Is this Localism #2? | Lucy Anderson

Is this Localism #2?

The strengthening of neighbourhood planning through the levelling up and regeneration bill: Is this Localism #2? asks Lucy Anderson

Localism is now over ten years old. At the time of the Localism Act in 2011, Localism was fêted as the necessary impetus for a new era of community empowerment, with the potential to strengthen local economies, rebalance economic growth and create locally-led solutions through partnership and collaboration. Localism established a set of Community Rights which gave communities a framework in which to protect and own valued local assets, influence local planning and development, and run local services.

But Localism did not take off as was hoped: in 2017 the Commission on the Future of Localism found that that 80 per cent of people felt they had little or no control over decisions that affect their country and 71 per cent felt they have little or no control over local decisions. Furthermore, 68 per cent said that community spirit, rather than being empowered by Localism, had declined and asked about the specific vehicles of Localism, 79 per cent said that they were unaware of the Community Rights that the Act had introduced.

If the sentiment of Localism remains today it is undoubtedly in the form of neighbourhood planning. In June this year, a report by Neighbourhood Planners.London (State of Neighbourhood Planning in London – 2022), confirmed that London has 67 neighbourhood forums and 26 completed neighbourhood plans. While this is a considerable achievement considering the restrains of the pandemic, it is a poor comparison to the 1,200 completed across England.

The report identified the specific ‘neighbourhood planning deserts’ which currently have no designated neighbourhood forum: Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Bromley, City of London, Croydon, Harrow, Havering , Merton and Newham.

The way in which local residents have engaged in neighbourhood planning across the country generally has demonstrated an appetite for grass-roots involvement in planning, which, it has been argued, has led to the range of new initiatives, including design codes and Street Votes which are present in the current Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. The principle of strengthening neighbourhood planning is also a fundamental aspect to the Bill.

However if neighbourhood planning is to be successful in London and elsewhere, it needs to change. It needs to become more broadly representative and cannot remain the NIMBY charter that some have described it as: due to the presumption in favour of sustainable development, a neighbourhood plan will fail if constructed solely to defeat development.

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill includes proposals to create a Neighbourhood Priority Statement, a planning tool which will set out a community’s preferences on development in their local area. Councils will be required to consider such statements when preparing their Local Plan. Neighbourhood Priority Statements could provide a better means of engaging with communities, and could help to address the significant issues of accessibility, complexity and time taken to create a neighbourhood plan. They could also address the common problem of timing: in circumstances in which Local Plans and neighbourhood plans are completed years apart, they will invariably respond to a different set of circumstances and as such they will lack consistency. But the Neighbourhood Priority Statement could be updated at various points in the process of the Local Plan’s preparation, giving specific neighbourhoods a more meaningful input.

I have worked on development schemes which have had significant influence from neighbourhood forums in the shape of neighbourhood plans. These have had both a positive and negative impact. It is important that neighbourhood plans benefit from local dialogue, which can create a scheme better suited to its specific location, but I have broader concerns about how the proposed strengthening of neighbourhood planning sits within the levelling up agenda. Currently the areas most likely to have a neighbourhood plan are established – predominately rural or suburban communities with a professional and prosperous demographic, much less so the deprived inner-city communities with more transient populations. This accounts for the relative dearth of neighbourhood plans in London, and is unlikely to change without a significant investment in community development over many years. The detrimental impact of giving strengthened powers to the communities better able to put effective neighbourhood plans, therefore, has the potential to exacerbate the wealth divide - resulting in the opposite to levelling up. Indeed, the complexities and time commitments of undertaking the neighbourhood planning process already acts as a barrier to a wide range of key demographics within communities from getting involved with neighbourhood planning.

Debate surrounding the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill should also focus on whether the powers of neighbourhood planning need to be strengthened. Undoubtedly neighbourhood forums would be more empowered to create a neighbourhood plan if they were reassured that it would carry more weight than currently – unfortunately there are many examples of neighbourhood plans being put in place and supported but having little influence on outcomes.

And strengthening is relative: the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill promises to strengthen neighbourhood planning in addition to Local Plans and spatial development strategies proposed by mayors or combined authorities, while also strengthening planning at a national level by moving specific policies from Local Plans to a suite of policies to be defined at Government level. Can every element of planning be strengthened or does strengthening one function come at the cost of reducing the power of another? Furthermore, while technically, neighbourhood planning and Local Plans both carry weight in the planning process, how this works in reality depends on timing: if the neighbourhood planning is out of step with the Plan, its influence is weakened which further aggravates fractured relationships between local communities, local authorities, and developers trying to bring development forward.

As examples throughout the country have shown, neighbourhood planning can be an effective tool to involve local voices in the planning process and works well in areas of London with a specific demographic and an established sense of community. But, as is clear from other areas, the real opportunity to strengthen neighbourhood planning through levelling up legislation is not simply to strengthen existing policy but to understand where the gaps lie, and to find the means of addressing these serious issues. n

Lucy Anderson is a principal planner at Boyer