Somewhat surprisingly, yesterday I drew a line between tackling inflation and the Government's consultation on local plan-making. Taking the two things in turn:
Whilst the focus is on interest rates to reduce demand, Evan Davis on the PM Programme (from 35:45) discussed supply side solutions.
The question was posed whether we might be bereft of ideas, but the answer came back that solutions fall into two categories:
- Short term - increase labour supply (e.g. via gender and age focused measures) as a means of growing the economy without causing higher wages. OK, so this is not so relevant to local plan-making reform.
- Long term - support investment, which according to ED is currently an "appalling indicator in the UK economy". The discussion then focused on infrastructure, education and science. No mention of house-building or employment land specifically, but I will stick my neck out (as a non-economist) and say that they fall into the category of supply side solutions.
Whilst I find a 30,000 word web page highly inaccessible, at least you can still control F search for words. Here are some searches:
- Environment - features 48 times
- Economy - once (one word in a column)
- Economic - three times (once in brackets)
- Employment - twice (once in brackets)
- Socio-economic - zero times.
- Growth - five times, OK this is better.
- Productivity - three times, but in the context of planning, not the economy
- Investment - once, but again only in the context of 'prop tech'
- Infrastructure - yes, 48 mentions, but nil mentions of schools, which I personally find are often centrally important to local plan-making (e.g. the St Albans local plan will deliver 3-4 secondary and 8-10 primary.
SA gets zero mention, despite having been a requirement for the past 20 years. Rather, the assumption is that we move to a regime of "environmental assessment" (12 times) and "environmental outcomes" reporting (9 times).
Was the question of whether to move from a sustainability focus to an environmental focus not just the subject of a major national consultation?
Here are links to some recent SA matrices:
- St Albans - there is an env case for lower growth (and/or not supporting Hemel Garden Communities), but the preferred scenario (4) performs comfortably best in terms of 'homes', 'economy' and 'accessibility' objectives.
- Croydon - a clear case for higher growth from a 'homes' perspective, but the Council judged the preferred scenario (1) to represent SD on balance.
- West Suffolk - the preferred scenario (1) is not be the best performing in terms of socio-economic objectives, but the Council supports it on balance.
- Surrey Heath - a similar story (scenario 1 is preferred).
- Chichester - two appraisal matrices (the plan-area is divided by the South Downs) with both highlighting key environment v socio-economy tensions.
- Thame NP - again, the appraisal highlights that the preferred scenario (1) has pros and cons across the spectrum of sustainability topics.
Every appraisal simply involves exploring pros and cons, with zero attribution of weight/importance to each, hence there is no risk of the environment being downplayed. That is why there is there is no downside to a sustainability focus.
Also, as stated in sentence 1 of para 1 on the consultation webpage: "The purpose of the planning system is to contribute to sustainable development."
That being the case, and given the national context, I really would like to know: A) whose idea it was to move to an environmental focus; and B) their reasons.
