Town and Country Planning articles from March 2002

Town and Country Planning archives from March 2002

TCPA.
March 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...

Listen to those in need, says new TCPA Chair.
March 1, 2002... Planning consultant David Lock has started a three-year term as Chair of the TCPA, succeeding Professor Peter Roberts of the University of Dundee on 22 January 2002. Having completed his period of service as Chair, Professor Roberts will...

Quality parish and town councils.
March 1, 2002... Responding to the DEFRA consultation paper Quality Parish and Town Councils, the TCPA has endorsed the concept of quality parish and town councils as one of the ways of achieving the aim, first set out in the Rural White Paper of 2000, of...

TCPA points the way towards faster, better, inclusive plans.
March 1, 2002... The TCPA has criticised the Government's plans for reforming the planning system, arguing that the Planning Green Paper objectives of faster, more inclusive, and better-quality local plan-making will not be achieved by the abolition of the...

TCPA policy council meetings, January/February 2002. (In Council).
March 1, 2002... Discussion at the TCPA Policy Council meetings of both 22 January and 19 February centred on the Association's responses to the Planning Green Paper and the associated `daughter' documents. It was agreed, inter alia, to press strongly for the...

Director's diary.
March 1, 2002... The last few weeks have been a hectic round of trying to listen to all the interested parties among the TCPA's varied membership on the Green Paper's reform agenda. County councils rightly point out the folly of divorcing strategic planning...

Sustainable housing forum meets.
March 1, 2002... Bringing together experts in sustainable housing in a series of seminars, a new TCPA Sustainable Housing Forum is working to draw up recommendations for action by policy-makers and developers, and so raise the environmental standards of new...

The Planning Portal: Graham Saunders and Stephan Sadoux explain how, as part of the modernising local government process, the Planning Portal project aims to provide easier access to planning information.
March 1, 2002... The concept of the `Planning Portal' emerged during a workshop held in January 2000, led by the Planning Inspectorate with representatives from local planning authorities, planning agents, the DTLR, and the government regional offices (GROs),...

Homes and communities the priority for planning reform.
March 1, 2002... In any debate about the future of planning the main concerns should be how to address the chronic shortage of housing in this country--resulting from the lowest level of housebuilding since 1924--and how to ensure that communities are...

Michael Young's sociable legacy. (People & Ideas).
March 1, 2002... When he died, at 86, in January, we were obliged to think about Michael Young's contribution to so many aspects of life. For me it began in the late 1950s, when in a couple of years he and Peter Willmott produced their famous report on Bethnal...

Northern fight-back. (Planning World).
March 1, 2002... Newcastle upon Tyne feels a long way from London--far enough to seem almost foreign. On a good day, when the remnants of Railtrack are holding up, the GNER will get you there in just under three hours--ten minutes longer than London to Brussels...

Turning point? (Future Work).
March 1, 2002... Amid all the sound and fury over Lakshmi Mittal, the goings-on inside the DTLR, and trauma abroad in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, a couple of surprisingly optimistic and far-seeing reports emerged from the machinery of government in the early part...

RTPI putsch. (Off the Fence).
March 1, 2002... The TCPA was one of the organisations that grouped together in the early 1900s to give birth to what has now become the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). We have many members in common, participate often in each other's activities, often...

The `flood tax' -- is the government out of its depth? David Crichton looks at the recent government proposals for funding flood defences for England and Wales, and explains why he believes these will not prevent widespread insurance problems and blight in the future.
March 1, 2002... The `flood tax' -- is the government out of its depth? David Crichton looks at the recent government proposals for funding flood defences for England and Wales, and explains why he believes these will not prevent widespread insurance problems...

Mainstreaming micro renewables: Sebastian Berry looks at the implications for planning in the Performance and Innovation Unit's Energy Review, and argues that planning policies will have to set unambiguous targets for integrating `micro' renewable technologies into new urban development. (topics).
March 1, 2002... `Positive planning' is fast becoming the latest buzzword in Government circles. Publication of the Planning Green Paper and the Performance and Innovation Unit's (PIU's) Energy Review (1) has helped to focus attention on the role that planning...

Capping the post-productivist consensus: Terry Carroll, Philip Lowe, and Neil Ward find the Curry Commission report on the future of farming remarkably pragmatic and coherent, albeit with the feel of `one we baked earlier'. (topics).
March 1, 2002... Amid a flurry of largely positive media coverage, January saw the publication of Farming and Food, the report of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food (1) chaired by Sir Don Curry, the Northumberland farmer and former chair of...

Curry spices up the farming debate; in the wake of the Curry report's call for reconnection between farming and the environment, and between producer and consumer, planning will need to keep up with the pace of change and re-think rural land policies, not least to support local food-growing. (topics).
March 1, 2002... `The situation in England's farming and food industry today is unsustainable, in every sense of that term.' This was the diagnosis of the Policy Commission on Farming and Food, (1) headed by Sir Donald Curry, which was appointed as one of the...

Farming the landscape: making environmental management a formal core objective of agriculture has huge potential to transform much of the sterile monocultural landscapes of today's farmland. (topics).
March 1, 2002... After a period of great prosperity, the state of farming is in decline; a long predicted downturn in the industry being exacerbated in Britain by the dreadful impacts of BSE and foot and mouth disease. In the second half of the 20th century new...

Letchworth -- a ticket to utopia: in the first article in a new series looking at places in Britain, Dennis Hardy visits Letchworth in Hertfordshire, the `World's First Garden City'. (Hardy Country).
March 1, 2002... So how, asked a bemused visitor to a 19th-century community experiment, do you find your way to this utopia, 'by railway or by rainbow'? The question in this case was not asked of Letchworth, the first garden city, but at the time of its...

Coping with crisis in Cumbria -- the consequences of foot and mouth disease; outlining the findings of research on the social and economic impacts of foot and mouth disease in Cumbria, the county most severely affected by the outbreak,.
March 1, 2002... Coping with crisis in Cumbria -- the consequences of foot and mouth disease; outlining the findings of research on the social and economic impacts of foot and mouth disease in Cumbria, the county most severely affected by the outbreak, Katy...

Participation -- delivering a fundamental change: Diane Warburton looks at the prospects for a democratic participatory planning system in the light of the changes put forward in the Planning Green Paper -- and proposes a new approach to make the whole process of planning interactive (feature: planning green paper).
March 1, 2002... The Planning Green Paper (1) is welcome. The TCPA has been among those calling for a significant change to planning for some time -- indeed the report of TCPA's Inquiry into the Future of Planning was subtitled Reinventing Planning. (2) ...

Continuing role for the counties? Mark Baker looks at the Planning Green Paper's proposals at the national, regional, and strategic levels, and finds that, although there is much in the Green Paper to welcome, some of the solutions put forward, particularly those relating to the sub-regional scale, raise queries and concerns. (Feature: planning green paper).
March 1, 2002... `A better, simpler, faster, more accessible system that serves both business and the community'... the aspirations behind the Planning Green Paper are certainly difficult to argue with in principle. At the national level, there is a...

Sub-regional planning case remains overwhelming; the Green Paper objectives of greater speed and efficiency will not be met by removing all the strategic content of planning from local government to a strengthened but remote and possibly unaccountable regional tier of planning, and then relying for the rest on a revamped system of district-wide plans. (Feature: planning green paper).
March 1, 2002... I have just lost a planning appeal for development in my garden, which will leave me at least 100,000 [pounds sterling] worse off than I had hoped. What this reminds me (apart from the fact that the Inspectorate sometimes makes really bad...

Picturing perfect blue skies: the Planning Green Paper paints a somewhat idyllic picture, of community, developers, and government working in efficient harmony for sustainable development -- but a surprising amount of the future it promises is achieveable if only the government has the stomach to tackle a wider range of policies on which planning interventions will depend for their success. (Feature: planning green paper).
March 1, 2002... The Planning Green Paper promises a wonderful future. Planning will make sure that every community gets just the sort of development it (unanimously) wants, and this will also be just what the developers want to build. Planning decisions will...

Planning obligations and delivering sustainable development.
March 1, 2002... The Government's stated aims for reform of planning obligations are admirable: (1) `... the purpose of planning obligations should be refocused to deliver sustainable development. This means that they should be used as a mechanism to ensure...

Green light? Without mechanisms to produce effective instruments, NIMBYs and Marauders will prevail. (Feature: planning green paper).
March 1, 2002... The 1947 system envisaged a Brave New World where peoples' needs of town and country were delivered by and for the many, and no longer the pre-war few. But, step by step, the new few have regained the benefits. Now they are NIMBYs and...

As essential as compulsory education: we know what we want the planning system to do, we have clear and even in some cases tested ideas on how it should operate, and we recognise that there exists massive public good will for the continued existence of planning. (Feature: planning green paper).
March 1, 2002... I warmly welcome the thrust of this Green Paper for three reasons. In his foreword to the Green Paper the Secretary of State notes that the planning system in the UK has passed its 50th birthday and is in need of some updating. I doubt if...

Boom time for communities? (Process Practitioner's Diary).
March 1, 2002... Sit back and reflect on regeneration and community planning processes in the UK at present and the mind boggles. How much of people's time is taken up in meetings (and here I'm not just talking about the paid time of professionals, but the...

The North East: life after foot and mouth. (North -- & West -- of Watford).
March 1, 2002... There was a palpable sigh of relief when at last Northumberland, the county where it all started, was declared free from foot and mouth disease (FMD). As in other counties badly affected by the disease, it will take a long time for farming in...

The East of England: guided buses and mixed fortunes. (North -- & West -- of Watford).
March 1, 2002... The over-loaded road system around the north of Cambridge has long threatened to constrain development in an area highlighted to take much of the growth pressures created by the city's booming economy. It has also caused increasing concern...

Something for everyone? (Low-Impact Living).
March 1, 2002... A few months ago, in this column, I predicted that the Government would cancel PPGS: Simplified Planning Zones. No sooner said than done: in its Planning Green Paper it has announced that SPZs, which give planning dispensations to anyone or any...

Council housing and social experiment.
March 1, 2002... Council Housing and Culture: The History of a Social Experiment By Alison Ravetz Routledge, London, 2001, ISBN 0-415-23946-x, PB, 262 pp. + vii, index, 22.50 [pounds sterling] (HB, ISBN 415-23945-1) There is now no shortage of...

Urban sprawl -- the big picture emerges. (Inside America).
March 1, 2002... Planners and environmentalists in the USA continue to be fascinated by the issue of urban sprawl and its implications for the environment and sustainability. Judging by their desire for sport utility vehicles (SUVs), consumers care much less....

Beauty and the built environment. (Write Back).
March 1, 2002... Matthew Carmona's article entitled `Better urban design adds value' (T&CP, Oct. 2001) offers an interesting analysis of this important issue. A major omission is any reference to beauty or even architecture which gives scale, order and beauty...

Planning for telecommunications. (Write Back).
March 1, 2002... In `Planning for telecommunications -- different signals' (T&CP, Sept. 2001), it was stated that the current planning regime for telecommunications was introduced in 1999 to supplement prevailing permitted development rights. Two readers have...

Back log.
March 1, 2002... Twenty-five years ago `1,000 million [pounds sterling] aid waiting for Windscale'; `Energy worth 1 billion [pounds sterling] a year wasted, says Minister'; `Use of windmills urged'; `Nuclear energy a stopgap'; `Plea for more use of solar...

The sheer egalitarian power of currencies. (Local Exchange).
March 1, 2002... Innovative people tend to pop up again and again. Lord Young of Dartington -- one of the great innovators of the 20th century, who died in January -- was definitely one of these. Another is the Washington-based inventor of time banks, Professor...