This will include an obligation to apportion an assessment of the housing need of the Strategic Authority across its constituent members. The government intends for that assessment to be the cumulative total of the
local housing need of each constituent member, as determined by the Standard Method set out in national planning policy. The apportioned figure set for each constituent member in the SDS will then be the minimum housing requirement for the purposes of each member
authority’s next Local Plan.... We also expect that the authorities producing SDSs will be able to encourage the pooling of resources and prioritising of efforts across their constituent authorities to meet housing need.”
Key Contact
