The local development framework (LDF) system that is supposed to determine the future shape of our towns and cities is a work in progress. But the progress has been so slow that leading planners fear that the abolition of regional planning promised by the Conservative party, should it be in government next May, will leave local authorities in a vacuum.
Gideon Amos, chief executive of the town and country planning association (TCPA) was at the Conservative party conference in Manchester this week to alert Tory leaders to the potential problem.
"I have concerns about the gap that will be left if regional targets are abolished immediately. Plans in the process of review risk grinding to a halt," he said.
When the system was introduced in September 2004, the government anticipated that all local planning authorities would have a core strategy in place by 2007, but so far only 20% of local planning authorities have done so, according to the TCPA.
The framework is part of a two-tiered planning system, with a regional spatial strategy produced by regional planning bodies and local development frameworks produced by local and unitary authorities. The new system replaced the county structure plan and local plan system, which had evolved since the 1940s.
Under the LDF system local planning authorities produce a "folder of local development documents" that determine the spatial planning strategy of a local area.
A recent survey of planning professionals carried out by the TCPA in conjunction with property consultant Cushman & Wakefield found that the system is resource hungry; prone to delay due to changes in national and regional policy; complex; slow; alien to the public; centrally controlled and requires disproportionate supporting material.
Approximately 68% of planners surveyed cited insufficient resources as a reason for the delay in producing their core strategies; 56% also attributed the delay to changes in government policy; and 38% said that synchronising with the regional spatial strategy timetable was a problem.
The burden of additional information required is one of the main reasons for delay. "Respondents referred to the resource-hungry 'LDF beast' with many complaining of the need for a large and growing evidence base to cover all policy eventualities," says the report.
Amos said: "There are good environmental reasons for [the additional information] and we support better environmental assessment, but politicians don't realise that the increase in assessment is not being matched by increased funding."
There is scope for improvement according to the survey respondents. But while fewer documents and less central control were cited as solutions by 47% and 68% respectively, increasing resources is seen as the main route to improvement (77%).
But no matter who is in power next May, public sector spending is likely to come under attack. "It is difficult to see the under-resourced planning policy functions being given priority over other local authority front line services," says the report.
However, the new system is not impossible to use and 20% of local authorities have produced their core strategies. Amos says that the difference is that these local authorities made the LDF a corporate priority and put planning at centre stage.
"Too often the weight of research and preparation means that a lot of local authorities see LDFs as an obstacle to driving change rather than as a means to do so."
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
