The Planner March 2016

MARCH 2016 BIG DATA AND PLANNING // p.18 • THE INTERNET OF THINGS // p.22 • FROM 4D TO FOUR WALLS: TECH AND HOUSING DELIVERY // p.26 • NEW TECH’S INFLUENCE ON PLANNERS’ WORK // p.30 • HOUSING AND NSIP: A VIABLE SOLUTION? // p.40

T H E B U S I N ES S M O N T H LY FO R P L A N N I N G P R O F ES S IO N A LS

MISSION CONTROL SPECIAL ISSUE: HOW TECH AND DATA ARE CHANGING THE WAY PLANNERS WORK 01_cover_march.indd 1

29/02/2016 09:46

CONTENTS

PLANNER 06 19

THE

MARCH

20 16

“FOR CONSUMERS, THE IOT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO DELIVER SOLUTIONS THAT DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY, SECURITY, HEALTH, EDUCATION AND MANY OTHER ASPECTS OF DAILY LIFE”

NEWS

6 Planning for tech growth

7 Shake-up for Northern Ireland planning 8 Buffer zone or barrier?

London needs a strategy 9 Councils told to inform DECC of fracking permissions 10 Government starts dialogue on fast-track planning 11 Call to modify Dublin plan to secure port expansion

13

OPINION 12 Chris Shepley: Climate change means we’re not waving but drowning 16 Amy Tyler-Jones: Community planning in a protected landscape 16 Barbara Cummins: Whose heritage is it anyway?

17 Catriona Riddell: Money talks – or does it?

17 Liane Hartley: It’s time to give space to the citizen planner

C O V E R I M A G E | B R A T I S L AV M I L E N K O V I C

“THE RSPB WILL TELL YOU THERE IS MORE BIODIVERSITY IN A SUBURBAN BACK GARDEN THAN ON THE AVERAGE FARMLAND” TOM PAPWORTH, SENIOR FELLOW AT THE ADAM SMITH INSTITUTE

p.03_contents.indd 3

34 Decisions in focus: Development decisions, round-up and analysis

18 What impact is the collection and use of ‘big data’ having on the ways we gove govern and interact with urban Ro Kitchin areas? By Rob and Samer B Bagaeen 26 Can bette better use of technology h help us deliver more housing quickly where it’s more quickly, needed? Mark Mar Smulian reports 30 How is ne new information technology w altering the way planners work wor and create plans? Simon Wicks spoke to four planners planner and developers

QUOTE UNQUOTE

INSIGHT

FEATURES

22

26

38 Legal landscape: Opinion, blogs, and news from the legal side of planning 40 Career development: Six common errors when using data 42 Plan Ahead – our pick of upcoming events for the planning profession and beyond 44 RTPI round-up: News and interviews from the institute 50 Plan B: The point of planning

MAR C H 2 016 / THE PLA NNER

3

29/02/2016 09:46

PLAN UPFRONT

Leaderr A leap into the light or the dark?

It’s your call – Interesting phrase, ‘Leap of Faith’. It’s meant to convey a bold decision; one involving an element of risk, for sure – but one highly likely to pay handsome dividends in due course. Uncertainty is implicit, perhaps – but look to the future, people; look to the bright, shiny future.

Exiting the European Union, say those who would have the UK leave, requires a leap of faith – just as it was surely suggested at the turn of the 1970s that taking part in this new-fangled EEC was itself a ‘leap of faith’.

Of course, most who suggest such leaps evoke the positives. Don’t cower in the shadows, they tell us; make the leap and claim the prize.

Big impact decisions are often described as leaps of faith. Michael Heseltine spoke at the 2013 Lichfield Lecture about the Thatcher government’s leap of faith in the development of London’s Docklands back

Martin Read in the Eighties. ‘Build it and they will come’ – that close cousin to ‘Leap of faith’ – was the mantra back then. And indeed, as the Docklands infrastructure went in, come they did.

Heseltine linked the Docklands development to the situation surrounding HS2. What HS2 required, said Heseltine, was a leap of faith necessary to ignite economic development up and down the new line. Put the infrastructure in first, then sit back and watch as

all of the desired outcomes blossom later.

It's a common refrain, and only last month we saw Northern Powerhouse supremo John Cridland giving ‘leap of faith’ another airing when explaining how the billions needed for infrastructure to underpin the Northern Powerhouse project was critical to its success. A motorway under the Peak District from Sheffield to Manchester, or an extended HS3 route, are the big ticket items on the agenda. Reduced journey times across the Northern Powerhouse region would improve the economy, said Cridland – but there was no absolute guarantee of

“OF COURSE, MOST WHO SUGGEST SUCH LEAPS OF FAITH EVOKE THE POSITIVES – DON’T COWER IN THE SHADOWS, THEY TELL US; MAKE THE LEAP AND CLAIM THE PRIZE”

the northern powerhouse’s ultimate success.

It will be interesting to see what the government’s National Infrastructure Commission suggests, much as it will be interesting to see what government then decides to do.

Some might argue that the government’s attitude towards planning has involved something of a ‘leap of faith’: Pare it back, put some power in the hands of the people and, fingers crossed, it might just all work out for the best.

At which point, perhaps another phrase comes to mind: light the blue touch paper and stand well back.

Some housekeeping to end this month: In our own small way we’ve marked this month’s International Women’s Day with all four of our bloggers. Also, as this is our data and IT special, pages carrying that content have been marked with a yellow band at the bottom of the page. Let us know what you thought of our approach to these topics.

CONTACTS Redactive Publishing Ltd 17 Britton Street, London EC1M 5TP 020 7880 6200

Sub-editor Deborah Shrewsbury Picture editor Claire Echavarry

SUBSCRIPTIONS £120 – UK £175 – Overseas

Consultant creative director Mark Parry EDITORIAL

A DV E RT I S I N G & M A R K E T I N G

Tel: 020 7324 2736 editorial@theplanner.co.uk

Senior sales executive Lee-Anne Walsh – 020 7324 2753

Editor Martin Read martin.read@theplanner.co.uk

Recruitment sales Sabmitar Bal – 020 7880 7665 PRODUCT ION

Consultant editor Huw Morris Features editor Simon Wicks simon.wicks@theplanner.co.uk Reporter Laura Edgar laura.edgar@theplanner.co.uk Content development executive Martha Harris

Production manager Jane Easterman Senior production executive Aysha Miah PUBLISHING Publishing director Joanna Marsh ISSN 2053-7581

Average net circulation 19,072 (January-December 2014) © The Planner is published on behalf of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) by Redactive Publishing Ltd (RPL), 17 Britton St, London EC1M 5TP. This magazine aims to include a broad range of opinion about planning issues and articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the RTPI nor should such opinions be relied upon as statements of fact.

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any print or electronic format, including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet, or in any other format in whole or in partww in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher. While all due care is taken in writing and producing this magazine, neither RTPI nor RPL accept any liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. Printed by Southernprint

RT P I C O N TA C T S membership@rtpi.org.uk 020 7929 9462 Education education@rtpi.org.uk 020 7929 9451 Planning Aid Advice Line advice@planningaid.rtpi.org.uk 0330 929 9451 41 Botolph Lane London EC3R 8DL Media enquiries Tino Hernandez tino.hernandez@rtpi.org.uk 020 7929 8182 The Planner is produced using paper that is elemental chlorine free and is sourced from sustainable managed forest.

MAR C H 2 01 6 / THE PLA NNER

p.05_Leader.indd 5

5

29/02/2016 14:22

NEWS

Analysis { TECHNOLOGY

Planning for tech growth FIGURES FROM THE REPORT

By Laura Edgar Planning has a “key role” in ensuring the right conditions are in place for the “flourishing” of information technology sectors (tech) and the advanced manufacturing sectors (AM). At the same time it should make sure the benefits of the accompanying growth are spread across the local economy.

These arguments are detailed in the RTPI report Planning And Tech: Planning For The Growth Of The Technology And Advanced Manufacturing Sectors.

Following the economic downturn at the end of the last decade, Richard Blyth, head of policy at the RTPI, said the ‘next economy’ is “still taking shape”, with discussions about how policy will react prevalent in public debate.

Additionally, new economic growth puts pressure on infrastructure and therefore, he continued, “the structure of the new economy will require the alignment of metropolitan priorities”.

The growth of the tech and AM industries means, from a planning point of view, the spatial footprint of the industries being “increasingly evident in urban areas”. This, says the report, raises the question of how cities should respond.

Dual role for planning Planning And Tech says that broadly, planning has two roles to play to ensure growth from tech and AM is balanced: (1) As an attractor – to make a place attractive as a base for tech and AM firms to locate. The report explains this is about planning investments – in physical and social infrastructure, providing affordable office space – that make cities attractive to these industries. Planning “mediates” between a range of stakeholders, including city councils and infrastructure providers to deliver multi-purpose environments.

(2) As a distributor – Some literature “champions high technology industries” as “having the potential to help city economies flourish”. Other literature puts forward the difficulties of tech and AM-led growth, “arguing that the sector is economically insular”.

This needn’t be the case, says the report.

“Experience shows that if there is proactive leadership and public decision-making about who

6

T H E PL AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p06_07_news.indd 6

should feel the benefits of tech and AM growth, it can be balanced across the local economy and can be used to deal with long-term challenges,” it adds.

Blyth explained that city planners are “uniquely placed” to bring together the conditions that are attractive to tech and AM firms, such as “highly skilled employees who prefer a more social lifestyle and proximity to workplace, broadband connectivity, good transport and physical compactness”.

47,000

Problems tech and AM sectors face

1.46 million people working in the digital economy in the UK – 7.5 per cent of the total workforce

c Technology growth has increased living costs

in London; lack of housing and offices spaces displaces smaller firms. c Permitted development rights – the need for new homes in competition with that of business space.

Securing infrastructural spillover benefits

There are more than 47,000 digital technology companies across the UK

1.46 50%

50 per cent of digital companies in the UK have been founded since 2008

England and Wales rely on Section 106 planning obligations and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), while Scotland relies on the equivalent Section Digital growth is 75 planning obligation. In Ireland, development conpredicted to outperform tributions are payable under Section 48 and Section all other occupation categories by 2020 49 of the Planning and Development Act 2000.

They all focus on “site specific mitigation of impact of development”.

But not all potential spillover benefits of tech and AM growth are captured through these methods. The report says this is because not all tech and AM growth involves new development and “crucially many of the potential benefits are social rather than financial in nature”. Additionally, viability negotiations are “increasingly” resulting in fewer contributions to local infrastructure – meaning less spillover benefits – than are being sought by local authorities.

Capturing spillover benefits In Planning And Tech, the RTPI says measures can be taken to ensure that some spillover benefits are secured. Following a series of case studies, including of waste collection by local authorities, Leeds Digital Garage and Cwmbran, an ageing factory in south-east Wales, the institute recommends: 1. Use technology to deliver public services; 2. Train the community – make it tech-literate to deliver the skills the tech firms need; 3. Collaborate with tech and AM firms in urban regeneration projects; 4. Use firms’ particular skills and resources to address cities’ infrastructure challenges; and 5. Include metrics about the local economy in firms’ strategic targets.

I M AG E S | A L A M Y/ G E T T Y / I STO C K

26/02/2016 16:56

PLAN UPFRONT

Shake-up for Northern Ireland departments Legislation to cut the number of Stormont departments from 12 to nine has cleared its final hurdle in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The number of offices will be rationalised after the May elections under the Departments Bill.

The Department of Environment (DoE) will disappear, with new departments created to hold planning and built heritage responsibilities. These will be: c Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA); c Infrastructure; c Justice; and c Communities.

The environmental functions transferring from DoE to DAERA will include regulation, but exclude the Northern Ireland Environment Agency’s built heritage function.

The Department for Infrastructure will assume the existing functions of the current Department for Regional Development as well as strategic planning from DoE, plus

Welsh minister hails key natural resources law What Welsh ministers are claiming as “world-leading legislation” to tackle climate change and manage the country’s natural resources better has been passed by the National Assembly for Wales.

The Environment (Wales) Bill sets a target for emissions to be reduced by at least 80 per cent by 2050.

Under the new measures Natural Resources Wales (NRW) will be asked to put sustainability at the centre of its policymaking and strategies.

It will have to produce a national plan and more locally based strategies, which will involve joint working with local authorities.

The bill also clarifies the law on other regulatory regimes including flood risk management and land drainage.

Assembly members passed the bill unanimously, but opposition parties said it could have been more ambitious.

Natural resources and planning minister Carl Sargeant said: “The passing of the Environment Bill will ensure that the sustainable management of our natural resources will be a core consideration in all future decision-making.”

80%

p06_07_news.indd 7

S

oversight of the Rivers Agency and inland waterways.

The new Department of Justice will take on responsibility for the Planning Appeals Commission.

Meanwhile, the Department for Communities will cover the existing functions of the Department for Social Development and take on local government from DoE, including built heritage from the NI Environment Agency.

Michael Gordon, director of planning consultancy Turley’s Belfast office, said: “After the generational change of 1 April 2015, when planning was repatriated in local government, the last thing we needed was macro change to the departments so hard on its heels.

“Planning going into Infrastructure is a positive statement of intent, particularly for regionally significant applications. The splitting of (NI) Environment Agency functions

across two other departments is less helpful.

“There was a level of efficiency with planning and Environment Agency functions in one department under a single minister. We are concerned about efficient, joined-up permitting on complex projects.

“The changes still mean that regeneration planning is separated out in a different department, but the expectation is that this will be transferred to local government in the future,” he concluded.

Second Scots City Deal for Aberdeen Scotland’s second UK City Deal – focused on the greater Aberdeen area – has been confirmed.

It was announced on the same day the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act received Royal Assent. The deal involves a fund of up to £250 million and will again see equal funding committed by the UK and Scots governments.

Under the pact the UK Government, the Scottish Government, and local authorities will work together to invest in the future of north-east Scotland – including a boost for innovation and diversification in the oil and gas industry.

The agreement involves a number of proposals from the region, including a new energy innovation centre supporting

the industry to exploit remaining North Sea reserves.

It will help to fund the expansion of Aberdeen harbour, enabling the city to compete for decommissioning work. It also sets out how the region will diversify the biopharmaceutical and agri-food industries, diversifying the area’s economy, creating new jobs, and exporting opportunities.

In a related move the Scottish Government said it would invest – over the same five to 10-year time span as the City Region deal – an additional £254 million for north-east Scotland’s infrastructure.

This will target the delivery of improved transport links, and digital connectivity as well as helping local housing programmes.

MAR C H 2 01 6 / THE PLA NNER

7

26/02/2016 15:45

NEWS

Analysis { G R E E N B E LT

Buffer zone or barrier?

London needs a strategy

By Laura Edgar It is widely considered one of the planning system’s greatest successes – a “triumph”.

So said speakers at RTPI London’s ‘To 2020 and beyond: Strategic planning and the green belt’ debate in early February.

But as event chair Christopher Tunnell of Arup noted, the green belt is also one of the planning system’s most controversial facets.

On one hand, he said, it has been “very effective in preventing urban sprawl,” protecting countryside and historic landscapes, and promoting urban regeneration. On the other, it has had “adverse consequences,” such as creating a “scarcity of land” for development, and “a very complex housing market”.

A political issue Can house builders work collaboratively with local authorities to review the green belt? James Stephen, London and the South-East planner for the Home Builders Federation, thought not. The green belt, he said, is “political” and, while government recognises the local pressures it causes, it has “effectively outsourced the resolution of that dilemma to local authorities”.

People don’t understand green belt Stephen referred to a January 2015* letter sent by housing minister Brandon Lewis to London Mayor Boris Johnson. In it, Lewis stressed that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is clear that the green belt deserves the “highest protection” and is an “environmental constraint which may impact on the ability of authorities to meet their housing need”.

8

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p08_09_news.indd 8

Additionally it says: “Green belt boundaries should only be altered in exceptional cases, through the preparation or review of the local plan […] housing need alone does not justify the harm done to the green belt by inappropriate development”.

Stephen said Lewis is saying: “You can’t meet your needs beyond London but I don’t think you can review your own green belt.”

He pointed out, too, that the housing minister referred to the green belt as acting as an environmental constraint, something the NPPF doesn’t do. “That statement perhaps gives an indication of the direction of travel of the government, that they perhaps want it to become an environmental constraint.”

Independent consultant Catriona Riddell, disagreed. “I think the person that wrote that letter didn’t understand the green belt," she said. This, for Riddell, was where the problem lay. “A lot of people don’t understand the green belt […] People think it is green field sites”.

Green belt policy too flexible “The green belt is crucially important now.

It is even more important in the future,” stressed Paul Miner, planning campaign manager at the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

It was, he said, “very reasonable” to suggest London would have sprawled without it. He cited Frankfurt and Paris as struggling in this respect. “Studies done by the European Commission and UN-Habitat, for example – they find that urban sprawl

is one of the most pressing planning and land issues facing the world today.”

Therefore, the CPRE believed that green belt policy was “being interpreted too flexibly and the government needs to step in more and make sure the boundaries are changed [only] in truly exceptional circumstances”. Acknowledging London’s housing need, Miner said: “We will get much more bang for our buck if we invest in regenerating brownfield sites and increasing the density of the capital.”

Where to house a growing population The Greater London Authority says an additional two million residents will move into London by 2035. “That translates to about 800,000 new homes – 40,000 a year,” said Tom Papworth, senior fellow of the Adam Smith Institute. “Twice the annual rate currently being delivered.”

Looking at an only-brownfield or brownfield-first policy, 300,000 units of space have been identified, something the CPRE also pointed out. But that still leaves a shortfall. Papworth suggested taking “intensive agricultural land, that is in the Metropolitan Green Belt area within a 10-minute walk of an existing railway station commuting into central London.”

This would “free up enough land for one million houses, which is exactly the gap that we need to fill”.

Strategy The problem was not having a strategy for I M A G E | J A S O N H AW K E S

26/02/2016 16:58

PLAN UPFRONT The Greater London Authority says an additional two million residents will move into London by 2035

RTPI announces finalists for planning awards

linking housing and infrastructure, said Riddell. “We don’t know what we are supposed to be doing,” she said. “Let’s start with a strategy, and then let’s work from there. And then maybe we will have a more coherent approach to green belt in the future.” n * The letter sent from Brandon Lewis to Boris Johnson can be found here (pdf): tinyurl.com/planner0316-green-belt

More than 60 projects and people have been announced as finalists for the RTPI’s 2016 Awards for Planning Excellence.

The awards have been running for more than 30 years and, the RTPI said, will be “strongly contested” across the categories – six for people, and seven for projects and plans.

Finalists include a community flood toolkit, the Saltaire World Heritage site plan, and an Olympic mountain bike legacy project.

Phil Williams, president of the RTPI, said: “The finalists highlight outstanding examples of planning that have made a positive impact on the local community and environment. The judges will find it difficult separating the finalists and choosing winners given the high calibre of entries this year.”

There are two new categories for this year’s awards: International Award for Planning Excellence and Volunteer Planner of the Year.

Nominees on the shortlist for the International Award are: c Addis Ababa Urban Renewal Initiative, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; c Future Proofing Alva, India c Masterplanning of San Vincente, Philippines; c Post-disaster reconstruction plan of Caojia village in Boaxing County, Sichuan Province, China;

Councils told to inform DECC of fracking permissions The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has requested that mineral planning authorities share certain information with energy secretary Amber Rudd when granting planning permission to fracking applications.

Written by DCLG director of planning Ruth Stainer* to local authority mineral planning chiefs, it states that the sharing of information is to “support the implementation of the provisions in the Infrastructure Act 2015”. The request also aims to support decision-making under the Petroleum Licensing regime.

Mineral planning authorities have been asked to provide information when it grants planning permission “in respect of any development that involves ‘associated hydraulic fracturing’” or if the application is not clear, involves the “boring for, or getting of oil and natural gas from shale”.

Stainer’s letter says authorities should

“clearly and unambiguously” set out whether “environmental information has been taken into account when deciding a an application. She also said authorities should set out whether the area “does not include any land within a national park, the Broads, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or a World Heritage Site”.

“The DCLG secretary of state anticipates that mineral planning authorities will be pro-active in providing the information identified in this letter, where relevant. He requests that it is provided headed ‘Section 4A Petroleum Act 1998 Notice’ and sent to the Department of Energy and Climate Change secretary of state, copied to the applicant”, the letter explains.

This follows a reportedly leaked letter to anti-fracking campaigners in February.

Communities secretary Greg Clark, energy secretary Amber Rudd and environment secretary Elizabeth Truss put

c Semporna Marine Spatial Plan, Malaysia c Seychelles Strategic Land Use and Development Plan, Seychelles; c Tana River Delta Land Use Plan and Tana River Delta Strategic Environmental Assessment, Kenya; and c The Tomorrow Plan, Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Nominees on the shortlist for the Volunteer Planner of the Year Award are: c Bob Wolfe – hon regional secretary, Yorkshire, England; c David Thew – secretary to the Futures Network West Midlands, England c Emma Lancaster – associate, chartered town planner, Spawforths, Yorkshire, England; c Jo Samuels – planner and urban designer, BPUD and Task Group Leader, England; c Joanne Harding – principal planning policy officer, Halton Borough Council, England; c Paul Harris – policy planner, Stratford-on-Avon District Council, England; and c Richard Hammersley – retired, West Midlands, England. n A full list of the categories and nominees can be found on the RTPI website. n The winners will be announced at a ceremony at Milton Court, The Barbican, London, on 5 May 2016. Tickets for the ceremony will go on sale on 15 February on the RTPI website. n The headline sponsors are AECOM and Savills.

their names to a scheme that would see fracking classified as nationally significant infrastructure under the NSIP regime.

It was published in the Sunday Telegraph after being leaked to Friends of the Earth. It sets out plans for a shale gas strategy, including developing a “clear and persuasive narrative” that shows why the potential that shale represents is “so important to our future energy security” and “can be done safely”. It also says that as well as “improving the current planning system”, it is important that there is a long-term approach to planning that is “suitable for handling the large number of applications that would be seen in a full production phase”.

Tony Bosworth of Friends of the Earth, said: “Any move to take decision-making on fracking away from local councils and railroad it through would be another serious attack on democracy.” *Stainer’s letter can be read in full here: tinyurl.com/planner0316-stainer-letter The leaked letter from government ministers can be read here: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-telegraph-fracking

MAR C H 2 016 / THE PLA NNER

p08_09_news.indd 9

9

26/02/2016 16:59

NEWS

Analysis { P L A N N I N G C H A N G E S C O N S U LT A T I O N

Government starts dialogue on fast-track planning

????

By Laura Edgar The government has launched a consultation into proposals that would see councils competing to process planning applications and national planning fees increased.

Councils should also be able to offer fast-track planning application services, similar to those available for getting a passport, according to the government.

Professionals from the house building and planning industries have broadly welcomed the consultation into the various proposals.

Ministers say the propositions are aimed at tackling the “lack of incentive” for councils to improve and speed up their planning service, which, said communities secretary Greg Clark, leads to “drawn-out applications and local frustration” for house builders and individual applicants.

Under the plans, applicants would be able to choose whether to submit a plan to the local council, a competing council or a government-approved organisation that would process applications until the decision point of the process.

The government said the fast-track planning application service would be offered by councils through competition pilots or potentially through devolution deals.

Decision-making would, the government added, remain with the local council to “ensure decisions are taken locally and maintain the democratic link between local people and decision-makers”.

The consultation is also to consider proposals to make any future increases in councils’ planning application fees for

10

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p10_11_news.indd 10

processing planning applications dependent on their performance regarding the speed and quality of decisions.

Measures will help house builders The measures laid out in the consultation would, says Stephen Stone, chief executive at house builder Crest Nicholson, “significantly expedite the planning process” by “driving innovation and efficiency” in councils.

Stone said this would in turn help house builders to start building “much-needed new homes and communities without delay”.

“Importantly,” Stone added, “by ensuring decision-making authority remains with local councils, we will not lose the vital link between local decision-makers and house builders.”

still rest with local authority”.

Developers ‘happy’ to pay higher fees In the experience of Lowes and his colleagues, many developers would be happy to pay larger fees if it “guaranteed a more efficient service”.

“Generally, the most important factors for developers going through the planning system are certainty and timely decisionmaking, and they will be hoping these proposals will deliver this,” he said.

But Lowes did say that many developers would remember instances where new charges have been introduced before, which “have not resulted in across-theboard improvements in service”. He cited charges for pre-application advice as an example.

‘Carrot and stick approach’ Not necessarily a ‘revolutionary’ measure Speaking to The Planner, Andrew Whitaker, planning director at the Home Builders Federation, said fast-tracking measures and the option of choosing a service provider would ensure that local authorities “address their own service provision to ensure it is effective and provides value for money”.

Jason Lowes, partner at Rapleys, a commercial property and planning consultancy, said plans to open up the market aren’t “necessarily revolutionary” because some local authorities already outsource at least some of the process to external consultancies. Not least, he said, because “it appears the final decision will

Both the public and private sectors have expressed “deep dissatisfaction” at how a lack of resources in local authority planning departments is having a “detrimental impact” on development, said Melanie Leech, chief executive at the British Property Federation.

A “carrot and stick” approach to planning fees and rewarding local authorities that are performing well in times of constrained public finances “should inspire those who are underperforming to emulate them”, she said. n The technical consultation on implementation of planning changes can be found here (pdf): tinyurl.com/ planner0316-planning-changes I M AG E S | A L A M Y / G E T T Y / I STO C K

26/02/2016 17:01

PLAN UPFRONT

Call to modify Dublin plan to secure port expansion Dublin Port Company wants the city council to modify the city’s latest draft development plan to safeguard the future expansion of the port.

The company wants Dublin City Council to drop plans to develop housing on the company’s land on Poolbeg peninsula.

Eamonn O’Reilly, chief executive of the state-owned company, has warned that it may have to revisit plans to infill 21 hectares of Dublin Bay if the council does not alter the city development plan to accommodate the port.

More than a decade ago the council produced plans to regenerate the industrial sites at the south-east end of the city for housing as part of a new urban quarter.

The area includes the Irish Glass Bottle site, the neighbouring Fabrizia site, and other postindustrial sites to the west of the municipal sewage treatment plant and the controversial Poolbeg incinerator, which is currently under construction.

The port company said it wants 18 hectares of land in its ownership, which it says are “essential” to the future of the port, to be excluded from the council’s urban development proposals.

The company is currently reviewing its master plan for Dublin Port and is expected to begin a public consultation this month.

‘More planning powers needed’ to tackle childhood obesity London boroughs need stronger planning powers to “clamp down” on fast-food outlets near schools in the fight against childhood obesity, according to London Councils.

The representative body of the 32 boroughs and the City of London is calling for the government’s new national childhood obesity strategy to support boroughs’ efforts to improve children’s health by “strengthen-

ing planning and licensing laws”.

London Councils says bolstering the position of health in the National Planning Policy Framework would simplify the process and “improve the consistency of planning decisions” so it is ensured that local health issues are addressed, particularly where there is a high concentration of fast-food outlets near schools.

UNESCO puts Edinburgh’s heritage status under scrutiny United Nations culture agency UNESCO has launched a probe into Edinburgh’s world heritage site, which could see the Scottish capital lose its coveted status after more than two decades.

The world heritage body has requested a full dossier on the impact of new developments amid suggestions that classic views of the city are being eroded. UNESCO has acted after an official report called for a “serious investigation” into recent land use decisions affecting the city’s Old and New Towns.

The UK branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which gives advice to UNESCO on world heritage sites, visited Edinburgh in October last year.

The report, which has only recently come to public attention, recommends that the “current planning and approval paradigms should be revised”.

It also suggests that increasing local power over business rates would enable boroughs to use discounts to incentivise healthier food establishments.

Teresa O’Neill OBE, executive member for health at London Councils, said boroughs are using existing planning powers to regulate the number of fast-foods outlets near schools and on high streets.

However, “giving boroughs more clout in the planning system to prioritise public health will allow us to create a healthier environment for London’s children and young people, which when combined with other initiatives will have a significant impact on childhood obesity rates in the capital”.

Speaking to The Planner, RTPI research officer Victoria Pinoncély, said that safeguarding the health and wellbeing of people in cities is “one of the most pressing challenges facing societies, as the costs linked to health conditions such as obesity are “increasingly unsustainable”.

The built environment, Pinoncély added, plays an “important part” in people’s health.

“For example, developments in remote locations which encourage car use at the expense of walking can be obesogenic, and people need to access retail outlets where they can purchase fresh food. Therefore, planning can play a critical role in ensuring better health outcomes, including through using planning powers to regulate the number of fast-food outlets.”

The government’s national childhood obesity strategy is expected to be published this month.

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p10_11_news.indd 11

11

26/02/2016 17:01

CHRIS SHEPLEY

O Opinion Climate change means we’re not waving but drowning I hope you weren’t affected by the floods this winter.

I did spend some time wondering what I would rescue first if the worst happened. After appropriate cogitation, I decided that the priority would be my wife.

Followed by my historic collection of Planning Policy Statements, my saxophone, and my supply of chocolate peppermint creams.

But it’s not a subject that lends itself to humour.

Specialists in climate change have been saying for some decades now that, if global warming continued, we would see more extreme weather events and very heavy rainfall. (More moisture in the warmer atmosphere, and all that sort of pretty convincing scientific thing). It is a matter of amazement to me that, now we’ve had as predicted a bundle of extreme weather events and unprecedented rainfall, there are still people who argue that climate change is not happening.

They are now fairly few in number, sometimes dubiously financed, sometimes bonkers, sometimes not; a fiercely bright Oxbridge educated friend of mine, who believed all he reads in The Telegraph and The Spectator, argued that sea levels were not going to rise after all. I said we’d best be prepared just in case.

There was a period in the first decade of this century when ministers and planners talked of little else.

The government of the day issued a wide range of policy documents, and urged us

12

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p12_13_shepley_quoteunquote.indd 12

“THINGS LIKE DEALING WITH COASTAL ZONES, TACKLING FLOODING, AND MODIFYING THE ENERGY MIX ARE 50­ YEAR PLUS ISSUES” all to take it seriously. There is a duty on plan-makers to mitigate and adapt to climate change (S 19 of the 2004 Act). The RTPI declared it to be its number one priority.

But since the recession it has plunged down the agenda, and though the NPPF says climate change is a core planning principle, it doesn’t seem like it’s the top priority.

Another thing I might save in a flood is the manifesto of the Planning and Climate Change Coalition, of which I am a supporter. You can see this on the website of the

TCPA, who with Friends of the Earth are the leaders of the coalition.

In what now seems a futile gesture, it urged before the election that the new government should take a new course. It said, like everyone who knows anything about anything at all, that we are planning at the wrong geographic scale.

It argued for longer-term planning. Local plans have a short time horizon in this context. Things like dealing with coastal zones, tackling flooding, and modifying the energy mix are 50-year plus issues.

It noted that we lack the skills and resources to do this, and that we lack leadership from central government. It pointed to the lack of co-ordination between government departments and agencies. It

emphasised the relationship between social exclusion and climate vulnerability, which we saw during the floods.

It contained excellent proposals for institutional and policy change, which I’ve no space to outline here.

A first step, it seems to me, would be for the government explicitly to consider the climate change implications of its various policy changes, some of which (like developing a random collection of brownfield sites in the green belt, or allowing barn conversions in deepest rural areas) may not come up to scratch. RTPI research shows that dispersed settlement results in higher greenhouse gas emission.

But there’s a lot more to it than that. I wonder if someone could mention to the secretary of state that he has an opportunity here. If I were he (heaven forfend), I would want posterity to remember me for doing something exciting and good; for being the person who made a difference, and got us all enthused and applied to tackling the causes and effects of climate change.

Not for being the man responsible for the dismal irrelevance of making it easier to convert launderettes to flats.

Chris Shepley is the principal of Chris Shepley Planning and former Chief Planning Inspector

I L L U S T R AT I O N | O I V I N D H O V L A N D

26/02/2016 14:35

Quote unquote FROM THE RTPI AND THE WEB “Engagement is important as an essential component to fairness: Communities should be treated with dignity and respect in the process of making decisions about their area, and it is simply the right thing to do” HELEN HAYES, LABOUR MP FOR DULWICH AND WEST NORWOOD AT THE TCPA’S #PLANNING4PEOPLE SUMMIT

“Neighbourhood Plans are an opportunity to shape the future of a village and shouldn’t expect it to be done very quickly or done on the back of a cigarette packet” JOHN HOWELL, CONSERVATIVE MP FOR HENLEY SMOKES OUT THE CASE FOR WELL STRUCTURED NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANS

“The RSPB will tell you there is more biodiversity in a suburban back garden than on the average farmland” TOM PAPWORTH, SENIOR FELLOW AT THE ADAM SMITH INSTITUTE

“A lot of people don’t understand the green belt. They think it is just green field sites” CATRIONA RIDDELL, DIRECTOR AT CATRIONA RIDDELL ASSOCIATES

“There is absolutely no place for subsidising wind – a failed mediaeval technology”

“I would like to see a form of compulsory requirement put on developers to go through various pre-application engagement, similar to charrette-based approaches. I think we need that compulsory level of engagement” BARONESS KATE PARMINTER, LIBERAL DEMOCRAT SPOKESPERSON FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

I M AG E S | I STO C K / PE T E R S E A R L E

p12_13_shepley_quoteunquote.indd 13

FORMER ENVIRONMENT SECRETARY OWEN PATERSON ON SUBSIDY FREE CONTRACTS FOR ONSHORE WIND FARMS

“Anyone with a degree that works in providing something to the public needs to know how to develop an app” YARON HOLLANDER, TRANSPORT ANALYST, ADDS A NEW DIMENSION TO PLANNERS’ SKILL SETS

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

13

26/02/2016 14:35

CORRESPONDENCE

I Inbox

YOUR NEWS, VIEWS AND QUESTIONS F E E D B ACK

Kenneth Spelman — I was interested to read Elisabeth Jeffries’ article on wind farms in The Planner.

As I have written to the prime minister and others over the last few years, building more wind and solar farms and nuclear power stations is tackling the energy problem from the wrong end.

It does not take account of energy devices that provide energy within the property, so that the properties either do not need to be connected to the electricity and gas networks, or greatly cut their demand on external sources.

Tesla is coming to the UK to sell a solar panel system linked with a battery that will be charged up during daylight hours. It will provide all the energy required at night. The resident can then disconnect from the grid. New dwellings can be built with this system, so it is possible to have large housing estates without the energy networks or oil.

An Institution of Engineering and Technology advertorial in The Guardian on 31 October 2015 reported that the Holst Centre, in partnership with imec and Eindhoven University of Technology, has designed a wireless battery that uses radio waves to charge itself remotely. See www.theiet. org/innovation If it is decided to proceed with Hinkley Point C power station it will be redundant before it is built. Energy policy should be aimed at building homes not connected to the national grid as soon as possible.

As an interim measure Building Regs should be

14

the UK must overcome to develop opportunities for intelligent mobility.

Two minutes with… Nick Knorr

NICK KNORR is programme director for customer experience at Transport Systems Catapult, the “UK’s innovation centre for intelligent mobility”. The catapult published the benchmarking Traveller Needs and UK Capability Study in October 2015. published by Locality.

What is intelligent mobility?

It’s all about improving effective and sustainable movement of people and goods in the future. It will involve the integration of different modes of transport and services so we can manage capacity in our networks. Key drivers are the strong growth in mobile connectivity and smartphone penetration, as well as the emerging Internet of Things, including connected vehicles and infrastructure, increased digitalisation and availability of data.

Why is it important?

We face challenges within transport – such as environmental impact, congestion, capacity and safety – and intelligent mobility is a potential way we can face these. The business potential of the global market for this new sector is estimated at £900 million a year in a decade’s time. This is a major emerging market and there is an opportunity for the UK to

changed so that from 1st January 2017 heat sources in new homes for central heating and hot water must not be connected to the electricity or gas grids or oil.

This restriction could be dealt with as a planning condition.

The alternative source of energy could be provided by an air/geothermal system, which would provide hot water for central heating and

be a big player in this.

What is the UK doing?

A lot, particularly if you look at priority access around connectivity and networks, the transfer of information between cars, work on travellers’ needs, GPS and satellites. We are starting to join the dots together, with academia, industry and government very focused on how to exploit it.

As part of this, Innovate UK, the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills backed a special study of traveller needs and the country’s capability last year. Transport Systems Catapult, the UK’s centre for integrated transport systems, led the research backed by other innovation centres and industry players. The study comprised 10,000 online and 100 offline respondents, 50 company interviews and 100 expert interviews. This aimed to understand the key challenges

hot water systems. We should be building dwellings by the Passivhaus system, so that central heating isn’t required.

I read in the Daily Telegraph on 2 February that the government has given £5 million for big firms (including Sainsbury’s, Dixons Carphone, the FA and Travis Perkins) to replace fluorescent tubes with LEDs. Philips has produced the

What did the study find?

More than 70 per cent of journeys in the UK involve “pain points” – negative experiences – with these pain points increasing in line with the modes of transport. These modes are not well integrated, and as one of the key aims of intelligent mobility this is where we need to focus – to create travel that is about the end journey and not just modally focused, and to enable lifestyles for people to travel, which is a key societal aim.

So how do we get a stepchange in mobility?

There are four key themes for integration. Access will cover future mobility services and innovations, among them shared vehicles and demandresponsive buses. Demand and supply will involve shifting transport flows to less congested routes, cutting peak demand and reducing downtime where there is spare capacity. Integration covers information, ticketing and interchanges by bringing together disparate systems and services to give travellers a seamless experience of the transport network. Finally, automation will involve autonomous vehicles. We are quite a long way to achieving intelligent mobility and the rest of the world is looking at it. n The Traveller Needs and UK Capability Study can be downloaded at: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-catapult

TLED lamp to replace the fluorescent tube. It’s been calculated that if TLED lamps replaced the fluorescent tubes in the US, 50 power stations would be redundant.

Kenneth Spelman Eur Ing, Dip TP, Dip Eng, C Eng, C Env, FRTPI, FICE, FCIWEM, MIEI, MCIHT You can read other letters to The Planner online at www.theplanner.co.uk/opinion

T H E P L AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p14_Q&A_Correspondence.indd 14

26/02/2016 14:36

B E S T O F T H E B LO G S

O Opinion

1

Amy Tyler-Jones is neighbourhood planning officer for the South Downs National Park Authority

Community planning in a protected landscape

“Plannin “Planning for the status quo” and “a pres presumption against change” are real quotes from draft neighbourhood plans. You might expect that in a protected landscape a desire to stop change in small towns and villages would be even stronger than in towns.

In the South Downs National Park we’ve seen just a few communities beginning with this view develop a positive approach to development, but most have set out from the start to promote and shape development.

The South Downs is England’s most populous national park; 112,000 people live in four market towns and several villages across 1,600 square kilometres. So the South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA) has the additional challenge of having to accommodate more growth than any other protected landscape.

In January, we made the Petersfield Neighbourhood Plan, the largest of seven to date in the national park. The community has chosen to maintain a compact, pedestrian-friendly town while enabling more than 700 new homes and three hectares of employment space. It also promises improved access to the countryside and enhanced community facilities.

The biggest challenge has been finding a balance between conserving and enhancing a nationally protected landscape

and the aspirations of local people. For example, in Petersfield the sports centre and surrounding pitches provide space for football, rugby and cricket, centred on the leisure centre and swimming pool.

Finding a way to deliver homes and protect the area without losing these facilities took much discussion between planners and the community. Both sides gained a better understanding of the other’s needs.

Another challenge is making sure that plans aren’t just the work of a vocal minority.

Innovative neighbourhood plan teams are starting to use local issues to make plans more relevant to the community.

In Petersfield, by protecting the the sports hub and creating a new community centre, the plan has shown a sensitivity to local issues and proved that plan-making can also deliver place-making. We’ve even seen new young community leaders emerge as a result.

We’ve set out to establish productive working relationships, developing bespoke guidance and offering support through training and feedback. We also remind people that neighbourhood plans aren’t the only community-led planning tool – Village Design Statements, Local Landscape Character Assessments and Parish Plans may well be more appropriate to the community’s needs.

“INNOVATIVE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN TEAMS ARE STARTING TO USE LOCAL ISSUES TO MAKE PLANS MORE RELEVANT TO THE COMMUNITY”

16

2 BLOG

BLOG

Barbara Cummins is director of heritage management at Historic Environment Scotland

Whose heritage is it anyway?

Scotland first Historic EnvironScotland’s St ment Strategy, Our Place In Time, was developed in collaboration with a range of stakeholders, and sets out a common ambition about how we care collectively for our historic environment. This environment is defined very broadly, encompassing both tangible and intangible heritage.

We know that a well-maintained environment contributes to quality of life, and that people are interested in the history of the places they live in. Residents, businesses and visitors value nice places – and what defines ‘nice’ for many includes historic buildings, landscapes and monuments.

There is also the wider collective value of our historic environment – as a tourism driver or as a key economic contributor.

But sometimes what communities value isn’t necessarily the same as the assets that national body Historic Environment Scotland (HES) designates – and it doesn’t need to be. But it does need to be reflected in the management of change locally. So does the planning system in Scotland reflect that? The review of the planning system in Scotland gives us a chance to test this.

In addition, the creation of HES on 1 October, a new non-departmental public body replacing Historic Scotland and the Royal

Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monument of Scotland, means we will look again at Scottish Historic Environment Policy.

Our Place In Time highlights the professionalised and complex nature of the management of the historic environment today. We recognise that communities have a key role, as it is at that level that much of the historic environment is owned and cherished.

We need to consider the skills and capacity available locally to support community work. In Scotland, this is becoming ever more important with community empowerment law coming into force, which will no doubt lead to a big rise in local groups looking to take responsibility for significant assets.

What does our society expect from the system of designation and change management in the 21st century? I can answer that in part at least: that despite fine statements about how much we all value our historic environment, often communities look to us to ‘save’ their heritage because local decision-making and free market forces don’t readily recognise what is valued locally.

Now is a good time to ensure that both our planning system and historic environment policy and advice reflects what society needs both for current and future generations.

“COMMUNITIES LOOK TO US TO ‘SAVE’ THEIR HERITAGE AS LOCAL DECISION­ MAKING AND FREE MARKET FORCES DON’T READILY RECOGNISE WHAT IS VALUED LOCALLY”

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p16_17_blogs.indd 16

26/02/2016 14:38

Have your say Would you like to see yourself in these pages?

Get in touch by email – editorial@theplanner.co.uk Topical, inspirational, angry or amusing – we consider all relevant comment

3

Catriona Riddell is director of Catriona Riddell Associates

Liane Hartley is founder director of Mend and Urbanistas

It’s time to give space to the citizen planner

Money talks – or does it?

When th the coalition government introdu introduced the new planning system in 2012, a key premise was that local communities would respond positively to development in return for financial incentives. This has continued to be a belief of the current government and is therefore reflected in a number of proposed changes to the system.

But in many areas, particularly around London and other large cities, local incentives simply don’t work. When it comes to planning decisions everyone has a vested interest, and if you have the financial means to protect the status quo, you’ll use it. As local authority resources continue to come under pressure, the risks of a battle with local communities over planning decisions becomes an even more important factor in decision-making.

In green belt and city suburbs, communities generally comprise a high proportion of wealthy, well-informed (and planning-literate) residents with the means and time to fight proposals. This is a cost that is not factored in when making planning decisions. But maybe it will be in future, as an unintended consequence of the government’s suggestion that local authorities should report financial implications of decisions to committee.

The government’s intention is to highlight the positive financial

4 BLOG

BLOG

benefits of development, such as contributions from CIL or New Homes Bonus. But the reality for many local authorities is that the cost of dealing with proposals that are not locally supported often far outweighs any potential financial benefits that might come from the development.

These costs include the staff time dedicated to dealing with representations, which can be in the tens of thousands with a coordinated campaign, or the costs of responding to legal challenges, in both time and money. There is also a human cost, with the stress that comes with dealing with local opposition, especially if a legal challenge is based on a small technical mistake made by the planning officer.

In some cases, the local authority may simply have got it wrong and the local opposition is presenting a reasonable case. This is democracy.

But in most cases, the local community simply don’t want change and have the money and the will to string out the process, with some cases spanning decades.

So if the government is serious about including financial implications of planning decisions, local authorities should be obliged to set out the financial benefits and risks associated with the decision, including the possibility of challenges. Then the true costs of development will be reflected in planning decisions.

“THERE IS ALSO OFTEN A HUMAN COST, WITH THE STRESS THAT COMES WITH DEALING WITH LOCAL OPPOSITION”

Planning is a behavioural discipline. It is concerned with shaping behaviours in urban space. But wholesale behavioural changes are also needed in the planning process that has hitherto cast rigid divisions between roles and remits, professionals and non-professionals, people and place.

How do we engage non-experts into the planning process?

To what extent are we willing to relinquish some level of control? I’m interested in the role people, as citizens and professionals, will have in planning our cities.

I see cities as social networks – and streets, spaces, parks and buildings as social media. To understand how a place works we must understand the socially driven networks within it and the actions that govern them.

Currently, design and development is a physical process with social outcomes; if it were a social process with physical outcomes, we’d have better places.

We are moving away from a model of ‘consumer wants, business or state provides’ towards ‘consumer wants; consumer informally makes, borrows, shares, hacks and mashes’.

The challenge for us as professionals is to grow capacity in local people to get more involved in the changes taking place in their city. Since training as a planner, I have realised that

the skills I use are increasingly psychological, social and about seeing places almost as people, with messy, surprising, maddening and inspiring qualities.

There is a big opportunity for a ‘citizen professional’ to emerge and provide the glue to hold communities, developers and planners together in the planning process.

These citizen professionals are planners in the sense they are engaged in the future shape of cities, and their modus operandi is social intelligence.

Planning is too concerned with the 3D physicality of urban space and not enough with the stuff that happens there, which is treated as a subsequent manifestation of experience that happens randomly after planning. In our urge to make things safe and easy to manage, we rip the heart and soul away from it.

JG Ballard’s writings are notorious for evoking the alienated isolation of suburban life and its bland Nowherevilles. This is not just an aesthetic issue.

For mess read spontaneity, discovery, surprise – places that keep you guessing and invite you in without giving away their secrets. Disruption shouldn’t be an episodic or insolent intervention, but a necessary and valuable correction of systems and processes. The challenge for us as planners is to embrace this and accept a loss of control.

“I SEE CITIES AS SOCIAL NETWORKS – AND STREETS, SPACES, PARKS AND BUILDINGS AS SOCIAL MEDIA”

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p16_17_blogs.indd 17

17

26/02/2016 14:38

DATA DRIVE B I G D ATA A N D P L A N N I N G

CAN RAPIDLY DEVELOPING ASIAN CITIES UPGRADE TO 21ST­CENTURY INFRASTRUCTURE MORE READILY THAN THEIR WESTERN COUNTERPARTS? NOT WITHOUT MANAGING POPULATION GROWTH, SAYS KRIS HARTLEY

Professor Rob Kitchin works at the National University of Ireland Maynooth, where he is a European Research Council Advanced Investigator. He is the principal investigator for the Programmable City project and the Dublin Dashboard Twitter: @robkitchin

What impact is the collection and use of ‘big data’ having on the ways we govern and interact with urban environments? And what does that mean for city planning in the future?

Over the next six pages, Professor Rob Kitchin considers the impact of big data on city governance and planning, while Samer Bagaeen looks at how the Internet of Things is driving a consumer revolution – and what that may mean for planners.

Samer Bagaeen RTPI FRICS is a practitioner and lecturer in town planning at the University of Brighton.

A corporate member of the RTPI, he also sits on the TCPA’s policy council and writes regularly on urban governance, regeneration and community engagement.

Twitter: @samerbagaeen

18

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p18_24_dashboard.indd 18

29/02/2016 09:47

B I G D ATA A N D P L A N N I N G

PROFESSOR

EF

For as long as data has been generated about cities various kinds of data-informed urbanism have been occurring.

The data employed is typically sampled, generated on a one-off or occasional basis, limited in scope, and often produced by state agencies such as national statistics offices.

Such data includes censuses, household, transport, environment and mapping surveys, and commissioned interviews and focus groups, complemented with various forms of public administration records. In general, this data is analysed at the aggregate level and provides snapshots of cities at particular moments.

Increasingly, these datasets are being supplemented with new forms of urban big data. Big data has fundamentally different properties from traditional datasets, being generated and processed in real-time, exhaustive in scope, and having a fine resolution.

Rather than data being derived from a travel survey with a handful of city dwellers during a specific time period, transport big data consists of a continual survey of every traveller: for example, collecting all the tap-ins and tap-outs of Oyster cards on the London Underground, or using automatic number plate recognition-enabled cameras to track all vehicles.

This transformation from slow and sampled data to fast and exhaustive data has been enabled by the roll-out of a raft

ROB

KITCHIN

URBAN BIG DATA of new networked, digital technologies embedded into the fabric of urban environments that underpin the drive to create so-called smart cities.

Such technologies include digital cameras, sensors, transponders, meters, actuators, GPS, and transduction loops that monitor various phenomena and continually send data to an array of control and management systems, such as city operating systems, centralised control rooms, intelligent transport systems, logistics management systems, smart energy grids, and building management systems that can process and respond in real-time to the data flow. In addition, a multitude of smartphone apps and sharing economy platforms generate a range of location, movement and activity data.

The result is a vast deluge of real-time, fine-grained data that is routinely gener-

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p18_24_dashboard.indd 19

19

29/02/2016 09:47

B I G D ATA A N D P L A N N I N G

Dublinked ated about cities and their citizens by a range of public and private organisations, including: c utility companies (use of electricity, gas, water) c transport providers (location/movement, travel flow); c mobile phone operators (location/ movement, app use, behaviour) c travel and accommodation websites (reviews, location/movement, consumption) c social media sites (opinions, photos, personal info, location/movement) c crowdsourcing and citizen science (maps, such as OpenStreetMap; local knowledge, such as Wikipedia; weather, such as Wunderground) c government bodies and public administration (services, performance, surveys) c financial institutions and retail chains (consumption, location) c private surveillance and security firms (location, behaviour) c emergency services (security, crime, policing, response) c home appliances and entertainment systems (behaviour, consumption).

Although some of this data is generated by local authorities and state agencies, much of it is considered a private asset.

The latter is generally closed in nature, though it might be shared with thirdparty vendors (such as city authorities, often for a fee). In some cases it is open in nature, often on a limited basis (through data infrastructures or APIs).

The Dublin Dashboard (www.dublindashboard.ie), funded

by Science Foundation Ireland, is an interactive website and portal that provides access to a wide range of datasets about the city and a suite of visualisation and analysis tools.

It is designed to enable users to gain detailed, up-to-date intelligence about the city that aids everyday decisionmaking and fosters evidenceinformed analysis. The underlying data is drawn together from the four Dublin local authorities, Dublinked, the Central Statistics Office, Eurostat, and government departments.

The site consists of several modules, each of which contains a number of apps. Users can: • Examine how Dublin is performing on a number of metrics and compared to other cities and regions; • View what is happening with transport and the environment in real time; • Interact with maps of the Census, crime, live register, companies, housing, and planning; • Find city services near to them; • Report issues in their area; and • Download data to conduct their own analysis or build apps.

PLANNING AND GOVERNING THE CITY The consequence of the emerging data deluge is that data-informed urbanism is increasingly being complemented and replaced by data-driven urbanism; and this is changing how we plan and govern cities, both within particular domains (for example, transport, environment, lighting, waste management, etc) and across them.

Urban big data enables a highly granular, longitudinal, whole system understanding of a city system or service. For example, it is possible to determine patterns of travel or pollution across times of the day, days of the week, and seasons, and to do this for all

20

nodes on the network (for example, junctions, bus stops, sensor locations).

Moreover, the data can be used to create and improve models and simulations to guide future urban development – for example, to simulate what might happen to travel patterns or land values by closing a road or siting a new hospital on the network.

At present, making sense of these new types of data is proving somewhat of a challenge given their volume, velocity and exhaustivity. However, nascent academic fields such as urban informatics and urban

science are advancing quite quickly to provide new tools and forms of analysis. One response has been the creation of urban dashboards that enable city planners, and also citizens, to visualise and interact with a range of data, both traditional and realtime (see box: Dublinked).

In addition to urban dashboards, urban big data can also flow into systems designed to enable on-the-fly management of city services. While many of these systems are domain specific, such as intelligent transport systems, there is a move to try to centralise and link them

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p18_24_dashboard.indd 20

29/02/2016 12:24

within urban operating systems (such as Microsoft’s CityNext, Urbotica’s City Operating System and Plan-IT’s Urban Operating System) and urban operation centres to provide a more synoptic view of a city.

The archetypal example of an urban operations centre is the The Centro De Operacoes Prefeitura Do Rio in Rio de Janeiro (see box: Rio: A synoptic view).

This was built in the lead-up to three major sporting events – The Confederations Cup; The World Cup; and the Olympics – to aid the city administration in managing and controlling a large, diverse, complex city, by breaking down the walls between data silos in the city’s administration.

THE VERGE OF A NEW ERA We are entering a new era in which a deluge of contextual and actionable realtime data about cities is being generated, analysed and deployed. This is enabling a transition to a form of data-driven urbanism in which the planning and governance of cities will increasingly occur in a much more responsive and evidence-informed manner.

Urban big data and the smart city technologies underpinning it, its advocates argue, will break down silos between city agencies and departments and enable joined-up thinking and better coordination. This in turn will lead to improved governance and service delivery, more resilient critical infrastructure, increased transparency and accountability, a stronger economy, better quality of life, improved sustainability, and increased safety and security.

This is not to say that such data-driven urbanism is not without issues, however.

The generation, processing, analysing, sharing and storing of large amounts of actionable data also raises a number of concerns and challenges.

Key among these are privacy, data protection, and data security. Much urban big data consist of personally identifiable information and household level data about citizens – their characteristics, their location and movements, and their activities – and links these data together to produce new derived data, using them to create profiles of people and places and to make decisions about them.

I M AG E | G E T T Y

p18_24_dashboard.indd 21

Rio: A synoptic view Operated on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week, and staffed by 400 professional workers employed over three shifts, the centre draws together data streams from 30 agencies, including traffic and public transport, municipal and utility services, emergency services, weather feeds, social media, and information sent in by the public via phone, internet and radio.

This is complemented by a virtual operations platform accessible by mobile devices that enable city officials to login from the field to access real-time information. For example, police at an accident scene can use the platform to see how many ambulances have been dispatched and when, and to upload additional information.

The team of centre analysts uses various data analytics software to process, visualise, analyse, and monitor the vast deluge of live service data, along with data aggregated over time and the huge volumes of public administration data that is released on a more periodic basis.

The data is principally used for real-time decision-making and problem solving. It is also mashed together to investigate particular aspects of city life and change over time, and to build predictive models with respect to everyday city development and management and disaster situations such as flooding. In cases of emergencies, the centre becomes a crisis management centre.

As such, there are concerns about what harms might arise from the sharing, analysis and misuse of such data. Moreover, the wide-scale generation and collation of fine-scale data raise concerns with respect to ‘Big Brother’ scenarios and the creation of a highly surveillant and authoritarian state. The challenge, then, is to try to gain the benefits of producing and using urban big data while systematically minimising any pernicious effects and harms. This is a pressing concern given the rapid rate at which new smart city technologies are being deployed.

“URBAN BIG DATA ENABLES A HIGHLY GRANULAR, LONGITUDINAL, WHOLE SYSTEM UNDERSTANDING OF A CITY SYSTEM OR SERVICE”

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

21

29/02/2016 09:47

B I G D ATA A N D P L A N N I N G

LIFE, CONNECTED

A According to the Boston Consulting Group, the internet is now the UK’s second-biggest economic contributor behind the property sector, having overtaken manufacturing and retail. The virtual nature of the digital economy to date has been powerful in reshaping society and economy, but its next stages promise much more and will certainly challenge our established notions of innovation.

Fitbit devices, which quite a few of us wear, aggregate varying degrees of health-related information from one’s body throughout the day and then wirelessly make this accessible on a smartphone. These bands are largely viewed as a consumer device but they could, one day soon, be deployed by companies to lower their health insurance rates or by health care providers to improve monitoring of patients.

The Internet of Things will allow the devices to do this. The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the use of intelligently connected devices and systems to leverage data gathered by embedded sensors and actuators in machines and other physical objects. While IoT will ultimately have an enormous impact on consumers, enterprises and society as a whole, it is still at an early stage in its

22

SAMER

BAGAEEN

“DEVICES CAN RANGE FROM CONNECTED COFFEE­MAKERS, CARS, OR SENSORS ON CATTLE TO CONNECTED MACHINES IN A PRODUCTION PLANT”

development. However, some interesting examples of its commercial application can be viewed at Omnifi’s ‘The Internet of Place’ (www.theinternetofplace.com).

In today’s digital age, there is an explosion of data everywhere. Google processes more than 24 petabytes of data every day. Very soon, the Internet of Things and smart services will change society. For consumers, the IoT has the potential to deliver solutions that dramatically improve energy efficiency, security, health, education and many other aspects of daily life. For enterprises, IoT can underpin solutions that improve decision-making and productivity in manufacturing, retail, agriculture and other sectors. Why not planning?

T H E P L AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p18_24_dashboard.indd 22

29/02/2016 09:47

A CONSUMER REVOLUTION Last year, three interns at a Brighton and Hove-based digital design company, developed ‘Notice’ (notice.city).

Notice comprises three online electronic devices that provide an onstreet communication platform for planning applications, replacing the text-based planning notice paper that in the main resides on lampposts throughout cities. The devices are linked to a mobile app and a website which allow the public to quickly and easily respond to planning applications thus simplifying the process.

Could this simplified and internet-based method of communicating information on planning applications increase public engagement in city development? Only time will tell.

Like Notice, by 2020, there will be 50 billion connected devices communicating through the internet. Devices can range from connected coffee-makers, cars, or sensors on cattle to connected machines in a production plant. These devices provide data that offers new insights, and as they talk to each other, they develop their own intelligence and can advise customers about optimal ways to put them to use.

This will revolutionise consumer habits and the way we do business. For those who want to know more, I’d recommend Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. This book was written by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier and was shortlisted in 2014 for the Financial Times and

Smarter parking

“THE INTERNET OF THINGS HAS THE POTENTIAL TO DELIVER SOLUTIONS THAT DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY, SECURITY, HEALTH AND EDUCATION”

Car parks and on-street parking bays can be monitored actively with occupancy sensors to measure how many available parking places exist, and where. Ethos Smart, the ‘smart cities’ division of Ethos Valuable Outcomes Ltd, was recently successful in winning a contract in the first phase of the Technology Strategy Board’s Future Cities solutions competition, for its ‘collaborative parking solution project’.

The Innovate UK Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition “Future Cities Solutions” aims to stimulate the market for innovative solutions to common challenges faced by cities, concentrating on issues that UK cities highlighted as their main concerns: energy, data and transportation. Pilots will take place in Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Milton Keynes, and Newcastle.

In Brighton and Hove, parking availability data is already drawn from live car park counts and published online. Ethos VO’s proposal is to add to the data available by installing on-street parking bay sensors (up to 500 in total) that will show whether bays are available, and to develop data that will enable the prediction of future availability.

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p18_24_dashboard.indd 23

23

29/02/2016 09:48

B I G D ATA A N D P L A N N I N G

Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

The book draws attention to the insights provided by big data, such as how vehicle traffic on a road can be anticipated and how health authorities can be alerted about possible outbreaks of diseases in a particular geography. Other applications widely used include tracking commercial trucking fleets in order to save on fuel, downtime and maintenance.

Pervasive connectivity between people and processes will enable multiple services to be delivered automatically and contextually, whenever and wherever required, ushering in the ‘Connected Life’. Supported by cross-industry collaboration, the Connected Life will have a positive impact on many sectors of the economy, such as automotive, shipping and logistics, healthcare and utilities, potentially benefiting people globally.

McKinsey and Company reported in 2013 that the IoT ecosystem will revolutionise consumers’ lives from multiple perspectives including on the go (smart connectivity), in the home (intelligent buildings), in the city (smart cities) and in other spheres, including in agriculture and improving access to key services such as education and health. Perhaps the more important area for planners is that of smart cities, including intelligent traffic management, smart energy grids and security.

Creative application

“PERVASIVE CONNECTIVITY BETWEEN PEOPLE AND PROCESSES WILL ENABLE MULTIPLE SERVICES TO BE DELIVERED AUTOMATICALLY AND CONTEXTUALLY, WHENEVER AND WHEREVER REQUIRED, USHERING IN THE ‘CONNECTED LIFE’”

In January of this year, I ran a module for graduate students in Lima (Peru) on the possibilities offered by the different technologies, and on the creative thinking techniques underlying the trends to find innovative applications of such technologies in real-life scenarios. The module introduced a mix of business and real estate students to the basic concepts of the Internet of Things and some of the creative thinking techniques applied to IoT. One group of students developed a parking app connected to beacons to allow university students arriving by car to find where parking spaces are available on the campus. Another group looked at how IoT can help Lima’s public transport system’s safety record by allowing authorities to monitor speed and the number of passengers on the van people carriers ferrying passengers around Lima. GPS tracking would be used to determine the locations and speed of vehicles and sensors under seats and wireless counters would measure the number of passengers on board.

SMARTER CITIES Examples of IoT smart cities applications include smart streetlights dim based on ambient conditions to save energy costs, real-time updates for passengers via smart devices or display board, and smart traffic lights using cameras at every signal increasing average speed in the city.

In fleet-tracking deployments, a truck or van is equipped with a device that manages the input from all the sensors on the truck and typically sends this data through the cellular or GPS network. Data is then kept in a secure database and analysed in real time and presented in application software for the fleet manager/dispatcher.

Through analytics the system can typically optimise routes, alert the system to subpar driver performance/behaviour, and optimise maintenance schedules.

24

IoT is also being used to address parking issues around city centres (see box: Smarter parking).

With IoT, we will see a transformation of our everyday environments – home, city, office, airport, shop, retail park – into intelligent interactive settings with changed meanings for us in data-rich and experiential ways. The shift will be from a digital economy of virtual networks overlaid or connected with the physical world to one where those networks begin to reshape the fabric of that world, as well as how we experience and interact with it, and change it.

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p18_24_dashboard.indd 24

29/02/2016 09:48

A D V E R T I S E M E N T F E AT U R E

*JB Planning carry out site appraisal of Salisbury Square, Hatfield, over five times faster using newly launched Planning Edge mapping service – Carl Greenman, product manager, Getmapping Planning Edge was built with one vision – to make analysis of development sites easy and fast for development consultants. As mapping professionals, it was something that made sense to us, but we found it was a long and inefficient process using potentially incorrect maps. We wanted to help change that.

We llaunched aunc au nched Planning Edge in January 2016. Consultants can now log in to view and print Ordnance Survey maps, aerial photography and over 100 overlays of constraints information such as flood maps, listed buildings, boundaries and environmentally sensitive areas, all as a monthly subscription.

During the development of Planning Edge we worked closely with JB Planning to make sure that what we were

creating was fit for purpose.

They have been using it on number of sites and a num say it has re revolutionised the way they carry out site appraisals. We W spoke to them find out how to find ho it has become so useful.

Lee Stannard from JB Planning explained: “We’re constantly looking for ways to improve our service to our clients in terms of both speed and quality. We identified that collating information and mapping was critical to our business, yet was timeconsuming, cumbersome, and not as efficient as it could be. We were fortunate enough to use Planning Edge from day one and we’ve already found a great number of

benefits through using it.

One particular example is in gaining planning permission for the Salisbury Square project, a new neighbourhood centre comprising of retail and residential development as well as a remit for improving the public realm.

“For this project we’ve been able to reduce our time spent on appraising a site from approximately 10 hours previously down to two, and much more robustly and accurately. Planning Edge therefore represents a substantial and welcome time saving for the whole business.

“Given the location of the site it was important to understand all political, environmental and social aspects. We were quickly able to display potential constraints that could affect development. Listed buildings from Historic England link directly to the online database so we could see which ones would affect development.

Road and Rail noise data from DEFRA helped us to assess noise as a constraint due to the sites location opposite Hatfield Station. Also, traffic accident data from the Department for Transport highlights to us the junctions that needed redesigning to reduce the number of road accidents.

“What also helped was the range of points of interest layers, which highlighted

to us hubs for bus travel in Hatfield. We were also able to create travel time isochrones allowing us to assess the site in terms of its sustainability and creating quality living spaces.

“The Planning Edge service also allows us to red-edge site boundaries and purchase OS MasterMap in just a few clicks, providing us with professional and legal maps created in PDF to share with clients and the wider consultant team.

We can also submit to local planning authorities as part of an application. It’s allowed us to avoid the usual routine of having to visit numerous websites and portals to hunt down the data”.

It was great to see the realworld benefits that Lee and his team were getting from our new mapping service.

With new subscribers every week we’re seeing Planning Edge generating benefit for many more consultancies by reducing the burden of maintaining maps and having the answers to questions at the click of a button. *We have secured planning permission at this site for a new neighbourhood centre comprising retail and residential development.

New dwellings are proposed, along with retail units and environmental improvements including improving the public realm.

MARMAR CH C 2H 0 16 2 0 /1 6THE / THE PLAPLA NNER NNER25 25

p25_GetMapping.indd 25

29/02/2016 11:02

Can better use of technology help us deliver more housing more quickly, where it’s needed?

Mark Smulian casts an eye over some of the emerging technology that could inuence the planning and delivery of housing in the future

FROM 4D TO FOUR WALLS

26

T H E P L AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p26_29_tech_housing.indd 26

26/02/2016 14:40

HOUSING AND TECH

T

MARK

Technology is making planners’ working lives easier in many ways – everything from the humble desktop computer to GIS mapping to dealing with developers who can show how a structure relates to its surroundings by using Building Information Modelling (BIM).

But could technology also be used against planners, as tools readily available on the internet put, say, local anti-housing development pressure groups on a more equal footing with professionals?

And what might lie down the road?

Planning applications for homes unconnected to the National Grid, or to bore for geothermal heat?

Technological change offers a vast range of ‘known unknowns’ – new developments whose possibilities are being explored – but also ‘unknown unknowns’. It is, after all, less than 20 years since email became commonplace.

Google’s projects alone could see future planners visit a site in a driverless car and report back through their wearable technology. So, what are a few things now happening that may influence the way we plan for and construct new housing?

I M AG E | G E T T Y

p26_29_tech_housing.indd 27

SMULIAN

INTO THE FOURTH DIMENSION? Imagine if everyone working on a building could see how it is put together and how their specialism fits into the construction process; for example, how a change in specification at Point A might change energy use at Point B? Now imagine a planning application with a digital model of a building and the options for how it could be designed, and which could be imported into a model of a city or locality.

This in simple terms is what building information modelling (BIM) does.

Well-established in commercial, private-sector development, its use will shortly become mandatory in the design of projects financed by central government. The rest of the public sector may not be far behind – and this will include new housing developments financed with public money.

Its champions say that adopting BIM can bring greater predictability to a project and cut out waste by allowing better decisions to be made more rapidly.

Dale Sinclair, Construction Industry Council BIM champion and a director at construction consultancy Aecom, explains: “People think of BIM as being

MA R C H 2 016 / THE PLA NNER

27

26/02/2016 14:40

HOUSING AND TECH

about 3D models, but there is all sorts of data that planners use that you can include.

“We can show our clients how proposed changes in design would look and planners could show councillors what would happen were a building constructed in various ways.

“You get a clear immersive view, rather than just looking at a model. This makes the planning process richer as it has traditionally depended on 2D drawings and it takes some skill to visualise a finished building from that, which is why people are often surprised that a finished building looks the way it does.”

Sinclair says some cities are developing BIM models of their whole area “and that really starts to change things as you can see a proposed building from any angle and how it relates to its surroundings and how changes could be made and what their effects would be.”

One notable use of BIM in housing to date has been the regeneration of Nottingham’s Meadows estate, where 68 flats in low-rise blocks will be replaced by 54 conventional homes. This exercise aims to secure a 65 per cent reduction in post-contract changes to the plan, and 20 per cent reductions in construction waste and in defects.

“With estate regeneration you could do it in 4D, building a model that showed how an area would look as old buildings are demolished, new ones designed and its appearance at different stages of the redevelopment,” says Sinclair.

He thinks planners will take to BIM, having found that construction clients can be given a basic introduction and then readily use it on their iPads. “When people do use it there is never any going back to 2D,” he adds.

“WITH ESTATE REGENERATION YOU COULD DO IT IN 4D, BUILDING A MODEL THAT SHOWED HOW AN AREA WOULD LOOK AS OLD BUILDINGS ARE DEMOLISHED AND NEW ONES DESIGNED” 28

MAPPING – SPREADING BEYOND PROFESSIONALS? Where planning departments would once have employed cartographers and used paper maps, mapping software now allows different permutations of potential development and its relationship to a locality to be easily seen. Should new homes go on site X or Y? Geographic information systems (GIS) will quickly inform decisions.

Ed Ferrari, former GIS officer for Birmingham City Council who now teaches the subject as a senior planning lecturer at the University of Sheffield, uses GIS mainly in strategic housing assessments to look at potential development sites and their geographical relationships for the Sheffield city region local enterprise partnership.

“My interest tends to be in how housing markets operate,” he says. “Cities are made up of lots of different market areas and so by using GIS you can quickly see which compete with each other.”

Planning students are using GIS to produce “quite sophisticated stuff within four to five months of starting” Ferrari says, allowing them to see relationships in ways undreamed of by their predecessors.

“Planners have since time immemorial wanted to produce maps and GIS allows them to do that relatively quickly,” he says.

“Thirty years ago planning departments would have had a cartographer who had specialised skills planners had to rely on.

Now pretty much anyone can do it.”

The possibilities offered by GIS mean, says Ferrari, “you can see and examine relationships and geographical patterns, like if there is a housing issue in a city is it clustered or dispersed?”

“I don’t do a great deal of transport work myself, but transport planners will use it

to see if a new housing site is accessible.”

Ferrari warns, though, against basing decisions solely on what GIS shows.

“I don’t anyway think that is the way planning should be going, GIS results should never be the sole criterion in a decision.”

His early experience of GIS in Birmingham in the late 1990s showed that it offered a way to quickly demonstrate complex ideas and data to lay people, including councillors.

What, though, if the public starts to show things to planners?

“What is interesting now is that free software like Google Maps is available and people do some GIS work on that by importing a data set, and it can be used by non-professionals.” Indeed, Google Maps provides access to the same satellite imagery and maps used by many professional organisations.

Moves by the government to open up data have meant that what was once a costly purchase from Ordnance Survey or the Land Registry is now freely available, points out Ferrari.

ArcGIS remains the most common proprietary GIS tool, but Ferrari says open-source software like QGIS is now more common and is even making its way into some cost-conscious planning authorities. This could also be used by, for example, objectors to a project or resident groups compiling neighbourhood plans.

Jason Clark, who works independently, having previously had senior cartographic roles at consultancies Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners and Steer Davies Gleave, wonders where this democratisation of GIS might lead.

He says GIS was initially expensive and had been “developed by people deeply immersed in the subject with no understanding of human interaction and interface design”.

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p26_29_tech_housing.indd 28

26/02/2016 14:40

Cheap, even free GIS software such as Mapbox has transformed this, he says, as it’s “based on OpenStreetMap data, but lets you import and overlay your own data and apply analytical and transformational operations”.

But that means analysis and interpretation of data might be done by those without sufficient knowledge or understanding of either the data or tools.

“You cannot meaningfully analyse and interpret spatial data without developing an understanding of topics such as statistics and communication,” warns Clark.

“This is not to say professionals always get it right, or don’t deliberately mislead under pressure from a client, but a pressure group’s counter-argument needs questioning just as much as that from a developer or other professional.”

He adds: “On a more positive note, the ready access to GIS, particularly with online tools, means there is the possibility for collaborative and co-designed work to emerge.

“Development plans and other policies could be developed more collaboratively with the public, akin to online projects such as Wikipedia. However, there is the risk the process could be hijacked by those with certain agendas.”

POWER FROM THE SUN, HEAT FROM THE GROUND? Could the home of the future store its energy in a sun-powered battery? And if it did, would that open up sites that need no connection to electric and gas grids?

We’re rather in the realms of speculation here, but American firm Tesla, best known for electric vehicles, now sells Powerwall, which it describes as “a home battery that charges using electricity generated from solar panels, or when utility rates are low, and powers your home in the evening”.

Kenneth Spelman, a civil engineer and town planner, thinks Tesla is on to something.

“Tesla-type batteries rely on solar power and so are self-contained and a connection to the grid is not needed,” he explains, adding a little optimistically that

TESLA

POWERWALL

BATTERIES

“YOU CANNOT MEANINGFULLY ANALYSE AND INTERPRET SPATIAL DATA WITHOUT DEVELOPING AN UNDERSTANDING OF TOPICS SUCH AS STATISTICS AND COMMUNICATION”

sunshine is prevalent enough in the UK for this purpose.

Spelman’s confidence rests on the batteries not being needed for all power – there’s the hole below to consider.

“The main things we run in a home are central heating and hot water, and these could both be done by geothermal power while home energy could provide cooking, the fridge and lights,” he says.

“Geothermal is rather expensive, but there are different types and if prices come down it is economic for whole estates.”

Kevin Mallin, director of geothermal business Geolorn, is a little more hesitant.

“There is ground source heat pump technology and deep geothermal,” he explains.

“Deep taps into really high temperatures and so can do more. The problem is the cash – there is a basic lack of investor confidence in deep wells, though the ground source heat pump market is quite buoyant.”

A ground source heat pump will go

down 100-200 metres and cost £10,000 to £12,000, while deep geothermal requires a two-kilometre excavation costing £1.4 million to give about one megawatt.

“Its something only volume house builders or major concerns would think about at present,” he says.

“I think the ground source heat pump price is unlikely to go lower, but deep geothermal could if there are improvements in the drilling technology.”

So how important will emerging technologies be to planners working on housing developments over the next few years? And which will come to the fore?

Mapping and modelling technologies are already proving their usefulness in other development sectors and it seems only a matter of time before they become mainstream for housing, too. Off-grid energy, however, is an area where there is still considerable policy and technological uncertainty. But what is clear is that planners cannot afford to rely on traditional methodologies – as technology progresses, so must they.

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p26_29_tech_housing.indd 29

29

26/02/2016 14:41

PLANNING AND IT

M

NIGEL MILLINGTON IS A DIRECTOR PLANNING CONSULTANCY PHIL JONES ASSOCIATES

1 TECH SHIFT TONIC

OF

TRANSPORT

MOST SOFTWARE transport planners used was developed in the 60s and 70s and run in a ‘black box’ environment – you pushed buttons and assumed the number that came out was correct.

We now go for a much more visual approach. ArcGIS is mapping software within which you can build layers of data.

The data we use shows things like bus routes and employment levels. This can be layered up and presented in a graphic way, and you can use the system to analyse spatial data to understand something about a place.

When I started out 20 years ago, if you wanted to understand demographics, you would go to the in-company library. For bus routes, you would go to a bus company and ask for their leaflets. I look back and think “How on Earth did we get anything done?” It took a lot longer to get a level of understanding that’s nowhere near what we can get now.

The old mathematical models we used would run on BBC micro computers and the output would be black-and-white text.

You’d have to be a trained professional to read it. We’d take that to a planning committee and ask them to make a decision based in part on these mathematical outputs. It was completely incomprehensible.

There’s now the ability to convey that message to lay people. We now also

How is new information technology altering the way planners work and create plans? Simon Wicks spoke to four planners and developers about software, tech and big data

30

T H E P L AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p30_33_tech_survey.indd 30

29/02/2016 11:03

M

“I L O O K B A CK A ND T H I N K ‘H O W O N EA R T H D I D W E G E T A N Y T H IN G D O N E? ’ ”

have Windows tablets that we can use to answer technical queries on site. We use Microsoft 365 in the cloud and we’ve just purchased a new cloud-based piece of project management software called Rapport.

This influences the way we work. We’re building in flexible working space, such as soft seating, touchdown space and hot desking. It’s also made us more flexible with our time. Part of the reason for going down this route is that we want to recruit and retain good people, and if you offer a more flexible working environment, that has positive spin-offs. b

them up to spend their time adding value rather than doing administration.

If you’re a business working across multiple local authorities, you’re not having to be familiar with the idiosyncrasies of each, or keep paper applications for each.

What iApply also does is give you a national planning application search facility. Currently we actually have a situation where people tie planning applications to lamp posts – we’re making this information easier to access. Overall, it makes the submission and submission management process more transparent and efficient.

Planning was in many ways ahead of the game in terms of digitally enabling its processes. It got so far but then went no further. Now the economic imperative is so strong and the need for efficiency so clear that people are looking to digital services to supply the answer.

It’s a generational thing, too. Over time there will be the expectation that people have in their private life of what digital technology can do for them. Our intention is to look at all local government transactions in the same way that gov.uk has done for central government.

I’m hoping that the technologies will start to fit into one another and data and GIS, and back office and BIM will start to converge in a way that will really change the face of planning. At the moment we’re making existing ways of working more efficient. Down the line what we really need are completely reimagined services.

Local authorities, because they are strapped for resources, are behind the curve. One of the things that has been talked about is allowing them to recover their costs in planning application fees. If that enables authorities to invest in better technology, that’s when people start to think “How do you reimagine this?”. b

O

CHRIS KENDALL IS DIGITAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER IDOX

STRATEGY

LEAD

FOR

OUR CORE BUSINESS is providing back office systems for local authorities in things like planning and building regulations applications. What we’re doing with our new platform iApply is to put a front end on that so businesses and others can submit planning applications directly to the back office systems.

The benefit to local authority planners is no more paper applications that they have to input manually. We’re freeing

2

“IT’S A GENERATIONAL THING” MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p30_33_tech_survey.indd 31

31

29/02/2016 11:03

PLANNING AND IT

JASON HAWTHORNE IS DIGITAL DESIGN AND WAGSTAFFS

3

MANAGING DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AGENCY

“ V IS U AL I S I N G D A T A IS T H E O N LY W A Y T O H ELP FU T U R E P R O O F T H E P LA N N I N G O F LO N D O N ”

IT for inclusive consultation In addition to the mapping and planning application software described in this piece, there is a wave of new software coming on to the market to aid planning consultations. In an age of neighbourhood planning and community engagement this could become as influential as mapping software. For example, in Ireland CiviQ has developed “democractic and inclusive” consultation software that enables planners to collect, record, track and analyse trends in a way that clearly reveals “underlying opinion structure”.

In Norway, young planners have developed Barnetråkk (“Kids’ Tracks”), a tool for engaging children in the planning process. The tool encourages younger people to map their movements in and around their environments and to identify places they like and don’t like. The software enables planners to fulfil their legal duty to incorporate children’s needs into decisions in a meaningful way.

32

P POPULATION GROWTH is placing the planning system under unprecedented strain. In London we need to build 42,000 new homes a year for the next 20 years.

It’s not only housing that is needed; people need places to work and play too.

New buildings are needed, but debate rages over where they should be, how big they should be, and what they should look like. Our experience working with architects, planners, engineers and developers has taught us that visualising data about an area in 3D can play a vital role in tackling these infrastructure issues.

Take the London Land Commission, with its goal to identify brownfield land for development in public ownership and help accelerate the pace of land released for homes in London. What if you could plot all of that data on a fully interactive model of the city, then overlay demographic, amenities and transport data?

Will that then tell us where new schools, hospitals and houses would be best built to serve the population?

We recognised the need to digitally visualise all of central London in this way.

The work culminated with the launch of VUCITY in 2015. It’s the first fully interactive 3D digital model of London and brings together the ability to explore the whole city, whilst overlaying data interactively.

It not only accurately shows the current built environment, but also allows us to toggle between existing and consented developments, offering a detailed understanding of the development pipeline in London and helping to establish how the future city might look. In terms of planning new buildings, using our city model we can overlay sightlines, the London View Management Framework, transport links and sunlight paths to help council planners understand proposals in context. In a city that needs to grow, visualising data is the only way to help futureproof the planning of London. b

T H E P L AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p30_33_tech_survey.indd 32

29/02/2016 11:04

4 “PLA N N ER S CA N SIM P LY B EN EFIT

BY KN O W IN G W H A T TO A S K”

I

IT'S THE TECHNOLOGY giants that tend to initiate technology-related work, not planners. Technology companies create products and sell them, and they want to create connected cities. It links to big data – everyone knows about that, but not so many people do things with it.

I see planners getting excited about technology, which is great. But they should also initiate it. It’s great that the market is thinking about it, but planners should own the data thinking much more.

The whole point [of using big data] is to make planning more evidence based.

This is more important than anything else. For example, if there’s a plan to build residential blocks near a station in outer London – which is where the debates are substantial – you need cold evidence on how accessibility will change.

One of the main things I’ve done since I became a freelancer is help with technical awareness amongst planners.

In November 2015, I wrote the first of a series of reports [Who Will Save Us From The Misuse Of Transport Models?] that says a lot about things that planners

I M A G E | J A S O N H AW T H O R N E

p30_33_tech_survey.indd 33

YARON HOLLANDER, INDEPENDENT TRANSPORT PLANNER AT CTTHINK! AND ARCHITECT OF TRANSPORT FOR LONDON’S WEBCAT MAPPING WEBSITE

should be more active on. I find there’s limited technical awareness and leadership amongst planners.

It’s a drawback because things which don’t count as valid evidence can be used to silence opposition to schemes. In the transport sector specifically, the main reason so much modelling is done is to reduce opposition because people who are opposed to major schemes don’t feel confident to challenge what the models say.

The more directly you use data the more likely you are not to exploit it. In a model, for example, you look at things that have already happened and you use them to calibrate the model. Then you throw away the data and use the model to tell you what would happen in new situations. You can very easily get the model to answer questions that the data you use didn’t answer.

Now you don’t directly check whether you have evidence of this or not. If you remove that step and do things directly based on data, you are much more likely to remain evidence based. Big data is still new and there are many ways that the public can benefit from it. Planners can simply benefit by knowing what to ask.

Apps for planners “The average planner doesn’t know how to develop an app,” says Yaron Hollander.

“Nowadays, every professional needs to know how to develop an app.”

Mapping apps, in particular, have the potential to transform our relationships with space and with society – by way of example, an Iranian app helps young people to avoid the “morality police” by noting in real time where they have set up checkpoints.

When we asked The Planner Twitter followers what apps they would like to see, they tended to focus on IT that would streamline or speed up processes and the delivery of information: c “An app to find the monitoring data for your LPA” (@Riptweets9) c “A planning application app, notifying when applications are submitted to LPAs” (@AVANTplanning) c “Planning appeal decisions and court challenges linked to a GIS base” (@DavidBainbride) c “Instant and near infallible site constraints, consult zones and history for every LPA site and user-defined surrounding area – aka, super GIS” (@ReallyQuiteJack)

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

33

29/02/2016 11:04

INSIGHT

DiF { D

DECISIONS IN FOCUS

Decisions in Focus is where we put the spotlight on some of the more significant planning appeals and court cases of the last month – alongside your comments. If you’d like to contribute your insights and analyses to future issues of The Planner, email DiF at editorial@theplanner.co.uk RENEWABLE ENERGY

DCLG rejects Penryn solar farm because of cumulative impact

The secretary of state said another solar scheme would have overwhelmed the Penryn site

( SUMMARY The Department for Communities and Local Government has refused permission for a 4.5 hectare solar farm in Penryn, Cornwall, after deciding that the development’s potential cumulative impact with an adjacent solar farm would represent an unacceptable impact on the landscape. ( CASE DETAILS Inspector J M Trask acknowledged that as the development would be low level, and given the proposed inclusion of a wild flower meadow and buffer zones to reduce visual impact, the sense of “openness” would remain and the effect on the wider area would not be severe.

But Trask contended that despite a separating road, the proposed development would inevitably be viewed as part of the same development as an existing 11.33 ha solar farm, which would result in a “major adverse impact” on the local landscape.

34

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p34_37_dif.indd 34

( CONCLUSION REACHED The secretary of state agreed that whatever the number of houses that could be supplied by the development, the scheme would make a valuable contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and would create significant benefits in terms of enhancing biodiversity and farm diversification. But these benefits were not deemed to outweigh the adverse cumulative impact of the scheme, and the appeal was dismissed.

Appeal Ref: APP/ D0840/A/14/2229290

HOUSING

Housing scheme not premature to neighbourhood plan ( SUMMARY Wates Developments Ltd has been granted permission to develop 110 homes in Bracklesham, West Sussex, after an inspector found that the development would not be premature in regard to the emerging East Wittering and Bracklesham Neighbourhood Plan (NP). ( CASE DETAILS Inspector Peter Rose noted

that 50 dwellings were already under construction to the north of the 5.59 hectare appeal site.

The emerging NP allocates 180 homes for the area, with 130 dwellings identified for a 4.3 hectare site near the appeal site.

Although Rose acknowledged National Planning Policy Framework guidance which places weight on the empowerment of local people to shape their surroundings, he noted that the guidance concludes that planning permission refusal on the grounds of prematurity will seldom be justified where a neighbourhood plan has not reached the end of the local planning authority publicity period.

In this case, given that the plan has not reached presubmission stage, Rose ruled that it could only be given limited weight.

The inspector noted that Chichester District Council’s five-year housing land supply was based on a constrained figure of housing need, previously accepted because of infrastructure constraints, but that a need above the council’s assessment of 435 dwellings a year still remained.

He decided that the appeal scheme would make a significant contribution to this.

I M AG E S | A L A M Y / G E T T Y

26/02/2016 14:43

The inspector was satisfied that appropriate flood measures had been established at the Attleborough site

( CONCLUSION REACHED Rose contended that the early stage of the NP process meant that planning permission for the appeal site could be assimilated as part of the plan-making process. He said: “The plan-making process is not static and the framework makes clear that it cannot be held in undue abeyance.”

Appeal Ref: APP/ L3815/W/14/3000690

AGRICULTURAL

Lambing shed ‘detrimental’ to national park ( SUMMARY Permission has been refused for a lambing shed in Ashford in the Water, Derbyshire, after an inspector ruled that the structure would unduly harm Thornbridge Conservation Area (CA) and the Peak District National Park. ( CASE DETAILS The appeal site lies near Thornbridge Hall, a grade II listed building in a registered historic park and garden. It also sits in an area designated as ‘Important Open Space’

within the Thornbridge CA. Inspector Sarah Colbourne noted that “whilst statutory provisions require that the economic and social wellbeing of local communities in National Parks should be fostered, primacy is given to … conserving and enhancing the park’s natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage”.

Though the Peak District National Park Authority did not object to the principle of a multi-functional agricultural building, it did take issue with its site, massing, design and materials. Colbourne agreed that the predominance of man-made materials would give it the appearance of “an overly dominant industrialtype unit” that would harm the character of the parkland. ( CONCLUSION REACHED The inspector accepted that there was some benefit to heritage assets in the land being managed as a ‘home farm’ rather than let to tenants, as is true in this case, but she found that the limited scale of the farm business in question rendered this only a minor public benefit.

Appeal Ref: APP/ M9496/W/15/3136775

HOUSING

Norfolk flood zone homes get go-ahead subject to mitigation measures ( SUMMARY Developer Gladedale Estates has received planning permission for up to 350 dwellings and the development of various “open space parcels”, including for public sports pitches and an allotment extension, in Attleborough, Norfolk. ( CASE DETAILS Inspector Keith Manning noted that the site in question is currently undeveloped, though Breckland District Council had considered the land as a potential development site for some time.

Manning explained that “as many as 684 dwellings had been anticipated in the Updated Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment of 2014”, but that this represented an unconstrained capacity unaccountable to flood risk, whereas this 350-home proposal recognised that constraint.

It was acknowledged The lambing shed proposal was judged too small-scale to have a public benefit

that the council could not demonstrate a fiveyear supply of deliverable housing sites, and thus the presumption in favour of sustainable development set out if paragraph 14 of the National Planning Policy Framework was engaged. The proposal’s inclusion of a 20 per cent affordable housing provision was acknowledged was therefore given substantial weight.

The site has been identified as sitting within two flood zones; accordingly, the proposal involves siting housing on pockets of land of sufficient elevation to stand outside the floodplain of the Attleborough Brook, and a “modicum of engineering” to displace a small amount of floodplain. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Manning stated that “especially in the light of publicity surrounding flood events nationally in recent times, the scepticism evident in some of the local opinion expressed is understandable”, but he was satisfied that the appropriate measures had been established. He was also “comforted” by the appellant’s point that the developer could not sell houses which were uninsurable owing to flood risk.

Appeal Ref: APP/F2605/W/3131981

MARCH 2016 / THE PLANNER

p34_37_dif.indd 35

35

29/02/2016 12:25

INSIGHT

DiF { D MINERALS

Sand extraction allowed at remote Scottish island ( SUMMARY Permission has been approved for a sand extraction operation on Vallay Island, an uninhabited tidal island off the coast of North Uist in Scotland. ( CASE DETAILS The scheme is to widen one side of an existing steepsided sand hollow on the island, with 5,000 tonnes of sand estimated to be extracted at a rate of 500 tonnes a year.

Reporter Richard Hickman noted that the council, Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar, had turned down the proposal as it considered that the scheme would breach policies on development in areas designated as remote. Policies one and 21 of the Outer Hebrides Local Development Plan call for proposals in such locations to meet one or more of four specified criteria, including evidence of overriding public interest and a demonstrated specific locational need.

The appellant contended that the two builders’ merchants supplying sand in the southern Western Isles were having to import sand from Ireland or the Scottish mainland as sand supplied from the existing local source at Balemartin was unacceptable to their customers for mortar work.

Hickman said he was content to accept these submissions, adding that tests carried out on both sand samples confirmed that the Vallay sand performed better for mortar work.

36

DECISIONS IN FOCUS ( CONCLUSION REACHED Hickman was satisfied that a specific locational need had therefore been demonstrated.

He also noted that the development would have little impact on the character of the local landscape owing to the presence of existing natural hollows. It would also be unlikely to be seen by visitors to any significant extent, given the hard-toreach nature of the island.

Appeal Ref: PPA-410-2004

HOUSING

St Just housing would adversely affect Cornwall beauty spot ( SUMMARY The Department for Communities and Local Government has rejected an appeal by Westcountry Land

Ltd for the development of 18 dwellings in St Just, Truro, after finding that the scheme would adversely effect the scenic landscape of the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). ( CASE DETAILS In the DCLG’s letter, it was noted that several relevant policies relating to the supply of housing in both the Carrick District Wide Local Area Plan (1998) and the Roseland Neighbourhood Development Plan were not fully consistent with the National Planning Policy Framework, or did not fully account for the objectively assessed housing need of the area.

Subsequently, it was agreed that the Cornwall Council could not demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites. The scheme’s contribution to this housing shortage, including 10 affordable dwellings, was therefore considered “a significant material consideration in favour of the proposed development”.

However, the extent to which the scheme would adversely affect the Cornwall AONB was deemed to outweigh this.

Reporting inspector Chris Preston described the area as “a medieval and post-medieval landscape of enclosed land, with variable and irregular field patterns, with a mixture of arable and pastoral farming and areas of parkland landscape”, further stating that “clearly, the construction of housing on a presently undeveloped field will result in a significant change to the landscape at a local level”. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Preston also asserted that the development was likely to result in harm to the Fal and Helford Special Area of Conservation and the Falmouth Bay to St Austell Bay potential Special Protection Area “as a result of increased recreational pressure, in combination with other planned housing growth”.

Appeal Ref: APP/ D0840/W/15/3003036

Development of 18 homes was ruled detrimental to the St Just beauty spot

T H E P L AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p34_37_dif.indd 36

26/02/2016 14:44

An inspector overruled the council’s view that a proposed campsite was ‘inappropriate’ in the Surrey green belt

RECREATION

Surrey campsite helps meet National Trust and AONB aims ( SUMMARY Permission has been approved for the change of use of land to a campsite, plus the erection of two amenity blocks, in Bookham, Surrey, despite Mole Valley District Council’s concerns that the development would constitute inappropriate development in the green belt. ( CASE DETAILS The appeal concerns an area of grassed land within the grounds of the National Trustowned Polesden Lacey estate.

Inspector Jo Dowling found that the proposed erection of two amenity blocks did qualify as an exception to the restriction of development in the green belt, in that it constituted the provision of an appropriate outdoor recreation facility.

But Dowling ruled that this exception did not extend to the change of use of the site, and thus the proposal would still constitute inappropriate development.

However, Dowling gave great weight to two letters supporting the proposal from the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) planning adviser and a representative of the National Trust. The development was found to meet aims of the Surrey Hills AONB Management Plan as it would provide opportunities for children to enjoy the area, and support the National Trust’s national movement, ‘The Wild Network’, which seeks to reconnect children to nature.

I M AG E S | A L A M Y / G E T T Y

p34_37_dif.indd 37

( CONCLUSION REACHED As the campsite would be seasonal, and limited to 40 pitches, Dowling found that it would not erode the openness of the green belt, and approved the appeal.

Appeal Ref: APP/ C3620/W/15/3029773

HOUSING

West Sussex housing scheme is turned down at appeal again ( SUMMARY Communities secretary Greg Clark has rejected a proposal for a significant housing and mixed-use development in Sayers Common, West Sussex. It had already been rejected by Clark’s predecessor for conflicting with a neighbourhood plan – a decision quashed by the High Court. ( CASE DETAILS Former secretary of state Eric Pickles had rejected

Woodcock Holdings Limited’s proposal for 120 dwellings, a community facility/office space, a care home and retail units, against the recommendation of a planning inspector.

Legal counsel for the developer said Pickles was wrong to view the thenemerging Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common Neighbourhood Plan (NP) as a determining factor in his decision, particularly because Mid Sussex District Council was unable to show a fiveyear supply of deliverable housing sites. Pickles’ refusal was quashed by the High Court in May 2015.

In redetermining the appeal, Clark disagreed with an inspector’s reccomendation that the appeal should be allowed, and found once again that the extent to which the proposal conflicted with the NP outweighed its benefits.

The council finalised the NP in March 2015, since inspector Jennifer Vyse issued her approval of the appeal. Clark determined that as the appeal site lay outside of the built-up limits of Sayers Common as defined by the Mid Sussex Local Plan

and was not allocated for housing, the scheme was overall not in accordance with the plan.

He accepted that, in line with Policy H1 of the NP, the scheme would be capable of being adequately drained while not increasing flood risk elsewhere, but found that contrary to this policy, the size of the scheme could not be considered to enhance the existing settlement pattern.

He judged the scheme’s 120 dwellings as “considerably in excess” of the proposed residential development level of the NP, which suggests that the area could accommodate 30 to 40 new dwellings during the plan period. ( CONCLUSION REACHED Clark said the scheme would not adversely affect the area’s character, but would be a sustainable development that could significantly contribute to the shortfall in housing supply.

But he ultimately ruled that these benefits did not overcome his reasons for refusal.

Appeal Ref: APP/ D3830/A/12/2189451

MARCH 2016 / THE PLANNER

37

26/02/2016 14:44

INSIGHT

LLegal landscape OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS Housing as part of the nationally significant infrastructure regime – what are the opportunities and challenges? asks Martha Grekos One feature of the Housing and Planning Bill is to allow Nationally Strategic Infrastructure Project (NSIP) developers to deliver a small amount of housing as part of a Development Consent Order (DCO), as the 2008 Planning Act only allows for temporary accommodation in these circumstances.

Clause 107 of the bill proposes a limit of 500 homes functionally or closely linked geographically to an application for an NSIP. Will this really help with the delivery of housing that England so desperately needs?

What are the opportunities and challenges?

On one hand, it can be argued that the DCO regime provides a clear process, parameters and time scales for everyone involved and can deliver, potentially, an earlier decision than when compared to a planning application followed by appeal. This is of course if there has been no judicial review to the DCO. Nonetheless, it can tackle cross-boundary issues (where development crosses two local authority boundaries – or more) and the NSIP developer can fund the project, thereby relieving hard-pressed local authority budgets. Also, road and rail transport NSIPs, for instance, which might not have met business

38

case rrequirements case eq equi quire uiire em me ents ntts ffo n for or Df or DfT T may now d do so if ffunding, di a scheme for 500 dwellings was jointly promoted with a housing developer. Using the NSIP process not only adds to the certainty of a successful consent, but also provides compulsory acquisition powers and other consents that might unlock developments. It’s a ‘one-stop shop’.

However, the restrictions via clause 107 in the bill are unlikely to bring significant large-scale housing forward.

Homes also need to be built in the right locations. The overall quantum may be in the national interest but where the new housing is, the location itself may not be in the national interest.

“ENGLAND’S SHORTFALL IN ANNUAL HOUSING SUPPLY IS UNLIKELY TO ABATE UNTIL RADICAL STEPS ARE TAKEN”

Martha Grekos The NSIP regime is designed for infrastructure deemed of national significance. One question is whether housing would stand up to scrutiny as an issue of national need as opposed to local or regional need. Also, how will the housing elements of an NSIP application be assessed? There could be a conflict on the one hand between the National Planning Policy Framework and local development plan policies which may be relevant and on the other hand with the procedures under the Planning Act 2008 and the National Planning Statements. There would also have to be a consideration of what happens when there is no plan or a draft plan in place, as the NSIP application would in effect be overriding local decision-making when no housing site allocations

were designated. It may be attractive to some that the NSIP regime is outside the local plan process, but others would see this as running counter to localism and as a centralised top-down process. Local planning authorities have no formal status in the determination of such applications and receive no fees or funding for their participation. And NSIP developers, for example, are not housing developers.

They may form partnership arrangements with traditional house builders to deliver both elements, which would be a welcome way to unlock house building.

But such partnerships take a while to come together and also if there is a delay with submission of the DCO or indeed it is judicially reviewed, this not only hampers the infrastructure project coming forward but also prevents the housing element being implemented.

The DCO system is quite different to applications made under the Town and Country Planning Act. It is robust and requires detailed property and planning expertise from day one. The process can be costly so there are risks involved in pursuing such applications.

There are indeed opportunities and challenges with allowing even a limit of 500 homes functionally or closely linked geographically to an application for an NSIP. One thing for sure is that it is unlikely to lead to quicker and more house building, as England’s shortfall in annual housing supply is unlikely to abate until radical steps are taken to meet the scale of demand.

Martha Grekos is a partner and London head of planning and infrastructure at Irwin Mitchell LLP

T H E P L AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p38_39_LegalLandscape.indd 38

29/02/2016 12:25

LATEST POSTS FROM THEPLANNER.CO.UK/BLOGS

B LO G S Would the mooted North Midlands combined authority – the first to include district, borough, city and county councils – prove any more agile in addressing the region’s pressing housing need?

L E G I S L AT I O N S H O R T S A new template for regional planning?

Thomas Ewings

Councils and business leaders from across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have submitted a detailed plan to the government for devolution and the creation of a North Midlands combined authority.

The plan brings together 19 councils and numerous business leaders with a view to creating a single combined authority during this month (March 2016), although powers would not be devolved until 2017 at the earliest.

It would become the first such combined authority to include district, borough, city and county councils.

It would also involve the appointment of a directly elected mayor.

The proposal sits with the government for approval, with powers to create combined authorities emerging through the recently enacted Cities and Local Government Devolution Act. What can a combined authority deliver?

Included in the proposal is a strategy to speed up the planning process and make it more flexible for responding to local needs.

In particular, the delivery of 77,000 new homes on surplus and brownfield land

would be promoted through a £200 million investment fund, and a mechanism for joint planning between the combined authority and the government.

The proposals also include more detailed plans under a single local transport budget of £137 million a year, including an ‘Oyster’style ticketing system to improve connectivity within the combined authority, and building on HS2 investment to deliver regeneration in surrounding areas.

A new planning tier?

Although the new legislation is intended to allow combined authorities greater potential to unlock economic growth, including through a more joined-up local planning approach, critics argue that this sounds all too familiar.

With the revocation of regional spatial strategies in 2010, an apparent return to regional planning is somewhat surprising.

However, the limitations of the combined authorities should be noted. The existing model for combined authorities gives them power to spend budgets which are fundamentally derived from central government, rather than any express power to generate revenues from local taxation or borrowing.

This, of course, gives rise to the risk that they will simply become an additional source of red tape, something which planning in particular

has been criticised for.

Whether or not the emergence of combined authorities heralds a rationalisation of local government remains to be seen.

Such a shift might well simplify the planning process, but would be in stark contrast to the dwindling concept of localism.

If local-level planning became marginalised, there is a risk that crucial local knowledge could be lost, and a potential void could open up between emerging neighbourhood-level plans and the renewed regional focus.

Thomas Ewings is a solicitor at law firm Veale Wasbrough Vizards.

For his full article, please visit: tinyurl.com/planner0316regional-planning

Be a legal commentator for The Planner We like to feature a wide range of views and insight on legal matters related to planning and the built environment, and we welcome submissions for our Legal Landscape pages.

If you’re a planning lawyer or barrister and you’d like to offer your thoughts on planning law, recent cases and their ramifications, please contact our features editor Simon Wicks on simon.wicks@ theplanner.co.uk

TfL triumphs in cycle superhighway case Transport for London has defeated a High Court challenge brought by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) over the East West Cycle Superhighway (EWCS).

The LTDA sought a declaration that the construction of the EWCS without planning permission constituted a breach of planning control, after claiming that the development could create “significant adverse environmental effects”.

The main issue at hand was if the construction of the EWCS constituted development under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and should therefore be subject to planning permission. TfL maintained the plan was “works of improvement” and was therefore exempt.

Mrs Justice Patterson concluded that on the evidence before the court, planning permission was not required for phase one of the EWCS as a whole, although permission may be needed for certain minor works within the scheme.

Offaly wind farm challenge dismissed A challenge by local residents against a €120 million, 29-turbine wind farm in County Offaly, brought on claims that it would affect their mental health, property prices and the habitat of the Whooper swan, has been dismissed by the High Court.

An Bord Pleanála had granted permission to Green Wind Energy (Wexford) Ltd for the development in June 2014.

Mr Justice Raymond Fullam found the claimants had failed to provide proof in relation to any of the grounds they had pursued. He found that the planning inspector had acted reasonably in his proposal of post-construction noise-mitigation measures to monitor noise, and that the developer would ensure the project would have no significant adverse impact on swans, although the Whooper swan had not been classified as qualifying for special protection either in the proposed turbine location or at two designated Special Protection Areas within 15 km of the site.

Campaigners relaunch case against Lime Street plans Campaign group SAVE Britain’s Heritage has submit a new legal challenge to block the £35 million development plans proposed for Liverpool Lime Street.

The group’s new challenge centres on its argument that the plans, which will see the development of student accommodation, retail units and a hotel, should be blocked as they were not properly consulted on.

It had previously sought a judicial review on the grounds that the council had failed to notify the Department for Culture Media & Sport and UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, in breach of planning guidance, but a judge rejected the application, as Historic England had not sought further scrutiny on the scheme. SAVE’s current case reiterates its belief that the council did not consider the project’s impact on the city’s UNESCO World Heritage Site when it approved the plans.

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p38_39_LegalLandscape.indd 39

39

29/02/2016 12:25

LATEST POSTS FROM THEPLANNER.CO.UK/BLOGS

B LO G S Would the mooted North Midlands combined authority – the first to include district, borough, city and county councils – prove any more agile in addressing the region’s pressing housing need?

L E G I S L AT I O N S H O R T S A new template for regional planning?

Thomas Ewings

Councils and business leaders from across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have submitted a detailed plan to the government for devolution and the creation of a North Midlands combined authority.

The plan brings together 19 councils and numerous business leaders with a view to creating a single combined authority during this month (March 2016), although powers would not be devolved until 2017 at the earliest.

It would become the first such combined authority to include district, borough, city and county councils.

It would also involve the appointment of a directly elected mayor.

The proposal sits with the government for approval, with powers to create combined authorities emerging through the recently enacted Cities and Local Government Devolution Act. What can a combined authority deliver?

Included in the proposal is a strategy to speed up the planning process and make it more flexible for responding to local needs.

In particular, the delivery of 77,000 new homes on surplus and brownfield land

would be promoted through a £200 million investment fund, and a mechanism for joint planning between the combined authority and the government.

The proposals also include more detailed plans under a single local transport budget of £137 million a year, including an ‘Oyster’style ticketing system to improve connectivity within the combined authority, and building on HS2 investment to deliver regeneration in surrounding areas.

A new planning tier?

Although the new legislation is intended to allow combined authorities greater potential to unlock economic growth, including through a more joined-up local planning approach, critics argue that this sounds all too familiar.

With the revocation of regional spatial strategies in 2010, an apparent return to regional planning is somewhat surprising.

However, the limitations of the combined authorities should be noted. The existing model for combined authorities gives them power to spend budgets which are fundamentally derived from central government, rather than any express power to generate revenues from local taxation or borrowing.

This, of course, gives rise to the risk that they will simply become an additional source of red tape, something which planning in particular

has been criticised for.

Whether or not the emergence of combined authorities heralds a rationalisation of local government remains to be seen.

Such a shift might well simplify the planning process, but would be in stark contrast to the dwindling concept of localism.

If local-level planning became marginalised, there is a risk that crucial local knowledge could be lost, and a potential void could open up between emerging neighbourhood-level plans and the renewed regional focus.

Thomas Ewings is a solicitor at law firm Veale Wasbrough Vizards.

For his full article, please visit: tinyurl.com/planner0316regional-planning

Be a legal commentator for The Planner We like to feature a wide range of views and insight on legal matters related to planning and the built environment, and we welcome submissions for our Legal Landscape pages.

If you’re a planning lawyer or barrister and you’d like to offer your thoughts on planning law, recent cases and their ramifications, please contact our features editor Simon Wicks on simon.wicks@ theplanner.co.uk

TfL triumphs in cycle superhighway case Transport for London has defeated a High Court challenge brought by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) over the East West Cycle Superhighway (EWCS).

The LTDA sought a declaration that the construction of the EWCS without planning permission constituted a breach of planning control, after claiming that the development could create “significant adverse environmental effects”.

The main issue at hand was if the construction of the EWCS constituted development under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and should therefore be subject to planning permission. TfL maintained the plan was “works of improvement” and was therefore exempt.

Mrs Justice Patterson concluded that on the evidence before the court, planning permission was not required for phase one of the EWCS as a whole, although permission may be needed for certain minor works within the scheme.

Offaly wind farm challenge dismissed A challenge by local residents against a €120 million, 29-turbine wind farm in County Offaly, brought on claims that it would affect their mental health, property prices and the habitat of the Whooper swan, has been dismissed by the High Court.

An Bord Pleanála had granted permission to Green Wind Energy (Wexford) Ltd for the development in June 2014.

Mr Justice Raymond Fullam found the claimants had failed to provide proof in relation to any of the grounds they had pursued. He found that the planning inspector had acted reasonably in his proposal of post-construction noise-mitigation measures to monitor noise, and that the developer would ensure the project would have no significant adverse impact on swans, although the Whooper swan had not been classified as qualifying for special protection either in the proposed turbine location or at two designated Special Protection Areas within 15 km of the site.

Campaigners relaunch case against Lime Street plans Campaign group SAVE Britain’s Heritage has submit a new legal challenge to block the £35 million development plans proposed for Liverpool Lime Street.

The group’s new challenge centres on its argument that the plans, which will see the development of student accommodation, retail units and a hotel, should be blocked as they were not properly consulted on.

It had previously sought a judicial review on the grounds that the council had failed to notify the Department for Culture Media & Sport and UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, in breach of planning guidance, but a judge rejected the application, as Historic England had not sought further scrutiny on the scheme. SAVE’s current case reiterates its belief that the council did not consider the project’s impact on the city’s UNESCO World Heritage Site when it approved the plans.

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p38_39_LegalLandscape.indd 39

39

29/02/2016 09:49

INSIGHT

Career { D E V E L O P M E N T C CAREER DEVELOPMENT: SIX COMMON ERRORS WHEN USING DATA

With such a volume of information available to planners nowadays, it’s essential to be aware of the pitfalls data can present Data is exerting an ever-stronger influence over the work of planners.

Whether you’re putting a proposal to a committee or client, or presenting evidence to an appeal, the chances are you rely on information gathered from a variety of sources.

Research and evidence are the backbone of what planners do. But we live in the age of ‘big data’, with information coming at us from all angles and multiple sources. All this insight is useful, but how do we sort, interpret, and act on such a volume fairly and accurately?

It seems that planners will have to become more discerning in their analysis and more disciplined than ever – not least because plenty of others will be using the same data to support conclusions that suit their agenda.

One starting point is to know what not to do. Here are six common pitfalls to avoid when using data.

1/

TREATING ALL SOURCES AS EQUAL

When consulting on a proposal, should you give the same weight to the personal anecdote of an individual, however important they are in their community, as you would to a survey of 50 residents? Should you value equally data gathered by a commercial business and information drawn from a peerreviewed study? You can only answer that by knowing context – the who, what, why and how of the data and its origin.

There’s room for all kinds of evidence when compiling a case, but not all is of equal value. Fairness in decision-making is contingent on recognising the relative quality relevance of your sources.

40

2/

COGNITIVE BIAS

3/

MAKING EXACT FORECASTS FROM DATA

We all have assumptions and preferences that influence our decision-making – and social scientists have identified a range of different types of cognitive bias, from ‘anchoring bias’ (reliance on the first piece of information) to ‘conservatism bias’ (reluctance to accept new evidence) and ‘confirmation bias’ (prioritising results that confirm one’s world view over those that do not).

Planning is full of biases, many of which are passionately held and can cloud decision-making (arguments about green belt are a good example).

Use strict, impartial methodologies to stick to what the data tells you, not what you want it to say.

Planning is implicitly about anticipating scenarios based on past data and current challenges.

Forecasting is an integral element of what planners do – but no matter how good your figures, any ‘static’ forecast is limited. There are unpredictable events; the model you use may be too rigid for the data; the decisions you make may actually change the forecast. Then there’s our natural tendency to favour ‘expert’ forecasts over the predictions of others – even though research has shown that government officials, academics, journalists et al perform worse than ‘dart-throwing monkeys’ (1) when predicting outcomes. How do you accommodate uncertainty within forecasts?

4/

SEEING CORRELATION AS CAUSATION

5/

RELYING ON THE AVERAGE

Our minds want to find meaningful cause-and-effect patterns in any dataset, even if a relationship isn’t clearly indicated by the evidence.

For example, the data tells us that children who don’t have breakfast perform less well at school. Does that mean not having breakfast is the cause of poor academic performance?

It’s more likely to be symptomatic of coming from a low-income family with low educational aspiration.

Correlations may help identify related factors that point towards a common cause – or, as Edward Tufte, an expert on the visual presentation of information, says: “Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint.”

Tyler Vigen has fun with spurious correlations at: tylervigen.com/ spurious-correlations

Averages are useful to give an overview, but can conceal significant trends by making it easy to overlook polarisations that could be the most telling features of a dataset. An example might be using the average income of an area as a key indicator of its character, when there may be pockets of deprivation within a more affluent district. Other demographic information (e.g. age) needs also to be treated with care when presented as an average, as do transport statistics (e.g. average traffic volume), health figures, and so on. Planners need awareness of the way in which data is spread and concentrated.

T H E P L AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p40_41_career_dev.indd 40

26/02/2016 14:45

+ How do you measure the silent majority?

6/

TAKING THE MOST FREQUENT TO BE THE MOST

We tend to favour uncomplicated solutions – and may lean towards commonalities to support that desire. Let’s say you’re surveying employment patterns in a district with a view to planning for future employment needs. You find three significant employers: a department store (450 employees), a clothing factory (210 employees), and a bank (190 employees). It makes sense to plan around these three major players in the local economy, right? But what happens if you factor in the ‘Other’ column that covers all the smaller employers and selfemployed people in the district, and adds up to 941 people – more than the big three combined? With a ‘long tail’ such as this, who takes priority, and why?

Reality is often more nuanced and messy than we would like it to be.

How do you deal with that?

DATA QUALITY

The quality of outputs in planning is contingent on the quality of inputs (otherwise known as ‘garbage in, garbage out’).

Furthermore, we are bound to plan for the future based on past events and present needs. When using data to inform planning, there are inevitably unknowns.

Writing in Data Points: Visualization That Means Something (2), statistician Nathan Yau suggests that data should perhaps have its own “golden rule”: “Treat others’ data as you would want your data treated.”

He adds: “Data is an abstraction of real life and can be complicated, but if you gather enough context, you can at least put forth a solid effort to make sense of it.”

(1) The Alliance for Useful Evidence’s guide to using research evidence cites the study by Professor Philip E Tetlock of 80,000 expert predictions that found the majority were wrong and ‘dart-throwing monkeys’ were better at forecasting the future. tinyurl.com/Planner0316-research-evidence

Phill Skill is former chief planner for Stroud District Council and now the council’s lead business consultant

One of the issues planners need to deal with is action groups who use statistics to make their point. For example, in my hometown, there is an application for over 2,000 units, and the locals have set up a pressure group, and enlisted the local news-sheet.

In an article, the group cites a survey of people leaving a preapplication event in the town hall. It states that around 170 people gave their comments, of whom 150 were residents of the town. Of these 150, 97 per cent said they opposed the scheme, though 63 per cent were in favour of new housing to support the town. Of the 20 who weren’t even residents, 100 per cent opposed the scheme.

That sounds like a categorical thumbs-down. But this is a survey of only 150 residents from a town of over 20,000 – is that statistically valid? That’s only three-quarters of 1 per cent, or one person in every 133. In addition, we don’t know what the questions were, and how they were introduced.

“Then we have to look at the issue of self-selection. When you commission pollsters to carry out a survey, it is vital that they are rigorous in ensuring there is no bias in the selection process.

Those residents who turned up on a winter’s night will have been those who were most likely to be opposed to the development – those with most to lose, probably a view over the open fields and perceived drop in house price. As such, the group was self-selecting, not a crosssection of the populous.

What about the 19,850 residents who have not made the effort to comment on the planning application? How should the local council react to their abdication?

Some would say that their silence removes them from the equation.

The council should listen to the informed lobby and ignore those who can’t be bothered to take part.

On the contrary – those who don’t take part have done so through choice. They may not be directly affected, but they will have children and relatives who are in need of a home or a job, they will be seeing university students not returning to the town as they are out-priced from the market, or by lack of availability. They are also citizens and members of the community. How do we quantify their needs?

(2) See the Big Think website: tinyurl.com/planner0316-understanding-data

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p40_41_career_dev.indd 41

41

26/02/2016 14:46

INSIGHT

Plan ahead P

Send feedback to editorial@theplanner.co.uk Tweet us @The Planner_RTPI

Think small Major renewable energy schemes often get bogged down in objections and policy debates. Are multiple local schemes the answer to delivering renewables targets?

“I’ve found that even with fairly small solar farm schemes, you come up the objections, such as it’s on the green belt or it’s taking up the most valuable agricultural land,” says Huw Evans.

In Wales, he adds, planners have a tendency to play it safe and, by “falling back” on development plans that may be years out of date, mollify the objectors in their recommendations.

“They seem to be looking at the traditional land use restricting policies,” Evans continues. “But when it comes to weighing up the strength [of an application] they ought to go to more up-to-date policies and the directives from the Welsh Government. The priority must be now to get renewable energy.”

Evans, an independent planning consultant and organiser with RTPI North Wales of the 17 March seminar ‘Delivering small scale renewables’, stresses that planners can be bolder in seizing the opportunities presented by government.

Directives, policy and legislation in the form of the Well-being of Future

“‘THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY’ CAN BE DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO PUT INTO PRACTICE” 42

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p42_43_event_listings.indd 42

Small renewable schemes can have a modestly transformative effect on rural communities, says Huw Evans

Generations Act are all driving towards greater use of renewable energy. Yet delivery on the ground is slow.

“Everybody can sign up to the bigger picture, such as the Paris Accord. Very often it’s when you come down to delivering with the planning applications, that’s when you get the problems. ‘Think globally, act locally’ can be difficult for people to put into practice,” he observes.

So frustrated is the Welsh Government with the slow transition to renewables that it has given itself powers to determine renewables applications of between 10 and 50MW as “nationally significant”.

Evans says he understands why people would object to the larger schemes, because of the scale of their local impact. But he struggles to see how smaller renewables schemes are not taking off. This he puts down, in part, to excessive caution by planning officers.

It’s a dilemma to be addressed at the 17 March event. “We thought what role can some of the small

renewable schemes play? And will they be more easy [than larger schemes] to actually get from drawing board and generating energy?”

In particular, says Evans, small renewable schemes can have a modestly transformative effect on rural communities where many people and business are off-grid and rely on oil and liquid petroleum gas for energy.

“In the rural areas even a small contribution in terms of the economy can have a big effect. North Wales is predominantly rural. Small schemes that produce cheaper energy can make a difference in keeping local businesses going.”

Evans promises a lively

“interactive” session with three speakers looking at hydro power in rural North Wales, delivering renewables in urban Cardiff, and new developments in Welsh Government policy.

“Cumulatively, small scale renewables can have a significant impact. But it’s not just what that can add to the whole, it’s also the fact that when people can see these schemes they realise it’s not this horrible beast we thought.

Communities can take more ownership of them and it will become more acceptable.

But there’s a lot more action required – from communities and planners.

“We can do it. Let’s see how we can make this work. I hope people who come will be able to see what opportunities there are,” Evans concludes. “It’s a responsibility on us all to deliver. It must be one of the biggest challenges planning is facing.”

SPEAKERS AND TOPICS c Jon Fudge, Planning Policy, Welsh Government - Welsh Government policy on delivering small scale renewable facilities c Gareth Harcombe, Cardiff Council - Cardiff Council’s energy strategy and delivery of small scale renewable energy c Richard Rees, North Wales Hydro Power - the experience of delivering projects

W H AT ’ S S M A L L A N D G R E E N ?

What: Delivering small scale renewable energy When: Thursday 17 March 2-4.30pm Where: Venue Cymru, Llandudno Find out more and book: tinyurl.com/planner0316-renewable-1703

I M AG E | A L A M Y

26/02/2016 14:47

DIARY

LISTINGS Talks, conferences, training, master classes – everything you need to keep on top of the latest thinking and developments in the planning world.

LONDON 9 March – Writing skills for planning professionals This practical masterclass focuses on helping you to plan your document, write fluently, and to polish and edit your work.

Venue: The Hatton (etc Venues), 51-53 Hatton Garden, London Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-LO-0903 10 March – Negotiation skills for planning professionals This one-day programme will equip you with a range of practical tools and techniques to improve your chances of getting a positive outcome to a negotiation, and also to help you to use negotiations as a way to strengthen relationships.

Venue: The Hatton Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-LO-1003 16 March – Understanding developers and development finance This masterclass uses lectures, workshops, and exercises to help you think like a land buyer.

Venue: The Hatton Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-LO-1603 16 March – UCL ISR Public Lecture: Resourcing future generations Edmund Nickless, Fellow of the Geological Society of London, a chartered scientist, chartered geologist, and European geologist, speaks about how the new adaptive technologies needed to tackle climate change depend on extraction of minerals and metals.

Venue: Roberts G06 Sir Ambrose Fleming LT, Roberts Building, Malet Place, WC1E 7JE Details: tinyurl.com/ Planner0316-LON-1603 17 March – The challenges of waste management Increasing focus on achieving a zero waste

economy and decoupling economic growth from waste growth adds to the pressure on local authorities to identify appropriate waste sites. This workshop will provide delegates with the opportunity to discuss challenges and possible solutions with key government officials including DCLG, the Environment Agency, the waste industry and waste planning sectors.

Venue: The Hatton Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-LO-1703 29 March – Green infrastructure symposium An expert symposium to discuss the potential for a national benchmark for green infrastructure would like to hear your views on the following topics: What is the demand for a GI benchmark in the built environment sector?

What types of GI and corresponding ecosystem services should the benchmark include?

What is the most appropriate model to ensure the long-term success of the benchmark?

Venue: RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London, EC3R 8D Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-LO-2903

SOUTH EAST 17 March – Rural Planning SE This update will consider recent developments and how these may affect the future of rural areas, hearing about challenges and opportunities particular to these rural areas.

Venue: Test Valley Borough Council, Beech Hurst, Weyhill Road, Andover, Hampshire SP10 3AJ Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-SE-1703

EAST OF ENGLAND 10 March – East of England Young Planners

DON’T MISS Section 106 planning obligation seminars Section 106 continues to be affected by changing legislation and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that we can expect more changes. The Planning Advisory Service is running s.106 seminars in 2016, which will look at changes to legislation, policy and guidance, the working relationship between development contributions and how you can most effectively use s.106 in the determination of applications to achieve sustainable development.

Seminars are being held in March in Birmingham and Leeds.

Date: Thursday, 10 March Venue: Etc Venues, Maple House, 150 Corporation Street Birmingham B4 6TB Details: tinyurl.com/planner0316-WM-1003 Date: Wednesday, 16 March Venue: The Studio, Riverside West, Whitehall Road, Leeds LS1 4AW Details: tinyurl.com/planner0316-YOR-1603

Cambridge Social Evening Regular monthly socials in Cambridge continue.

Venue: 69-76 Regent Street, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 1AA Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-EE-1003 16 March – Development in the rural historic environment: Managing and accommodating growth at the local level Speakers will talk on issues connected with housing growth in rural areas, such as: the setting of historic assets; community planning and neighbourhood plans; sustainable development; and garden suburbs. This event will include a site visit to an award-winning scheme in Saffron Walden.

Venue: Uttlesford District Council Offices, London Road, Saffron Walden, Essex CB11 4ER Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-EE-1603

WEST MIDLANDS 23 March RTPI West Midlands: Housing supply – more than just numbers?

This seminar will look at what the future UK housing demographic will look like, how the public and private sectors can better forecast and plan for housing needs and the type of housing solutions that need to be built now to future-proof the housing industry.

Venue: The Bond, 180-182 Fazeley Street, Birmingham, West

Midlands B5 5SE Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-WM-2303

EAST MIDLANDS 9 March – Planning Law Update EM Lawyers from Marrons Shakespeares will provide information on the latest changes to planning and associated legislation and policy together with a review of the progress and content of the Housing and Planning Bill. The event will include a case law update as well as an insight into affordable housing.

Venue: New Walk Museum, 53 New Walk, Leicester LE1 7EA Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-EM-0903

NORTH­WEST 7 March – Planning Law Update Planning law continues to be a busy area, with the Housing and Planning Bill in Parliament; planning and politics continuing to intertwine; a conveyor belt of cases, and the implications of the Northern Powerhouse and the delivery of strategic infrastructure projects.

Venue: Hotel Football, Old Trafford, Manchester M16 0SZ Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-NW-0703 16 March – Planning for renewable energy – a change in the climate With recent changes by

government to guidance and subsidies, will the renewable energy sector continue to grow strongly or will the changes result in a slow-down in the sector? This event will consider the growing need for renewable energy, how the government’s changes may affect the types of projects being developed, and look at examples of renewable energy projects in the North-West.

Venue: Great John Street Hotel, Manchester M3 4FD Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-NE-1603

YORKSHIRE 16 March – Spatial planning for resilient places This conference considers the need for strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change and takes into account flood risk and water supply and demand position.

Venue: The Showroom Cinema, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-YO-1603

N OR THER N IR EL AND 10 March – RTPI NI Annual Dinner 2016 Guest speaker is Phil Williams, RTPI president and Belfast’s Director of Planning.

Venue: The Mac, 10 Exchange Street West, Belfast Details: tinyurl.com/ planner0316-NI-1003

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p42_43_event_listings.indd 43

43

26/02/2016 14:48

NEWS

RTPI {

RTPI news pages are edited

by Josh Rule at the RTPI, 41 Botolph Lane, London EC3R 8DL

Who will win the RTPI’s inaugural international planning award?

From the most populous landlocked country to the most biodiverse marine region in the world, the finalists of the inaugural International Award for Planning Excellence reflect the diversity and impact planners have across the globe. Eight finalists are vying for the honour this year. Find out who they are and see why they represent planning excellence.

Addis Ababa Urban Renewal Initiative, Ethiopia Arup & Partners Ltd

Post-disaster Reconstruction Plan of Caojia Village, Baoxing County, China Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute

Seychelles Strategic Land Use and Development Plan, Seychelles Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council

The initiative sets out a plan to utilise Transit Oriented Development to regenerate 11 stations on the new Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit network.

It helps balance rapid urban growth with the needs of the existing communities. Planning was used to maximise the potential to improve the urban environment, support existing communities through social infrastructure, and put forward a future vision for Addis Ababa.

After the earthquake that destroyed many of the villages in Baoxing, a county of Sichuan Province in 2013, the planning team implemented an unusual reconstruction plan with enthusiastic support from the local community. Their innovative and practical planning approaches broke through the limitations of the typical top-down approach of the local planning system.

The plan, approved in 2015, provides a spatial framework to guide development in The Seychelles through to 2040. It is an inclusive and collaborative plan based on extensive stakeholder and community engagement using a robust evidence base.

Tana River Delta Land Use Plan and Tana River Delta Strategic Environmental Assessment, Kenya Royal Society for Protection of Birds, Nature Kenya, Government Of Kenya, Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Management of Deltas in Kenya, Governments of Tana County and Lamu, County and Planning Green Futures

Future Proofing Aluva, India Atkins and International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism (INTBAU), Aluva Municipality and British High Commission The project will support Aluva Municipality to address long-term climate impacts and minimise the short-term impacts of unplanned development. The development plan, urban design framework and strategy coming out of the project will facilitate sustainable, low-carbon, highquality places with a strong local identity.

Master Planning of San Vicente, Palawan as a Flagship Tourism Enterprise Zone, Philippines Using projections out to 2044 to ensure longterm success, the master plan is designed to transform San Vicente into a liveable community with inclusive transport, social services and resilience to environmental risks.

The plan prioritises its natural resources, unique landscape and participation of the local community.

44

Semporna Marine Spatial Plan, Malaysia Borneo Spatial Planning Consultancy The plan covers an area known to be the most biodiverse marine region on Earth.

However, human activity and climate change have placed unprecedented strain on the marine environment. To provide an overarching marine planning policy framework to guide development in Semporna waters, the plan aims to create an efficient, inclusive and sustainable environment for growth.

More information on the finalists: tinyurl.com/planner0316-international

The plan and Strategic Environmental Assessment has broken new ground as the first of its kind in Kenya. It is designed to protect one of Africa’s most important wetlands, support locals’ livelihoods, reduce resource conflicts and creating new economic opportunities in eco-tourism, food processing and natural resource development.

The Tomorrow Plan, Des Moines, United States of America Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization The plan is a vision for a collaborative and dynamic region of lasting value, equity, and diversity. The planning process has fostered discussion and increased collaboration to work towards the common goals of a safe, healthy, and sustainable region – supporting the growth of businesses and protecting natural resources.

T H E PL AN N E R \ MA R C H 2 0 1 6

p44_47_RTPI_news.indd 44

29/02/2016 09:50

Editorial E: rtpinews@rtpi.org.uk

RTPI (switchboard) T: 020 7929 9494

Registered charity no.

262865 Registered charity in Scotland SCO37841

3 POINT PLAN A planner explains how they would change the English planning system

Eileen Thomas Eileen Thomas & Associates CHAIR OF THE RTPI’S URBAN DESIGN NETWORK More attention should be paid to the quality of high-density mixed projects. If we don’t, we will repeat the mistakes of the 1960s in our attempts to build as much housing as possible without sufficient thought for the amenities of residents or the functioning of businesses.

Examples abound of developments with cramped balconies close to busy streets, rooms looking into light wells, unsightly refuse areas and intrusive delivery yards. Too little attention is paid to the materials used for façades and external areas. How often do we see deteriorating timber cladding, poor detailing with stained sills and elevations, swathes of tarmac and neglected planting?

The National Planning Policy Framework empowers planners to question all aspects of design and I am aware of many authorities where design is taken seriously. But planners are sometimes reluctant to challenge developers over design, or fobbed off by being told their requests are unaffordable. This is not helped by resource-strapped authorities seeing urban designers as a luxury, and too few planners being trained in this area. Furthermore, urban design in this country is not generally seen as a profession in its own right.

YOUR INSTITUTE, YOUR QUESTIONS What is the Independent Consultants’ Network and why should I join?

MARIA FRANCKÉ, MARIA FRANCKÉ PLANNING

1 More research is required into high­ density mixed development

2 Local authorities should fund training for planners and councillors in urban design

3 The RTPI, with other urban design bodies, should do more to promote urban design as a subject to study

POSITION POINTS

RTPI SCOTLAND SUPPORTING CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY SKILLS NIKOLA MILLER, PLANNING POLICY & PRACTICE OFFICER

The Construction Skills Network report published in January suggests that the construction industry in Scotland will need more than 21,000 recruits over the next five years. In its recent response to the Independent Review of Planning and in its manifesto for the upcoming Scottish Parliamentary elections, Building A Successful And Sustainable Scotland, RTPI Scotland highlights the need to invest in the planning service to ensure that it is properly resourced with appropriate skills. If Scotland wants a reformed planning system and a future Scottish Government to deliver more quality homes for people, we must also appropriately resource the construction industry to support and facilitate the delivery of these homes.

n tinyurl.com/planner0316-scotland

KATHERINE POLLARD, INDEPENDENT CONSULTANTS’ NETWORK MANAGER

CIL REVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE

The ICN is for chartered town planners who are sole practitioners or who run their own small practices. Its purpose is to provide targeted information and resources, and provide a forum for independent consultants to discuss issues and share practice. Its aims are to reflect the interests and concerns of independent consultants by providing a forum for them to discuss relevant issues, support and raise the profile of independent consultants, signpost independent consultants to training, events and other resources to help develop their knowledge and skills.

In inviting contributions to the RTPI’s response from members to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) review questionnaire, the institute has concluded that the restrictions on pooling of no more than five s.106 contributions seems unfair for authorities who are struggling to adopt CIL charging schedules for viability reasons. So we have recommended that the government should adopt a less arbitrary approach to encouraging local planning authorities to adopt CIL. The RTPI has seen some great examples of councils using innovative means of allocating the “neighbourhood portion of CIL funds” through initiatives like crowdfunding. Overall, although CIL is a small piece of the infrastructure funding pie, it is still important and only minor alterations should be made.

n www.rtpi.org.uk/knowledge/networks/independent-consultants/

n tinyurl.com/planner0316-CIL-review

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p44_47_RTPI_news.indd 45

45

29/02/2016 09:50

NEWS

RTPI { INTERNATIONAL IN FOCUS: RTPI MEMBERS WORKING AROUND THE WORLD

Kate Houghton, urbanist JUNTO AL BARRIO, SANTIAGO, CHILE While studying geography it became clear to me that place is hugely important in tackling social and environmental inequality, with planning offering opportunities to use place to improve quality of life.

Chile suffers from high levels of inequality, vulnerability to natural disasters (particularly earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions), and urban quality-of-life challenges (like sprawl and air pollution), and therefore there is no shortage of challenges that planning could help to mitigate.

I work part-time in the research team of Chilean NGO, Junto al Barrio (www.juntoalbarrio.cl).

The organisation works in several vulnerable neighbourhoods in Santiago, Valparaíso and Coquimbo for three-year programme periods, delivering community-led urban improvement and social projects.

I have supported the organisation with its development of internal GIS analysis, and worked with an external partner to use GIS to identify neighbourhoods that could benefit from JAB’s support. I also developed a project to tackle at the community level the serious waste management failings that are seen throughout the country.

The planning system is mostly limited to municipal zoning and

46

T H E PL AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p44_47_RTPI_news.indd 46

building permits, and an effort to scale up planning from approving individual buildings to a strategy for its rapid ongoing development would help. An opportunity to start this discussion could be developing natural disaster risk mitigation from a conversation solely about building standards to one about wider land use and urban design.

I would also like to see the successful kind of community-led urban improvement projects that JAB carries out used much more widely across the country – both to improve access to green spaces and community facilities, but also in doing so to empower Chilean people to take the lead in implementing improvements to their environment.

Finding the best evidence for better planning DR MICHAEL HARRIS, RTPI DEPUTY HEAD OF POLICY AND RESEARCH Defending and promoting the profession so that planning can deliver the greatest possible benefits for society requires research. Evidence is inherent to what it means to be a professional – to take informed decisions alongside expert judgement and experience. Moreover, policy-makers need to be better informed about the facts of planning rather than being led by myths and prejudice.

Last year, when we relaunched the RTPI Research Awards, we had three main aims: to recognise the best research from RTPI accredited planning schools; to highlight a tthe implications of academic research ffor policy and practice; and to promote planning research more generally. p The increased number of entries demonstrated the strong desire among d academics to get their work out to a a wider audience. It also demonstrated the w iincredible range of issues that researchers are examining, from the future of London’s a high streets and the impact of waterfront h rregeneration schemes, to how to promote active travel among school children – and a even how theatre can be used to engage e tthe public in planning. (You can read about this year’s winners and commended a entries on the RTPI website: www.rtpi.org.uk/researchawards) Given this, and the importance of research to both policy and practice, we want to build on last year’s Awards – to generate even more entries and find new ways to recognise and promote the work being done in accredited planning schools.

We’ll soon be opening the call to entries for this year’s Research Awards, so watch out for the announcement and help us to build the case for better planning.

I M AG E | S H U T T E RSTO C K

29/02/2016 12:27

RTPI Y ACTIVIT E PIPELIN Current RTPI work – what the Institute is doing and how you can help us WANT TO HEAR FIRST HAND FROM LORD ADONIS ABOUT THE UK’S INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS? The UK housing bill, elections in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and London all ensure that the debates on population growth, housing and infrastructure are raging. In addition, with UN Habitat 3 in October, planning and planners are on the agenda as never before. Do not miss the key Planning Convention of the year – Better Planning Solutions: The Challenge of Growth on 28 June and its impressive line-up of speakers.

See key influencers from the UK Government, Scottish Government, consultancies, NGOs and local authorities, including “Ask PINS” with Lord Adonis and Alfonso Vegara. There are opportunities to debate all the current hot topics in a packed programme of sessions – from homes for 70 million people to ethics under pressure.

Book your ticket now www.theplanningconvention.co.uk

WHICH ONE OF YOUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE CROWNED VOLUNTEER PLANNER OF THE YEAR? For the first time the RTPI will recognise a Volunteer Planner of the Year. Who will be the inaugural winner? Book your ticket for the 2016 Awards for Planning Excellence to find out. The event is being held at Milton Court, The Barbican, in London on 5 May. Find out who made the shortlist at: tinyurl.com/planner0316-Volunteer-planner Book your ticket to the ceremony: awards@rtpi.org.uk

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HELP SHAPE THE EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS OF PLANNING EDUCATION? Get involved by contributing to the institute’s work with accredited planning schools. We are recruiting for RTPI dialogue members, representatives and chairs of partnership and accreditation boards.

We currently accredit more than 100 planning degrees at universities in the UK, Ireland, and overseas. We need to build up a pool of members with relevant interest and experience for these RTPI appointments and we are looking to fill three types of position: dialogue members on accreditation boards; and chairs and representatives on partnership boards. Apply before Wednesday 20 April.

More information: http://www.rtpi.org.uk/membership/get-involved/call-forvolunteers-rtpi-educational-activities/ If you would like to apply, email the application form to: education@rtpi.org.uk

DO YOU HAVE A PROJECT OR PLAN THAT COULD WIN ONE OF OUR COVETED ENGLAND REGIONAL AWARDS FOR PLANNING EXCELLENCE? The Regional Awards for Planning Excellence exist to celebrate the contribution that planners make to society and highlight local examples of exceptional planning in the English regions. Winning this within your region is a clear demonstration of the quality of your work, and an excellent way to raise a project’s profile.

Entering the Regional Awards for Planning Excellence is free, and open to all planners, architects, surveyors and developers.* For more information: www.rtpi.org.uk/regionalawards *If you have already entered the national Awards for Planning Excellence, your entry will automatically be considered for the relevant regional awards – there is no need to resubmit it.

RTPI SHORTS

RTPI BURSARIES AND STUDENT PRIZES The RTPI Future Planners bursary fund, cosponsored by universities and partners from the public and private sectors, has supported 44 planning students with £1,000 each in 2015.

Project planning is under way for Year 2 of this scheme to attract undergraduates from other subjects onto RTPI-accredited masters courses and the institute is seeking support. RTPI members keen to raise the profile and awareness of careers in planning or contribute to the scheme can get in touch at bursary@rtpi.org.uk The institute also recognises excellence in degree students by funding annual student prizes awarded by universities. Top tips for future planners from recent winners can now be found online. Louisa Fielden currently works in private consultancy and graduated from the University of Manchester. She advises students to ‘get out and about’ as ‘it’s exciting that the context of planning is constantly changing.’ Jay Saggerson, who works in the public sector after graduating from Sheffield Hallam University, recommends ‘planning to anybody who has an interest in how rural and urban environments are moulded.’ n RTPI Student Prize winners at www.rtpi.org.uk/ plannerprofiles

NON­ACCREDITED ROUTES TO MEMBERSHIP CHANGE The RTPI’s non-accredited routes to membership are changing. These are the routes to becoming a Chartered Member taken by those who do not have a fully RTPI-accredited degree.

During 2016 some routes will be closing as we prepare for the new routes coming in from January 2017. There will also be changes to the Technical Member class. Key dates are: • Reciprocal Arrangements and EU Pathway routes to Chartered Membership to close during 2016. Last submission date: 10 June 2016.

• Special entry route to Chartered Membership also to close during 2016. Last submission date: 26 October 2016.

• Technical Member class to close at the end of 2016 (future candidates will apply for the Associate class from January 2017). Last submission date: 10 June 2016.

Listen to our new podcast. Hear from the head of membership and routes to membership project manager about what is changing, when and why. www.rtpi.org.uk/briefing-room/podcasts/ general-playlist/2016/january/routes-tomembership-changes-to-non-accredited-routes/ Detailed information about the new routes in will appear infuture editions of The Planner. n FAQs: www.rtpi.org.uk/routes-to-membership.

MAR C H 2 0 16 / THE PLA NNER

p44_47_RTPI_news.indd 47

47

29/02/2016 09:50

INSIGHT

Plan B P

IMAGES | ALAMY / ISTOCK

THE POINT OF PLANNING What’s the point of planning?

According to one Tumblr blog, the whole point of planning is, well, to point.

“When we point, we plan” proposes the Planners Pointing blog. And, indeed, it does purvey a plethora of planners pointing. After all, what could be more purposeful, more pointedly plan-tastic, than pointing?

Here, there are planners pointing proudly, pointing pithily, pointing playfully and persistently, even prissily, plaintively and preferentially.

It’s a powerful profusion of pointiness.

So much so, that one RTPI employee (let’s call her Pauline) suggested to Plan B that the site reminded her of the poem by Steve Martin: “O pointy birds, o pointy pointy Anoint my head, anointy-nointy.”

By way of alternative she proffers the more partial but no less poetic: “O pointy planners, o pointy pointy, etc.”

It’s a start.

Anyway, the Planners Pointing blog is thus far an American endeavour.

Plan B thinks we British planners should prove our pointy pluck by demonstrating that we, too, are capable of pointing proudly for planning. Let’s see your pointy pics on Twitter – tweet us @ThePlanner_RTPI using the hashtag #plannerspointing.

Oh, you can also look at the blog: http://plannerspointing.tumblr.com/

A CROYDON CONFECTION The Planner receives word from a Croydon PR firm that the southeast London borough is “heading for a ‘Mars’ property scenario – where conditions are right for many people to be able to work, rest and play”.

Plan B wonders what other confections can apply to the property

m market.

Our esteemed e editor Mr Martin Read su suggests the ‘Opal Fruits’ m market “where a planned r re response to coastal e erosion is designed to m make your river mouth w water”.

Or the ‘Heineken’ p property market “where p permission for allowing a added height refreshes th parts other tiers the c cannot reach” (we like th one). that “I could go on, sadly,” sighs Mr Read.

Croydon has form in colourfully ambitious presentation, of course.

The town has hitherto tried to sell itself to filmmakers as a cheaper alternative to Chicago and other high-rise American cities. Indeed, parts of The Dark Knight Rises were filmed in Croydon. That’s Croydon, by the way. In south-east London. What kind of property market does that give us?

PLANNING: THE MOVIE Another Twitter hashtag has caught our eye: #filmsabouttownplanning.

This is initiated by the people behind Planning in the Pub (@ planninginpubs). Each year they show a film with a (tangential) town planning connection in an appropriately themed location.

Last year, for example, saw planners carted off to Hackney Wick for a screening of The Long Good Friday – the great British gangster movie that revolves around criminal shenanigans linked to the development of London’s Docklands.

The previous year, the peripatetic planners were packed off to a disused mental hospital for the 1989 Batman film with Michael Keaton.

We’re guessing the planning connection here is Gotham City, although one viewer described it as a “great CPD session on bat habitat surveys”.

This year there are whispers of a three-day festival involving planning comedy and music, as well as movies.

Planning in the Pub is looking for suggestions, which you can send directly to @planninginpubs on Twitter using the #filmsabouttownplanning hashtag.

Ideas previously aired include Chinatown, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Passport To Pimlico. Plan B adds the following to the list of potential planning classics: c Don’t Look Now (Venice decaying more rapidly than it can be rebuilt; dark forces lurk in the shadows) c Get Carter (property developer thrown off Gateshead car park that he’s transforming into a restaurant) c Blade Runner (unregulated urban dystopia – see also Minority Report (the smart city) and Gattaca (the segregated city) c Heaven’s Gate (European immigrants in 19th century Wyoming war with ranchers over land use) c Grosse Pointe Blank (Marty revisits old home to find it’s been turned into a convenience store in soulless suburbia. And shoots it to bits). c Back to the Future I & II (multiple visions of the same town, having followed different development paths).

50

T H E P L AN N E R \ M A R C H 2 0 1 6

p50_Plan B.indd 50

n Leap tall buildings in a single bound Tweet us - @ThePlanner_RTPI 26/02/2016 15:42