Planning’s “real moment” – a dangerous one

“Planning,” said RTPI chief executive Victoria Hills at the Labour conference, “is having a real moment.”
That moment included an Institute roundtable with planning minister Matthew Pennycook which discussed things like the need for more planners and planning skills. But it also heard that “planning is an economic enabler”.
Planning, of course, should be a key component in co-ordinating our sustainable economic, environmental and social policies including, in a perfect world, being an “economic enabler”. But, with Tufton Street pulling the strings, we know better.
As the Institute noted, housing featured centrally at the conference and it said: “The new towns agenda will now be judged on speed, quality and enabling planning reforms.” Planning, it noted, is back at “the centre of the growth conversation”.
This was a surprising conclusion against news of a fresh ministerial row over whether planning has been sufficiently damaged, or whether more needs to be destroyed, along with environmental regulation. So the profession ought to be through with appeasing this destructive programme; even engaging in this “conversation” is a very dangerous thing for it to do.
Trying to work with central government, however destructive its policies, may have served the profession in the past, but we’ve reached the stage of existential threats. Tufton Street influencers, central to the smash-planning movement of recent years, are still talking about the 2020 white paper with longing – indeed, many of those the Treasury listens to will openly advocate repealing the 1947 Act in its entirety.
That’s the threat out there, so please, no-one ignore warnings of yet another planning bill.
Repealing the 1947 Act, as neoliberals demand, wouldn’t entirely end planning as a function, of course. Consultants would still need a few planners to fetch the architects’ their morning coffee and lay the out streets in the spacious new estates for wealthy home owners they’re designing for “master developers”.
Once upon a time, designing garden cities was seen as the paradigm for the profession’s activities, but things moved on and planning became central to co-ordinating the sustainable development of our land.
I believe the time has now come for the profession to ask itself if it’s really happy to see that destroyed. We live at a time when even the Joint Intelligence Committee is warning a whole range of threats from climate change, including food and water security, flood and sea defence, destruction of nature etc. (and much else) is roaring down the tracks towards us.
So planning meeds to be playing a much bigger role than handmaiden to house builders; planners working as junior staff in the development industry won’t be central to anything.
The profession needs to stand up and say it must be central to delivery of sustainable development goals, because our future needs planning.
Seeking “peace in our time” with Whitehall, however, is a really dangerous approach.

Jon Reeds