Planning Reforms: The Good, the Bad, and the potentially Ugly? – Design
LUC’s assessment of the key proposals in the Planning White Paper ‘Planning for the Future
As a leading practitioner in local planning and appraisal, development management and EIA, LUC has looked closely at the proposed Planning Reforms published last month – to advise our clients and inform our own response to the consultation.
We recognise the intention of the White Paper is to review the overall approach to planning in the interests of efficiency, effectiveness and improving outcomes. Noting that the Secretary of State has pledged to work with the sector to ‘iron out the details’, we hope our assessment will shed light on the likely impacts of the reforms and help to refine them.
We have evaluated the likely impact of the proposals against a range of criteria (in true Sustainability Appraisal style – but more concisely!). We drew these criteria from Government policy and used the Reforms’ objectives in our assessment. We feel this both adds an important dimension to the discussion and will also help MHCLG in refining the proposals.
The criteria against which we have assessed the White Paper’s 24 Proposals are as follows:
- Strengthening the economy and delivering development and places that society needs;
- Provide a clear direction for strategic planning, as the best way to deliver sustainable development;
- Delivering strong, healthy, vibrant and inclusive communities;
- Protecting and enhancing our natural, built and historic environment;
- Mitigating and adapting to climate change, including moving to a low carbon economy (net zero 2030);
- Supporting distinctive and high-quality design; and
- Simplifying the planning system, including enhanced use of digital technology (Plantech)
We used a ‘traffic light’ analysis for our evaluation, where green means that the proposed reform is likely to help meet the criterion; amber suggests that it may not help to meet the criterion, or more information/clarification is needed; and red suggests that the change may work against meeting the criterion. Amber could also indicate that one aspect of the reform may work against another (cross-checking the reforms).
We’re publishing our assessment in instalments over the next few weeks.
Our fourth instalment focuses on Design.
View our Design assessment and summary
We hope you find the assessment useful. Please let us know if you have any comments or if you need assistance in preparing your own response on strategicplanning@landuse.co.uk.
