Town and Country Planning articles from June 2002

Town and Country Planning archives from June 2002

TCPA.
June 1, 2002... The purpose of the Town and Country Planning Association is to promote and improve the art and science of town and country planning and promote, encourage, and assist in the education of persons of any description in the said art and science...

Setting and achieving housing sustainability standards; TCPA Sustainable Housing Forum Expert seminar two: `sustainability criteria and regulatory systems', 10 April 2002.
June 1, 2002... Following the success of the TCPA Sustainable Housing Forum's first seminar, the second in its series of four brought together experts in the fields of sustainability criteria, environmental health, and regulatory systems to address two key...

Government re-organisation.
June 1, 2002... It was always wrong through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s for the Departments of Transport and Environment to be separate. Once the majority of transport staff had been hived off into the Highways Agency, the path was clear for merger, and...

Our most useful street. (People & Ideas).
June 1, 2002... I didn't bother to photograph the most useful street in my nearest town because it is exactly like your favourite street, on the east side of your town, made up of mid-19th century buildings available at low rents, which therefore attract the...

Cafe society. (Trading Places).
June 1, 2002... One of the most obvious changes in our town and city centres in recent years has been the growth of A3 uses--pubs, wine bars, restaurants, and take-aways. Many commentators have welcomed this trend, as adding to the vitality of centres and...

Scandinavian trips down nostalgia lane. (Planning World).
June 1, 2002... Going back to any of the great Scandinavian capitals these days is a bit like going into a time warp. Just as people used to say (unjustifiably, and certainly so now) that visiting New Zealand was like going back into southern England of the...

RPG--the government can't let go. (Off the Fence).
June 1, 2002... Until such time as we have elected regional assemblies, there is a serious democratic deficit in the way regional planning guidance (RPG) is prepared. The draft RPG is prepared by a technical team, composed mostly of officers on secondment from...

Transport planning in a world of more efficient cars: as the fuel-efficiency of cars improves, and motoring costs consequently fall, the use of fuel tax increases as a car-restraint policy face an uncertain political future--with implications for traffic management, social justice, and the competitive position of public transport. (feature).
June 1, 2002... The Budget 2002 (1) announcement of no change in fuel duty (FD) and vehicle excise duty (VED) rates perhaps received less attention than the same decision would have done in another year. In the event, most attention was understandably focused...

Motoring towards 2050--let's be realistic: a recent RAC Foundation report's vision of a future with more traffic, and especially more car use, flies in the face of ever more research evidence of the unsustainability and undesirability of that policy direction. (feature).
June 1, 2002... The RAC Foundation has just completed its inquiry on the future of transport policy--and the role of the car within that--over the next 50 years. Its 12--man steering committee, with one female researcher, was unanimous in reaching its...

Regional government--opportunity or threat? The Government's devolution programme must give regional assemblies the powers to succeed. (feature).
June 1, 2002... For local government, regional government offers both opportunities and threats. The Local Government Information Unit believes the establishment of regional government can be in the interests of local government, as long as it meets six...

Your Region, Your Choice--but precious little for democracy? The Your Region, Your Choice White Paper doesn't really propose very much devolution of central government functions at all, but still manages to make local government and the general public the losers. (feature).
June 1, 2002... * Your Region, Your Choice: Revitalising the English Regions. Cm5511. Regions White Paper. DTLR. The Stationery Office, May 2002 John Prescott told us that with the publication of the Regions White Paper, Your Region, Your Choice, the...

Tariffs--`achieving fair and transparent development agreements'? Far from resolving problems in the current planning obligations system, the tariff proposals set out in the Reforming Planning Obligations consultation paper would only deepen some of the existing difficulties and may even cause problems of their own. (feature).
June 1, 2002... The Reforming Planning Obligations consultation paper, issued as part of the Government's fundamental review of the planning system, set out (in para. 2.4) the following objectives for the planning obligations system: * It should enhance...

Complementarity or conflict? Reconciling regional and local planning systems; David Counsell and Graham Haughton look at some of the tensions between regional and local planning, drawing on an example case study of the Tees Valley Structure Plan. (feature).
June 1, 2002... When powers and responsibilities change between different levels of government there are inevitably winners and losers, and equally there are inevitably struggles between those who see themselves as winning and those who see themselves as...

General aviation research takes off; Terry Lober outlines the aims of a new research study on the economic role of small rural airfields. (Research Focus).
June 1, 2002... While the Terminal 5 decision may have been good news for large airports and airline businesses, it will provide little comfort to those in general aviation (a term that covers the rest of civil aviation, including recreational flying), as it...

A threat to Britain's oaks: Peter Jones, Daphne Comfort, and David Hillier look at the origins, spread, and effects of `sudden oak death' within the US, and assess the threat that the disease may pose within Britain. (feature).
June 1, 2002... Over a quarter of a century ago Dutch elm disease was at its height, ravaging the British landscape and eventually killing perhaps as many as 25 million of the nation's 30 million elm trees. (1) There are now growing concerns that a new and...

Time to reward active citizenship: drawing on a study of the operation of the Fair Shares `time bank' in Gloucestershire--an early UK example of a US initiative that uses `time' to reward civic engagement--Colin C. Williams looks at whether the initiative is more widely transferable to the rest of the UK. (feature).
June 1, 2002... Currently, governments can only call for greater `civic engagement', `self-help', and `community involvement'. They have no means of rewarding active citizenship. Consequently a key question for policy-makers is whether those active citizens...

Town centre management and marketing: Gary Warnaby and Dominic Medway report on research identifying issues that town centre managers have to face--and the tools currently used--in developing effective place marketing. (feature).
June 1, 2002... The remit of many UK town centre management (TCM) schemes has become more overtly strategic as they develop and mature. As a result, marketing--defined by the UK Chartered Institute of Marketing as `the management process which identifies,...

Maltese crossroads. (The Euro-Files).
June 1, 2002... I have just been fortunate to spend some time on Malta, lecturing on European spatial planning to postgraduate environmental planning students enrolled at the University of Malta. The main political discussion occurring in Malta at the present...