TCPA "Planning Out Poverty"

The Town and Country Planning Association http://www.tcpa.org.uk/ has just published a report which addresses the question: what role can planning play as part of wider policy interventions to tackle entrenched poverty? This is an important question to ask and try to answer. And I was interested to see the overlap with some of the arguments in The Future of Planning. The report makes four key points:
- the planning system can make a difference;
- but it too often fails to consider distributional impacts and outcomes, particularly for those most in need;
- this is partly because planning has de-prioritised social justice; and
- there are practical measures that can redress this.
It then goes on to make a set of twelve recommendations which can be found at: http://www.tcpa.org.uk/pages/planning-out-poverty.html. There is a strong emphasis here on integrating a concern with poverty reduction into the National Planning Policy Framework, just as I argue for just sustainability to be so-integrated. The publication of the NPPF - while there may be key concerns over its current content - does offer an opportunity for incorporating new principles to guide planning practice. Other recommendations in the TCPA report are perhaps rather generalised, calling for new planning visions and powers. But this emphasises that the time is right for a debate on exactly how the planning system should be reformed and, perhaps, an emerging consensus among many, that low-income communities and those in poverty need to be a focal point for that debate.

Town and parish councils

If community-based planning is to work at all, it requires an institutional base, a way of organising local communities so generate ideas for the local area, harness resources from within the community and maintain open and transparent lines of accountability. The Government has undertaken a consultation exercise on making it easier to create new town or parish councils. So are these the right institutions for community-based planning, management and action? Clearly, given the legislative changes implementing the Localism agenda, there are considerable benefits in having such a council in your neighbourhood. These councils have a General Power of Competence and can exercise the Community Right to Challenge and the Community Right to Bid (in relation to community assets). They hold the new neighbourhood planning powers and also will receive a share of the Community Infrastructure Levy from new development; they can even levy a local tax (or precept) although this will not raise much.
The concern with any such institution must be about its representativeness and transparency. One does not need to believe that everything in "The Archers" is fact rather than fiction to believe some of its portrayal of parish politics. Capture of such councils by a small minority is always a possibility and indeed, representing all elements of a local community (across age, gender, class and ethnicity) may be almost impossible. Consensus cannot always be generated and some form of leadership is necessary for change to be driven through. But the danger of focussing on the 'ease' of creating councils is that the dynamics that have to be put in place to make such councils effective and just may be forgotten.
It is not just about setting up the institution 'vessel' through which community planning will occur. It is also about creating, building, managing, resolving conflicts with the local people - residential and business - who make up that community or amalgam of communities. In the UK we put far too little emphasis on community building, assuming that it will somehow happen in civil society. But such community building can be a vital way of ensuring inclusion and justice in how such parish and town councils operate and we need investment in making this happen.

After the lecture - Q&As

After the lecture on the 24th October, the Bartlett Urban Planning students also held a seminar last week and the questions raised at both were thought-provoking. I think they can be summarised as follows...
First, there was the issue of how much would be achieved through adopting a community-based approach instead of a growth-dependent approach in various locations. Some could not see real improvements in the well-being and quality of life of low-income communities being tackled without much more structural shifts. Some raised a critique of the capitalist dynamics that create these societal inequalities. In the lecture I did state that a range of policy measures including a revived welfare state and a substantial programme of public sector housing provision were necessary to address societal inequality. I was not seeking to suggest that a community-based planning approach would be a panacea. Indeed I was trying to suggest, in passing, that we too often look to the planning system to solve all urban problems and that we perhaps need to be a bit more modest in our claims for planning. That does not mean we should give up on planning. It does important things but its efforts need to be seen in conjunction with other policies. What I was trying to indicated through the emphasis on community-based planning, is that a reformed planning system could make a small, but not unimportant contribution to improving well-being and quality of life in localities and communities that are largely ignored through the emphasis on growth-dependence.
Second, some raised the question of whether there were not elements of the current government's localism agenda that fitted into the community-based approach. My answer here would be - yes - to a degree. There are indeed elements that could be used as building blocks for the beyond-growth-dependence agenda but they fail for two reasons. The planning system remains attuned to promoting development rather than supporting community initiatives; any clash between the pro-growth stance of the NPPF and local initiatives for local communities are likely to be resolved in favour of the central government policy. And, secondly, there is no mechanism for financial community-based initiatives into the longer-term so that localism may offer much more to local communities with their own resources to invest.
Third, some asked if growth-dependence and community-based approaches were really alternatives. This is an interesting one. It brought home to me that growth-dependence, if successfully implemented, should not mean ignoring communities. Rather it can only really deliver benefits to all sectors of urban communities if such communities are fully involve in and buy into the growth-led plans. And there can be spin-offs from market-led development projects that meet community needs. I would not wish to deny that. I was more concerned to think about those places and communities where market-led development does not reach. Growth-dependence is not an alternative here because it is not being offered by the private sector.
So food for thought. I hope to be back blogging more regularly now that the lecture is done and dusted and the book finally out!

An agenda for planning reform

In the forthcoming book The Future of Planning: beyond growth dependence I set out, in the final chapter, an agenda for reform of the planning system to support more community-based approaches. There are three areas where change is urgently needed if alternatives to growth-dependent planning are to become a real possibility in the localities where this is needed. The first reform is change to planning guidance, which has such an influence on local planning practice. The argument here is that just sustainability needs to be embedded in such guidance. The second set of reforms focus around the need for new planning tools. As well as specific proposed changes to planning regulation and new fiscal measures, the role of landownership as a planning tool needs to be readdressed. This has been a major lacuna in UK planning, particularly as compared to many other European countries. And thirdly, new forms of community engagement needs to be put into practice. This agenda is set ou fully in the book but also summarised in a UCL Public Policy Briefing available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/public-policy/public_policy_publications/Rydin_Policy_Briefing_September_2013.pdf

Lecture invitation 24th October at UCL

Sorry for blog silence but back from holidays and recovered form the chaos of the start of term. 

For those in London, you are cordially invited to a Public Lecture that I will be giving at UCL on Thursday 24th October from 17.30 - 19.00 with a wine reception afterwards. The location is the Gustav Tuck Lecture Theatre, Wilkins Building, UCL, London WC1E 6BT and you can book a ticket on Eventbrite at:

http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/planning/centenary-news-events-repository/centenary-lecture-yvonne-rydin

The topic will be The Future of Planning and I will be discussing some of the key themes of the new book as well as putting them in the context of current debates in planning theory. I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Advance notice of lecture

The Future of Planning: beyond growth dependence will be launched at UCL on Thursday 24th October at a reception following a public lecture by Yvonne Rydin. More details will be announced shortly but please keep the date in your diary if you can. 

This blog is now on holiday until 23rd September 2013.

Community pubs again

Community pubs are in the news once again as some 100 have been reported as achieving community asset status under the Localism Act. This sounds very positive. It gives local communities the right to delay any sale of the community asset for up to 6 months and gives them the opportunity then to raise funds to buy the asset and to do so as current use value, excluding any development gain from a change of use, say to residential. There is the prospects of the pub building be used not just as a hostelry but for a variety of local needs. But the sting in the tail is that funding for the purchase and subsequent running of the building still has to be raised. Only the wealthier communities will find it easy to find such funds. Elsewhere this potential will depend on much creativity and innovation in finding resources to make the building a true community asset. Where might such resources be found? Sweat equity is always a possibility, particularly for refurbishment. Community time banks might help with ongoing running of the asset. Crowd-funding and peer-to-peer lending  are two options that are making innovative use of the internet to provide small businesses and social enterprises with low cost loans. There are possibilities here but communities are going to need some basic business planning and financial advice to understand how to access them. A future of community-owned and managed assets is possible but it will require a clever and imaginative mix of expertise and ideas to become a reality.