"Where shall we all go next?"

Camberley High Street in the early 1980s had a butcher, a baker, one of those 1/2p and 1p sweet shops (allegedly very popular with the local dentist), a Midland Bank, a Lipton's supermarket and that unforgettable doyen of comparison goods retail - Overs' Department Store. For me though, best of all on a trip to that vibrant town centre street of my early years, was the travel agency.

From here numerous - free - glossy brochures could be collected by my parents from the ever smiling and helpful staff. These were theirs to take home and peruse, and to allow a curious look by their young son ever keen to learn the names of the exotic, yet faintly odd sounding resorts which graced their pages. Repeat after me: Torre-me-linos, Ski-ath-os and - always my favourite dream destination- Yug-o-slav-ia. Within the pages of the glossy brochures lay promise: promise of British Caledonian and DanAir flights; promise of hot days; promise of turquoise seas; promise of pacific blue skies; promise of sunflower filled fields and carefree days wondering around colourful markets and beautiful - for they were always beautiful - towns and villages which could be visited on the obligatory coach trip (or two).

After putting down the brochures, the big question which then required answer by my parents was this: where shall we all go next?

Skip forward some forty years, and choosing a holiday in 2020 lacks the lustre of the experience my parents enjoyed as they spent grey, rainy January evenings flicking through those glossy brochures thinking of the following August. Nowadays a flight, a hotel, a rental car are but a click away on the laptop - if you can get there, avoid quarantine and it is not all booked out! Yes its immediate and convenient, but somehow just not quite the same, and certainly not this year.

It was though pleasing to be able to download a glossy brochure akin to those holiday brochures of old on Thursday morning from HM Government. The Government knows we cannot travel to far off climes this August like we normally do. So as a sop, here was its own brochure interspersed with pictures of gloriously tempting destinations across England.

No Costa Brava or Florida for you this year?

Then why not enjoy the beauty of Halifax, the chocolate box sand-stone streets of the Cotswolds, and for any Londoners out there: quality place-making and building design at Kings Cross and the Elephant & Castle.

That brochure with the pretty pictures was of course the Planning White Paper: Planning for the Future: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/907647/MHCLG-Planning-Consultation.pdf.

Its destination of choice: root and branch reform of the planning system in England.

Indeed, the Planning White Paper is certainly the most momentous reform paper published in the field for decades.

No more tinkering around the edges for the planning system: this paper thinks big. Complete reform of the local plan system. Complete reform of CIL and 106. Complete reform of the way the consenting system operates. Complete reform of the way planning uses tech and as to how the system is financed to ensure effective delivery. Nothing on CPO or heritage - but then, you cannot have everything all at once can you?

Stepping back the past 48 hours to read the paper carefully over, alongside its (very important!) sister paper which sets out significant, shorter term reforms to the existing planning system - changes to the standard assessment for housing need, extension of PiPs to major development, lifting of the small sites affordable housing fresh-hold and securing 'First Homes', I've also viewed with a wry smile the immediate wish of many commentators to criticise and to snipe. A copy of the sister paper can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/907215/200805_Changes_to_the_current_planning_system_FINAL_version.pdf.

Those same commentators clamouring to make early judgement on the White Paper would do well to watch yesterday's special edition of 'Have We Got Planning News for You': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE6KD4K8ugk. In fact, I recommend it to anyone with a passing interest on what it really going on - quite frankly this edition deserves a public service BAFTA, along with tonight's 8pm slot on BBC1 in place of the obligatory hospital drama.

On the show, Christopher Katkowski QC ("KitKat") - a member of the Government's advisory task-force - gives insider explanations in extremely calm, lucid and engaging terms in response to the questions posed by the panel of advocates. He covers off the following issues, on which I comment as follows to provide my very high level take on what is to come:

1. the process around collating the ideas set out in the White Paper (for the avoidance of doubt - KitKat emphasises that senior civil servants from MHCLH and Treasury have been very much engaged and this is not a questionable "Spads charter" as many have suggested);

2. that the government really is thinking big here. It is determined to follow through with primary, not just secondary, legislation. The White Paper really is thinking afresh, with a view to the Government starting anew. The bells will start tolling soon for the 1990 and 2004 Acts;

3. how a renewed local plan system would operate. What is being suggested is a nuanced - uniquely English - system which strips back the current local plan system to first principles. Over the past year there has been an exhausting amount of energy spent within planning circles around what a full blown 'zoning' system will mean for England. We're not quite going there though, and the good news is everyone can now concentrate on the layered detail of what is being suggested in the White Paper around where policy should appropriately be made, what allocations will look and feel like, what it means in terms of the route to planning permission in different areas, who makes that policy, and how the public can influence it. They can put those unwieldy copies of the New York Zoning Resolution back on their bookshelves ready to impress on their next Zoom!;

4. infrastructure delivery and the operation of a new Infrastructure Levy to replace 106 and CIL. This part of the paper to my mind currently leaves a residual need for a successor to 106, and raises a plethora of questions around the operation of the new Levy. But this is a first principles White Paper, and - more on that another day; and

5. "Beauty". There is prolific use of this word throughout the White Paper. My immediate reaction is that the choice of word is unfortunate, but behind it lies the admirable concept of the planning system upholding quality design so people can live in homes they can be proud of, and the mechanics of how the planning system might achieve that objective. How capturing "beauty" will work in practice so as not to be seen to stifle design innovation, and is as much a meaningful concept for the good people of Brent and Barnet as to the good people of Belgravia, needs working through - but again, no detailed discussion on that just now.

The White Paper requests consultation responses back into Marsham Street by end of 28 October, and responses on the paper setting out changes to the current planning system by 23:45 on the earlier date of 1 October.

Rather than follow the initial flurry of carping from so many commentators from across the political divide over the past two days within the print media, on Twitter and on other channels, I have no doubt the planning world will now engage, suggest, cajole and provide constructive criticism on the myriad of new ideas and blue sky thinking in the White Paper.

Don't tell anyone, but: Strip away the hype, and many people are growing to quite like what they read.

Collectively there is a chance to influence a better planning system which is flexible and ensures delivery of well designed new homes and infrastructure in a greatly improved way. There is a lot in the White Paper to celebrate. There is also a great deal to question, and much early thinking to build on.

Which all rather begs the question, in the heady world of planning "Where shall we all go next?"

Well, we can all expect later consultations on the detailed proposals after the initial round of White Paper responses, before legislation (at least on the long-term changes to the system to be embodied in a new Planning Act) much later in the Parliament.

None of this will be quite as quick as some may have you believe.

So on that note - and ahead of going through all the finer detail later in August and during September alongside my great colleagues in the Planning and Infrastructure Consenting Team at Addleshaw Goddard - and engaging on what it all means for our clients and colleagues working across the development sector - I'm off on holiday:

Definitely not Yugoslavia.

But then - I'll be giving the Elephant & Castle a miss too.