East Midlands Councils’ Director of Policy and Infrastructure, Andrew Pritchard, shares this thoughts on the return of strategic planning.
The Coalition Government that took office in 2010 moved quicky to abolish both Regional Spatial Strategies and any remaining ‘saved’ County Structure Plan policies. The future of planning was ‘local’ – which meant a system based around neighbourhood plans and district local plans.
There was limited recognition by new Ministers of the importance on cross boundary issues which led the to the ‘Duty to Co-operate’, surely one of the most unworkable and least effective planning measures introduced by any Government (so far).
Because of the patchy nature of local plan coverage (which endures to this day), arbitrarily removing a complete tier of statuary policy meant that for many parts of the country planners were trying to operate a plan-led planning system without any plans.
But now the wheel is turning. The new DPM Angela Raynor has signalled the Government’s intention to deliver universal coverage of strategic planning arrangements within the current Parliament.
I spent most of my working life up to 2010 as a policy planner, including a decade leading the Regional Planning Body function for the East Midlands. So based on that experience, let me share five ‘top-tips’ for those bright young things contemplating a new generation of strategic plans.
Keep it brief – and focus on things that matter
The last iteration of the East Midlands Regional Plan published in 2009 was by far the shortest of any of the then extant RSS’s. This was deliberate choice. There was temptation from some local partners to produce a big baggy regional structure plan, and from the Government’s statutory agencies to replicate the detail of national policy. But we wanted to focus just on the strategic policies that could genuinely drive key planning and investment decisions – and we made that clear throughout the plan-making process. It was also a choice informed by expediency. We had limited resources in terms of people and budget and tight deadlines to hit – so we quickly learned how to prioritise.
Be led by functional geography – not historic boundaries
We never made the case that the East Midlands was a single functional unit or wasted time developing an artificial regional identity. Instead, we used the regional scale to shine a new light on sub-regional relationship and patterns of growth that had been obscured by previous approaches. Key to this was using Housing Market Areas (HMAs). We identified 11 HMAs across the region comprised of groups of LPAs which became our key units of policy. We were not constrained by county boundaries – so the Derbyshire district of Erewash formed part of the Greater Nottingham HMA. We acknowledged the role of major urban areas outside our boundaries – so Rutland, South Holland, South Kesteven formed a Peterborough focussed HMA. As well as regional planning policy, HMAs were also used to inform housing investment decisions (Regional Housing Strategy 2008). The HMA approach has proved surprisingly resilient post 2010 and is still used by many LPAs. The two Northamptonshire HMAs even formed the basis of the successor unitary authorities that were established following the financial collapse of the County Council in 2018.
Move at pace – and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good (enough)
Regional policy developed quickly in the noughties. We completed two reviews of Regional Planning Guidance, followed by the Milton Keynes & South Midlands Alteration (jointly with the South East and East of England) (MKSM – Alteration 2005), which was then consolidated into RSS8 in 2005, which was then replaced by the 2009 East Midlands Regional Plan. My last act as Director of Housing, Planning & Transport in March 2010 was to submit the Lincolnshire Coastal Strategy Alteration to the then Secretary of State. I am still waiting for a substantive reply. None of this work was entirely flawless and looking back I am not sure I how we kept up the pace. But it meant we kept strategic policy up to date and relevant.
Align policy with infrastructure delivery and investment – or at least try your best!
This is of course easier said than done. Major investment in transport and flood defences is determined by DfT and Defra – who both march to a different drum. Water and energy investment is delivered by the private sector to levels determined by statutory regulation. One of the most positive innovations we benefited from was the Regional Funding Allocation process. As regions we were given 10-year indicative financial envelopes for investment in transport, economic development and housing, and asked to provide robust prioritisation advice. By the second round of advice submitted 2009 (East Midlands RFA Advice 2009) we had got properly into our stride and there was clear relationship between regional policy and our investment priorities – nearly all of which were eventually delivered despite the demise of regions.
Learn from the experience of others – including their mistakes!
As regional planning bodies we met with each other (in person!) at various levels and on a regular basis to share experience and discuss issues of common concern. From East Midlands perspective we learned a lot from these meetings, copied from others what worked well and more importantly, avoided the things that didn’t! We also undertook some very useful collective work to better understand the economic and demographic challenges we were all facing. In particular, the 2005 Regional Futures Study (Regional Futures Final Report) was amazingly prescient in describing the forces driving the gross spatial inequalities we see today.
If anyone wants to find out more about strategic planning in the regional era, a number of us involved pulled together a book to tell our story, which was published by Routledge and the RTPI back in 2012: English Regional Planning 2000-2010 | Lessons for the Future. It was not a bestseller at the time, but there are probably still a few copies on e-bay!