Town and Country Planning articles from April 2006

Town and Country Planning archives from April 2006

25 Years ago.(t&cp back bites)
April 1, 2006... NOTHING in a crowded country is more scandalous than unused land, and if you can work with nature to make something of it, you will attract people, as well as flora and fauna. If those empty acres were made green and attractive, whatever had...

10 Years ago.(t&cp back bites)
April 1, 2006... THERE IS an urgent need for planners to start considering now what needs to be done to accommodate the inevitable consequences of climate change, which are likely to affect everything from the design of buildings, streets and public spaces to...

5 Years ago.(t&cp back bites)
April 1, 2006... THE modernisation agenda contains a mass of contradictory pressures, but the duty to produce a community plan and the new power to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of the community are very welcome. Planners will need...

Context: news, digest, March 2006.
April 1, 2006... * 2.3 Energy: Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks and Rural Affairs Minister Jim Knight refuse permission for the construction of a 27-turbine wind farm on common land at Whinash, near Tebay in Cumbria, on the grounds that the serious effects on the...

Guidance for sustainable energy planning: three new publications offering guidance on key issues in energy-efficient design and sustainable energy use are now available from the TCPA, as Sustainable Development Policy Officer.(HOMES & COMMUNITIES FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE)(Town and Country Planning Association)
April 1, 2006... THERE IS A wide-ranging scientific consensus that our climate is changing and that climatic changes will intensify, with potentially catastrophic implications for global ecosystems. While the science is well understood and the actual climate...

Shaping the North East plan: policy officer David Waterhouse outlines some of the key issues on which the TCPA addresses the recent Examination in Public into the draft East Regional spatial strategy.
April 1, 2006... THE Examination in Public (EIP) of the North East Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) revision draft, VIEW: Shaping the North East, opened in Gateshead in early March, and has recently concluded. The TCPA was invited to speak on a variety of...

Informed by the market--but not driven by it.
April 1, 2006... PPS3--Sustainable Urban Extensions TCPA Conference, London, 9 February 2006 THE TCPA conference 'PPS3--Sustainable Urban Extensions' held in London on 9 February began with as impartial a presentation of a set ODPM PowerPoint slides on...

The household numbers again.(TOWN & COUNTRY Planning)
April 1, 2006... AS Alan Holmans notes in his article in this issue of Town & Country Planning, the household projections for England and the regions released by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in March--being higher than any previous set of household...

The slippery city-region.(Planning World)
April 1, 2006... THERE'S A strange sensation you can get occasionally, late at night in a party or a pub: everyone is talking animatedly at the tops of their voices about a topic of passionate importance, but you haven't a clue as to what they're actually...

Spiky skylines.(exhibitions)
April 1, 2006... EACH MARCH a weighty portion of the UK property and development industry decamps to Cannes for four-day exhibition and associated networking event called MIPIM (Morche International des Professionnels d'Immobilier). It provides an illuminating...

Will the watchdog bite?(Office of Fair Trading)
April 1, 2006... POPULAR CONCERN over the power of large retail organisations, especially the food chains, has intensified since I last wrote on this subject. (1) Following pressure from representatives of independent food retailers, the Office of Fair Trading...

Locked gateway.(regional planning)
April 1, 2006... ARGUABLY there have been few new ideas in regional planning for 40 years. All the current 'growth areas' in the Sustainable Communities strategy, for example, have their genesis in various studies from the 1960s--the Thames Gateway being a...

Just in time-rural programme back on course: even though it was abandoned after a welcome, if last-minute change of heart, the Government's proposal to remove the 'staircasing' cap on shared-ownership affordable rural housing will have a damaging effect that may be felt for several years.(rural housing)
April 1, 2006... THE RELAXATION of a tiny part of Government housing policy was announced in the House of Lords just ten days before it was due to be implemented. As part of the overall drive to assist and encourage home ownership, occupiers of shared-ownership...

A step-change in Scottish regeneration policy? Steve Tiesdell, David Adams, Annette Hastings and Ivan Turok examine the Regeneration Policy Statement issued at the end of February by the Scottish Executive, and find that, despite being a 'statement of intent' rather than a concrete plan to get things done, it could prove to be a turning point in regeneration policy in Scotland.(regeneration in scotland)
April 1, 2006... ANNOUNCING its ambition to 'get smarter' about regeneration policy and practice, the Scottish Executive's recent People and Place: Regeneration Policy Statement1 represents a clear step forward. In contrast with England, which has had the urban...

The projections climb higher: Alan Holmans looks at the latest household projections for England and the English regions, and at why they are so much higher than all previous projections, and considers some of their implications.(household projections)
April 1, 2006... THE NEW household projections for England and the English regions released by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) on 14 March (issued as Statistical Release 2006/0042) (1) will be very controversial. They are higher than any previous...

Simple questions, hard answers: the Energy Review, whose consultation phase closed this month, presents a clear opportunity to meet the daunting challenge of devising an energy policy that will drive energy demand down year on year, decade on decade.(energy supply and use)(Cover story)
April 1, 2006... THE GOVERNMENT launched the consultation phase of its Energy Review at the end of January with a glossy document charting progress towards our energy goals and a short video explaining why new decisions on energy policy are becoming urgent....

Planning for sustainable living: the new community of hammarby Sjostab in Stockholm sets environmental standards that put UK development models to shame.
April 1, 2006... THE WORD 'SUSTAINABLE' is one of the most misused in the English language, usually being applied by politicians and publicists to things that are actually far from sustainable. One of the most obvious examples is the Office of the Deputy Prime...

Practical spatial planning for the rural-urban fringe: Nick Gallent looks at how the concept of multi-functionality could provide a basis for planning effective responses to the challenges posed by the rural-urban fringe.(urban fringe)
April 1, 2006... IT IS MORE THAN a decade since Jed Griffiths described the rural-urban fringe as 'planning's last frontier': (1) an area presenting the planning profession with a number of unique challenges. There has been cyclical concern for the fringe over...

Do village design statements make a difference? Reporting the results of recent study in the Kent Downs AONB, Catherine Hughes argues that village design statements are proving to be a popular and increasingly effective way of enabling communities to participate in the planning process, and that their eligibility for supplementary planning guidance/document status needs to be preserved.(community involvement)
April 1, 2006... AT A TIME when community involvement is being encouraged at all levels of the statutory planning system, the experience of preparing and making use of village design statements--one of the most enduring and popular methods of community...

Back to the future for small shops: Peter Jones, Daphne Comfort and David Hillier examine the findings and conclusions of the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group's report High Street Britain: 2015.(planning for detail)
April 1, 2006... THE PUBLICATION in mid-February of the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group report High Street Britain: 2015 (1) seems to mark the start of a new set of skirmishes in what many media commentators depict as the war between the supermarket...

Goods again--a meeting of the the green and respect agendas.(Earth Rights)(Onley Prison)(Coventry City Mission)(Warwickshire Environmental Trust and Warwickshire County Council)(Column)
April 1, 2006... I SPENT some time in prison recently. Fortunately only for the best part of a day and by no means against my will. The reason? The launch of a project entitled 'Goods Again', which is one of the best examples of sustainable development in...

Exam fever.(Legal Eye)
April 1, 2006... DURING the course of this spring the new development plan system will be subjected to its first significant test, with examinations into the soundness of development plan documents (DPDs) commencing in earnest. What revision should local...

My prescription for the great big lottery.(Going Local)(Board, National Lottery Charities)(Column)
April 1, 2006... I HAVE HAD two brushes with National Lottery grant-making quangos in recent weeks, something I try to keep to a minimum. On one ocassion, an opinion poll company asked me various rather simplistic questions--and my views on a scale of one to...

Thanks, Mr Lovelock, but no thanks.(James Lovelock)
April 1, 2006... I recently woke up to hear BBC Radio 4 telling me--almost in one breath--three things: that yet another scientific report confirmed that the polar ice cap was melting as a result of global warming; that the powerful nations of the world were...