The Planning Summit 2024

The Planning Summit by Planning Magazine Richard Garlick Gary Budd was a two day gathering of planners on 13 and 14 June 2024.

I was asked to chair two panels on Day 1 and had a superb day of planning conversations and debates.

One of the first conversations of the day was on National Development Management Policies, promoted as part of the NPPF July 2023 mission to make plans simpler and more quickly updateable.

Looking nationally, questions were asked about how much of local plan policies could be cut and pasted. Who should write the policies?, someone asked.

One thing the profession asked for was a clear pathway to future changes. The was an interesting conversation about preparing the car making supply chains for the rollout of #EVs post 2035.

The other thing the profession clearly asked for was that politicians should start thinking spatially about planning.

The shortage of planners in the public sector was discussed. It was noted that some planning applications were taking 54 weeks to determine.

There were also questions about the need to educating planners on climate change, where, as someone noted, net zero was a matter for building control rather than the planning service.

It was suggested that s106 templates would be more useful than National Model Development Management Policies. Let have them written by people who know how to write them. It was pointed out that national standard conditions still exist.

There was an interesting session on digital citizen engagement and the need for data standards. Access to clean data, the right data in the right format was singled out.

AI, we were told, was not a silver bullet but we were also told that we could not stop it. Reassuringly, the message was that there ought to always be a human in the loop. Looks like some of those jobs are still safe!

I chaired two panels on Day 1: one on the relationship between planners and elected members, and one planning and net zero.

In the first panel, we heard that politicians were not experts but representatives of the public. When taking a decision, councillors must be mindful of planning issues, not the strength of public opinion. Councillors must also trust that officers will always steer the planning committee to a sound decision, no necessarily the one they recommended! We touched on the role of councillors in pre-application conversations.

In the second panel, we discussed the relationship between net zero enabling planning policies in a local planning authority, and building regulations standards. Under the #Climate and #Energy Act 2008 for example, local planning authorities could set energy standards in policies above building regulations. Until they could no longer do that! We also discussed the bigger picture, for example, what is the benefit of a net zero home in an area prone to flooding. In a discussion on the costs of net zero, there was consensus that a different approach to costs and benefits we needed. This was one of the challenges presented to planners and building surveyors.

#planning #surveying RTPI South East Royal Town Planning Institute RICS #Arcadis University of Kent

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