Just once more on justification

There has been a lot of discussion about housing targets since the Draft NPPF, but not so much about deleting the 'justified' test of soundness. Perhaps now is our opportunity, following the recent SoS's recent letter summarising key aims:

"... we are introducing reforms to make plans simpler, shorter and faster to prepare... In the new system, planning authorities will need to prepare, consult on and adopt plans within a 30-month timeframe"

"... make clearer that Local Housing Need (LHN) is an advisory starting point for plan making... any housing number put forward by a local authority would still need to be both evidence based and tested by PINS at examination."

Set out below are reflections under three headings:

• Unmet need
• Consultation
• Reasonable alternatives

Unmet need

Confusion has reigned regarding whether - under the current NPPF - LHN amounts to a 'mandatory target' (or "minimum starting point") for plan-making. This is understandable, given inconsistent statements across the NPPF and the PPG (I suspect misguided studied ambiguity dating back to original authors).

However, what is certain is that unmet need is already an issue, and risks getting worse under the new NPPF. As such, perhaps we mitigate concerns by continuing to require that plans are not only evidence based but justified?

With the help of Wikipedia I have reviewed the meaning of justification and it really does mean something, says some of the greatest philosophers since Plato.

There is a snag, in that philosophers have tended to link justification with knowledge, which is less relevant to local plan-making (no one is trying to adopt a local plan because they 'know' it is the right thing to do).

However, please can we avoid a situation whereby local plan-makers argue:

• There is evidence to to demonstrate unacceptable drawbacks to providing for LHN and hence the plan is sound, despite...
• no evidence to demonstrate that unmet need (potentially existing, as well as that proposed to be generated) will be provided for (effectively).

Consultation

OK, so this is perhaps a stretch, but is there a risk that a pure focus on "evidence" risks plan-making becoming an overly technocratic exercise?

Perhaps not, but with my tin foil hat on I do already fear plan-making going down this road driven by a 'digital' agenda that pushes plan-making as a process of crunching sites through tenuous multi criteria analysis ('computer says build').

Concerns are then not helped by the proposed 30 month timeframe for plan-making. Perhaps it can be done, but there are major risks.

And then there is the reference to PINS in the SoS quote. We know that local democracy and localism are in the frame as we consider planning woes, but is anyone suggesting that a solution is more power to PINS? I'm note sure they are.

I would be comforted if the SoS referred to local plans needing to be "evidence based in light of a process that includes best practice consultation".

Reasonable alternatives (RAs)

My literature review around 'justification' threw up virtually nothing on RAs, hence I'm not sure why they are mentioned as part of the justified test.

I believe the theoretical footing for RAs to be marginalism:

“... the insight that people make economic decisions over [increments], rather than... all-or-nothing decisions.? Marginalism began with the Marginal Revolution in economics in the 1870s and [became] a foundational aspect of economics."

… if you sit down for breakfast to eat a plate of eggs… you are making a decision at the margin. On an average day, you might eat two eggs… or you might eat a third egg… in no case do you decide between whether to eat all the eggs that exist in the universe or else zero eggs...”

In this light, perhaps we might spell-out that: RAs guarantee local plan-making mutually marginal choice with a focus on relative merits that cuts through complexity (although analysis of absolute outcomes is also important).

On a practical level, I believe that every LP process should centre on a true draft plan consultation that involves presenting a defined audience (the public and stakeholder organisations with a strategic interest) with a single centre-piece appraisal of RAs in the form of alternative key diagrams (or as close as possible).

Conclusion

The justified test of soundness needs to be looked at, and I think that should involve removing reference to RAs. Separate guidance should then define the role of RAs in the context of LP-making and, indeed, define RAs.

I also think that it's fine to lower the bar. In doing so, we can aim to do better than the last attempt, which involved deleting reference to "all" reasonable alternatives. That was a head scratcher.

My suggestion is that we look to the Coherentism theory of justification. In turn, I propose the following test: Evidence based (in light of technical evidence, consultation and appraisal), coherent and, in turn, justified.