Alastair Wood: Has the planning revolution really given power to the people?

Published on Thursday 12 November 2009 19:46

HAVING visited East Germany the year before the Berlin Wall was torn down by the German public and suffering a fit of Ostalgie, I watched Wolfgang Becker's film Goodbye Lenin again at the weekend.

It cleverly provides a rose-tinted yet somewhat poignant reminder of the end of the Cold War, as a son desperately tries to convince his mother that her beloved communism has not collapsed, in order to prevent her from having a heart attack.

Another edifice of state control, the town and country planning system, has been undergoing its own quiet revolution in Scotland of late. Its relevant merits and successes depend on one's viewpoint: the developer's contention that it stifles investment is met by the local resident's view that it protects amenity. Most, however, would agree that some of its worst manifestations might not have looked out of place in communist East Berlin.

But what of this planning revolution? Where has it come from and where is it leading? Will the delivery of the new reforms result in better places in which to live, work and play and help drive the economy forward – the essence of planning?

First impressions are mixed. The fine details of the reforms were only published a month before they came into force and three months into the new regime, implementation strategies vary between local authorities. Essentially, the Scottish Government has devolved responsibility for the vast majority of planning decision making to local authorities.

Only "major developments" require pre-application public consultation and only this type of development retains a confirmed right of appeal for professionally qualified third-party review. Major developments are broadly classified as those with more than 50 houses, eight wind turbines and large-scale commercial floorspace.

Most other planning decisions, including many which will be locally perceived to be significant, are now made in the first instance by planning officers, guided by policies in new local development plans. There is no prescribed requirement for pre-application consultation and an appeal can only be made to a council's own local review body, made up of three to five councillors.

To quote Citizen Smith, is this really "Power to the People"? To some extent yes, as their own elected local council representatives will have the final say on most planning applications. In another sense no as these same representatives will be responsible for making balanced judgements on the relative merits of a particular development which will frequently have conflicting attributes which may be of a highly technical nature. Where decisions may have political ramifications, the easy option will be a simple "no" – especially given that councillors will no longer be able to let a third-party review body take the blame for unpopular decisions. Where tough decisions are taken these may lead to planning playing a more significant role in local elections.

Lest we think that the planning system has only been opened up to local political posturing, the rather Stalinist sounding National Planning Framework for Scotland 2, the Scottish Government's five-year plan of key strategic developments, reserves the final say on these for Holyrood. The first of these developments, the Glasgow Airport rail link, has already been dropped amid a great deal of political and public outcry.

Its seems that politics and planning are likely to become even more closely related as we move forward with the new planning system. The simplification of planning policy documents, greater public consultation and greater public accountability inherent in the new system is to be welcomed, but this will place greater pressure on planners, councillors and MSPs to make sensible decisions.

It will be important for local authorities to address the lack of initial co-ordination in implementing the new system soon. This will help ensure that the development industry, currently recovering from the collapse of the financial markets, is not further paralysed by myriad different approaches to planning across the country.

We all look back nostalgically to better times, when there appeared to be more certainty or we had fewer responsibilities. Whatever the new realities, it is goodbye to planning as we have known it.

&#149 Alastair Wood is head of planning for Savills in Scotland.