BLUE PAPER - Rebuilding the Foundations

On the 12th March, the Government announced an upcoming White Paper titled, Planning for the Future.  In support, we propose our own 5-point policy plan to stimulate debate. 

According to MHCLG, spending on Local Authority (LA) Planning departments has dropped by nearly 50% since 2010.  If we are to deliver a sufficient number of new homes which are of decent quality and places that people of all ages want to visit, we need well resourced Planning departments.  We need a significant increase to the budgets of all LA Planning departments.

We need a national training program to ensure that every planning officer is either a Chartered Town Planner and member of the Royal Town Planning Institute or proactively working towards this.  There should be a rolling two-year mandatory CPD requirement. 

In total, there are 343 Local Authorities in England and between them, they employ a countless number of planning databases and hold varying amounts of digital data. Society does not confine itself to administrative boundaries. Development should not be siloed. We need one system for the whole country which empowers developers to analyse data from multiple Local Authorities through one unified digital system.

We need to focus on providing the resources to deliver the development this Country needs.  We need more Planning Officers.  Dedicated Urban Designers and Landscape Architects should be in every LA Planning department.  Committing to a national training program for all Planning Committee members will help to deliver consistent decision making and provide greater certainty for developers.  

There have been 10 Housing Ministers since 2010.  With so much change, it is hardly surprising that developers do not know which way is up.  The built environment forms the very foundation of our society and such an important role should be served by strong and stable governance.  We need a democratically elected Housing Minister to stay in post for at least 10 year cycles.