Town and Country Planning articles from January 2004

Town and Country Planning archives from January 2004

T&CP back bites.
January 1, 2004... 25 years ago I growth point for the South East. It could be used to stimulate employment and environment in south Essex; it would prevent environmental damage around Stansted; and it would reduce, the impact of noise nuisance to the...

Regeneration.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 8.12 Regeneration: A report from the Sustainable Development Commission calls for stronger leadership from the Government to ensure that sustainable development principles are at the heart of regeneration policy and practice. The...

Transport: Britain's first stretch of toll motorway.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 9.12 Transport: Britain's first stretch of toll motorway, the 27 mile section around Birmingham, opens to traffic.

Environment: Research published by the Environment Agency and English Nature calls for a 376 [pounds sterling] million grant-aid programme.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 9.12 Environment: Research published by the Environment Agency and English Nature calls for a 376 [pounds sterling] million grant-aid programme to tackle pollution caused by the farming industry. www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/

Housing: The Interim Report of Kate Barker's Review of Housing Supply is published.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 10.12 Housing: The Interim Report of Kate Barker's Review of Housing Supply is published. It concludes that the UK economy would be improved by building more houses, but also emphasises the need to strike a careful balance between housing...

Waste: A House of Lords report calls for a single interdepartmental Waste Policy Unit.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 10.12 Waste:A House of Lords report calls for a single interdepartmental Waste Policy Unit to influence and implement EU waste policy and legislation. www.parliament.uk

Planning.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 15.12 Planning:The ODPM issues a consultation draft of revised planning guidance on planning and retail, leisure and town centre development--PPS6: Planning for Town Centres. The draft requires local authorities to plan for growth in town...

Transport: Transport Secretary Alistair Darling announces that, following the review of the Commission for Integrated Transport, the CIT will no longer have a role in monitoring progress on implementing the 10-Year Plan for Transport.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 15.12 Transport: Transport Secretary Alistair Darling announces that, following the review of the Commission for Integrated Transport, the CIT will no longer have a role in monitoring progress on implementing the 10-Year Plan for Transport....

Energy: The DTI announces the appointment of the Sustainable Energy Policy Advisory Board.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 15.12 Energy: The DTI announces the appointment of the Sustainable Energy Policy Advisory Board, a team of experts which will advise the Government on combating climate change and delivering reliable, competitive, and affordable energy. ...

Transport: Transport Secretary Alistair Darling publishes the White Paper The Future of Air Transport.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 16.12 Transport:Transport Secretary Alistair Darling publishes the White Paper The Future of Air Transport, on the future development of air transport in the regions of England, and in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The framework set...

Environment: The first definitive survey of the condition of England's legally protected wildlife and geological sites.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 16.12 Environment:The first definitive survey of the condition of England's legally protected wildlife and geological sites, six years in the making by English Nature, finds that more than 40 per cent of England's SSSIs are in poor condition....

Transport: Provisional results from the National Travel Survey 2002 reveal that car travel accounted for four-fifths of the total distance travelled.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 18.12 Transport: Provisional results from the National Travel Survey 2002 reveal that car travel accounted for four-fifths of the total distance travelled, that the overall distance travelled by car has increased by 10 percent over the last...

Energy: The DTI announces 15 new sites for up to 25,000 wind turbines in the Thames Estuary.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 19.12 Energy: The DTI announces 15 new sites for up to 25,000 wind turbines in the Thames Estuary, the Greater Wash, and the North West. www.crownestate.co.uk/and http://213.38.88.221/gnn/national.nsf/ti

Transport: Transport Minister Kim Howells announces the shortlist of seven English towns in the running to receive funding through the Department for Transport's 7.5 million [pounds sterling] Sustainable Transport Town initiative.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 22.12 Transport: Transport Minister Kim Howells announces the shortlist of seven English towns in the running to receive funding through the Department for Transport's 7.5 [pounds sterling] million Sustainable Transport Town initiative. Two...

Housing: The Survey of English Housing 2001-02.(context)
January 1, 2004... * 30.12 Housing: The Survey of English Housing 2001-02, carried out for the ODPM by the National Centre for Social Research, finds that the number of households in England rose from 17.2 million households in 1981 to 20.3 million households in...

Obligations ahead--don't rush.(Inside Stories)
January 1, 2004... THE TCPA HAS WELCOMED the decision to reform the planning obligations system, and has responded to the latest consultation document by supporting reforms (such as the optional charge) that bring greater certainty to the section 106 system....

Planning the key to sustainable development, TCPA tells Egan.
January 1, 2004... PLANNING 15 KEY to delivering sustainable development, but its vital and positive role is too often obscured by negative perceptions that it is only about development control and is bogged down with objections. Planning needs to be promoted...

Peter Hall receives RTPI Gold Medal.
January 1, 2004... TCPA PRESIDENT Sir Peter Hall has been awarded the RTPI Gold Medal, the highest accolade the Institute can bestow. The Gold Medal is awarded at the discretion of the RTPI Council for outstanding achievement in the field of town and country...

An MBE for Tony Fyson.
January 1, 2004... TCPA Vice-Chairman Tony Fyson has been awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours List. The award was made for services to town planning and urban environmental education. As Education Officer at the TCPA in the 1970s, Tony--together with...

Unrealistic tools and assumptions.(Inside Stories)
January 1, 2004... The TCPA has welcomed the draft revision to PPG7 (as PPS7) and its overall objective of sustaining and enhancing the distinctive environment, economy, and social fabric of the English countryside for the benefit of all. It also fully supports...

TCPA urges greater flexibility over housing densities.
January 1, 2004... THE TCPA HAS ISSUED a policy statement on residential housing densities, debunking some of the myths surrounding the issue. 'Many of the reasons traditionally cited to justify residential densities (high and low) need to be challenged of...

Barker's home truths.
January 1, 2004... IN THE WEEK that the TCPA sent its Home Truths report (supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Civic Trust, the House Builders Federation, Shelter, the National Housing Federation, and the RTPI) to...

Job creation.(People & Ideas)
January 1, 2004... THE ADVOCATES of new towns were always as much concerned with industry as with housing. In the days of Howard's two garden cities it had been a triumph to attract the Spirella corset factory to Letchworth and the grain silos of the Shredded...

A taste of battles to come.(Planning World)
January 1, 2004... THE EUROPEAN UNION in terminal meltdown: that was the message from some sections of the British media after the early collapse of negotiations on the proposed new constitution, just before Christmas. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?...

Game on!(Trading Places)
January 1, 2004... IN A previous article, (1) I described the growing attention paid by retailers and property developers to contaminated urban brownfield sites and decaying district shopping centres. Retail/leisure developments can offer jobs linked with...

Open season?(Off the Fence)
January 1, 2004... IN RECENT WEEKS I have been a participant in two local plan inquiries and a public examination of a 'sub-regional spatial strategy'. Each event was in a part of England where there has been a 'long-term upward trend in house prices and recent...

Delivering the RSS--a fundamental change, or just a new regional acronym? Mark Baker examines draft PPS11 on regional planning and finds a number of unresolved matters of concern.(regional planning)
January 1, 2004... DRAFT PPS11, on regional planning, published for consultation by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), (1) provides more detailed expression to the Government's proposals to revamp the current regional planning arrangements, moving...

Flexibility or chaos? the complexity of the workings of the new local planning framework, as outlined in draft PPS12, is likely to present a huge challenge to the delivery of effective, participative spatial planning.(local planning)
January 1, 2004... IT IS NOW DIFFICULT to tell who would have been given the worst headache: those who drafted the new planning framework, or those who have since tried to grasp its rationale and purpose. For those not satisfied with the bizarrely complicated...

A step in the right direction: Andrew Smith finds a shift away from the fence-sitting apparent in previous guidance in the recently issued draft renewable energy planning policy statement.(renewable energy)
January 1, 2004... THE LONG AWAITED review of PPG22: Renewable Energy is finally under way, with a consultation draft PPS22 released by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in November. PPS22 is concerned with all renewable energy technologies, but it is...

Curate's egg: the Government needs to pick carefully from Lord Haskins's mixed bag of Rural Delivery Review proposals.(rural review)
January 1, 2004... LORD HASKINS HAS LABOURED in the rural delivery ward and produced a curate's egg. (1) Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has inspected the newly laid egg and, while congratulating the proud parent,...

The time for rural delivery: the Rural Delivery Review is a strange mixture of factual evidence, assertion, and blind faith, and shows antipathy towards the wider rural policy agenda of reconciling conservation and development objectives.(rural review)
January 1, 2004... ON 11 NOVEMBER 2003, Lord Haskins's Rural Delivery Review was published. The Government had instigated the review a year before to make recommendations on how to simplify the delivery for rural programmes and how to achieve the rural priorities...

The Census and the cities: Tony Champion examines recent population trends in England's cities in the light of the 2001 Census results and subsequent checks.(urban demography)
January 1, 2004... THE FIRST RESULTS from the 2001 Census, released on 30 September 2002, came as a big shock to England's largest cities, as they gave figures for total population that were lower than we had been led to expect from the annual series of estimates...

The revolutionary conservatism of planning obligations policy: beneath its veneer of evolutionary, practical change, the New Approach to Planning Obligations consultation paper gives rise to fundamental issues that have yet to be adequately addressed.(planning obligations)
January 1, 2004... THE URBAN TASK FORCE (1,2) identified planning obligations as a key mechanism for achieving improvements in the quality and management of the urban environment. However, a subsequent initial review and consultation paper (3) identified...

Local development documents--the missing spatial dimension of community strategies? David Shaw looks at the as yet barely nascent relationship between spatial planning and community strategies, and at potential challenges and opportunities for planners and the reshaped planning system.(community strategies)(Cover Story)
January 1, 2004... ONE OF THE dominant mantras of policy-making in recent decades has been local empowerment and community engagement. This approach should be focused on the specific needs and aspirations of particular localities, emphasising bottom-up rather...

BedZED--eco-footprint in the suburbs: Dennis Hardy visits the BedZED housing scheme in Hackbridge, Sutton--which has taken 'what used to be thought of as alternative development a long way into the mainstream'.(Hardy Country: BedZED)
January 1, 2004... NOT SO LONG AGO, if you wanted to visit the ecological frontier you could expect a long journey to one of the remoter corners of Britain. In the 1980s I recall a [rip to a rainsodden hillside in mid-Wales to meet a small group of 'eco'...

Road to nowhere.(Design Matters)
January 1, 2004... IN THE WORDS of the immortal Talking Heads song (that dates me!): We're on a road to nowhere Come on inside Taking that ride to nowhere We'll take that ride The latest road to nowhere is a 50 metre stretch of bright green tarmac, wide...

Employment policy--the need for a growth-oriented approach.(The Regeneration Game)
January 1, 2004... THE GOVERNMENT is proposing to relax controls over the protection of employment land in development plans. At the risk of over-simplification, where there is not an up-to-date development plan then local authorities will have to demonstrate...

The North East--still Buzzin'.(North & West of Watford)
January 1, 2004... IT WAS PROBABLY less painful for Newcastle-Gateshead to lose out to Liverpool in the bid for Capital of Culture 2008 than losing out to a competitor from the South would have been. But it cannot be denied that there was a palpable sense of...

What's on.(Calendar)
January 1, 2004... January 29 Integrating Land Use and Transport Planning: the Latest Approaches. Conference, London. Details: Waterfront Conference Company, London. T: 020-7787 1210. W: www.thewaterfront.co.uk February 4 Effective Partnership...

Another rose-tinted view of the car.
January 1, 2004... The Automobile and Society FIA Foundation and AA Motoring Trust, London, 2003, PB, 50 [pounds sterling] (http://www.fiafoundation.com) THE AUTOMOBILE and Society, jointly published by the FIA Foundation for the Automobile and Society and...

Cities and markets.
January 1, 2004... Cities and Markets. Forty-seventh Annual Congress of the International Federation for Housing and Planning, Vienna, Oct. 2003 THE ANNUAL CONGRESS of the International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP) continues to be the premier...

Devolution, not decentralisation.(writeback)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... A CONSTANT THREAD running through the much of the October edition of T&CP is that the UK is paying a very high price indeed for the lack of an effective spatial planning policy. What other national Treasury, whether in the equivalent of London...

Coming soon to your neighbourhood ...(Inside America)
January 1, 2004... THE ANSWER to the question 'What is the world's largest corporation?' used to be easy. General Motors made more cars, used more steel, and employed more people than just about anyone else. But making things does not do it in the 21st century....