Town and Country Planning articles from March 2003

Town and Country Planning archives from March 2003

The draft London Plan.
March 1, 2003... Draft London Plan--Examination in Public, 3 March-17 April 2003 The TCPA has made written submissions to the Examination in Public of the draft London Plan. The full responses to questions posed prior to the examination--edited extracts...

Director's diary.
March 1, 2003... Next year, if I were to choose between sitting through the Standing Committee examining the Planning Bill in the House of Commons and running the London Marathon, it would have to be the London Marathon--it would be the easier option. There are...

Maurice Ash--an appreciation.
March 1, 2003... The death of Maurice Ash marks the end of a generation of intellectual luminaries such as Peter Self, Derek Senior, and Bill Luttrell, who sustained the Association's policy work for over 20 years in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Maurice was...

Professor Michael Breheny.
March 1, 2003... Everyone at the TCPA was deeply saddened to learn of the death of TCPA Vice-Chairman Professor Michael Breheny, and wish to express their sincere condolences to his family. A full appreciation will appear in the next issue of Town & Country...

New policy statements from the TCPA.
March 1, 2003... Two new statements of TCPA policy have been launched, following on from the publication last year of the first two in a new-format series. The Climate Change policy statement argues that the planning system has a vital role to play in...

SEA may overcomplicate the system..
March 1, 2003... TCPA Response to ODPM Consultation Paper, Draft Guidance on Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive The TCPA has welcomed the Government's draft guidance on strategic environmental assessment (SEA), but believes that building on the...

Responding to the communities plan.
March 1, 2003... Providing homes for people who need them while protecting and enhancing our environment presents perhaps the most significant environmental problem facing today's politicians. Media coverage of the Government's Sustainable Communities...

Not in our backyard. (People & Ideas).
March 1, 2003... I chanced to mention in the last issue the way that Brazil was the one Latin American state which had sought to divert the increase in population from coastal cities to the interior. You may remember the film Central Station, about an orphaned...

The deep shadow of AIDS. (Planning World).
March 1, 2003... Hlabisa is one of the most haunting places on earth. It's an upgraded squatter settlement in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa, astride the main N2 highway about 100 kilometres north of Durban; thousands of tourists pass it on their...

Tackling traffic emissions. (Getting Somewhere).
March 1, 2003... Traffic reduction is apparently off the national agenda. In recent evidence to a House of Commons Select Committee, the Secretary of State for Transport, Alistair Darling, stated that 'it is not the Government's objective to reduce traffic...

The mayor's London housing plan under scrutiny. (Talking Houses).
March 1, 2003... In April the Examination in Public on the draft London Plan moves on to its inquiry into the housing policies in the draft London Plan. The Plan is the third key event in the history of strategic planning for London since the end of the Second...

In Myer's shadow. (Off the Fence).
March 1, 2003... Local planning authorities are being given ever more encouragement to use compulsory purchase powers to assemble land where private land-owners appear unwilling or unable to deliver a desired urban regeneration project. The Planning and...

Civilising city centres? (Feature).
March 1, 2003... As the Licensing Bill continues its passage through Parliament, Marion Roberts presents evidence from recent studies of the management of the public realm in four northern European cities which suggests that, without a coherent set of planning...

Sustainable communities.
March 1, 2003... The Government's policy statement and action programme Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future (the 'Communities Plan') promises a 'step-change' in approach to delivering 'decent homes and a good quality local environment'. Key...

And now for commitment, investment, and effective delivery: the Sustainable Communities document is a bold statement of intent by the Government, and the challenge now is to bolster the chances that the vital missing elements for effective delivery can be added without too much further delay. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... The 'Communities Plan' was launched with much ceremony. Most of the individual contents were not new, and it left much to future announcements regarding funding and delivery. However, these apparent shortcomings should not mislead us into...

Growing the Milton Keynes sub-region: in the wake of the Sustainable Communities announcement, David Lock looks at the 'broad vision for the sub-region' offered in the earlier Final Report of the Milton Keynes and South Midlands Study. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... Planning at the regional scale for the South East of England has until recently been asleep. Serious regional planning was ended with the abolition of the South East Regional Economic Planning Council (SERPC) in the 1970s. Fortunately it left a...

Running along the corridor: David Henry considers the increasing pace of growth in the London-Stansted-Cambridge Corridor. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... 'Walk,--don't run' is one of those school-days phrases that is so deeply ingrained in almost everybody's memory that it can still stop you in your tracks if issued with the right intonation in the voice. In my case it was usually barked down a...

East Kent's glittering prizes: the opening of the CTRL in 2007 could transform not just the economy of the Ashford growth area, but the economies of the ring of seaside and port towns of East Kent. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... 'Planning by Stealth', you might call it: they brought out the final report of the Ashford expansion study just before Christmas. (1) It was the last of three that had been commissioned for the major growth areas identified in RPG9, John...

Opportunity knocks once more for Ashford. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... Those charged with planning Ashford's future must ensure that the town does not become a housing-dominated dormitory, that its location and unique links with Europe are exploited, and that the funding and delivery mechanisms are in hand to...

The Thames Gateway--the regeneration challenge: regeneration and growth in the Thames Gateway area present both challenges and opportunities. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... The TCPA's event 'Creating Sustainable Communities: An Interactive Masterclass--the Thames Gateway', held on 26 February, was attended by a range of professionals from the public and private sectors and from voluntary organisations. The seminar...

City-lite--planning for the Thames Gateway: Graham Haughton looks at the Government's most recent proposals for the Thames Gateway area and argues that while there is much to commend them, they are nevertheless not really proposals for truly sustainable communities. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... The Thames Gateway proposals are in many ways the most dramatic of the many initiatives announced in Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future. (1) The Prime Minister himself will chair a new Cabinet committee which will look at the...

More action plan than strategy: there are numerous helpful proposals in the Sustainable Communities document, but it crucially fails to take into account the significance of the economy or recognise the interconnection between pressures in the South and problems in the North. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... Sustainable Communities is the Government's action plan to tackle the twin issues of development pressure in the South East and disinvestment from the North and Midlands. The response of the politicians has been to go with the grain; as was...

The Sustainable Communities plan--really building for the future? Barry Goodchild and Paul Hickman look at the Sustainable Communities plans to address the problems of poor-quality and unpopular housing in the North and the Midlands. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... The recently launched policy plan, Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future, (1) perhaps represents the most important housing policy statement since the publication of the Housing Green Paper. (2) While considerable attention has...

Myopia: combined with the prevailing, but historically short-sighted orthodoxy in favour of 'compact cities', the Government's passion for 'sustainable communities' has all the ingredients of a planning disaster in the making. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... A striking feature of the debate over the Government's housing plans has been the absence of a sense of history. Few people in the policy-making arena, at least--are stopping to ask themselves whether the passion for 'sustainable communities'...

A 'take and give' green belt? Martin Elson looks at the Deputy Prime Minister's target, set in the Sustainable Communities document, of maintaining or increasing the current area of land designated as green belt in each region. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... 'Today I am giving a guarantee to maintain or increase green belt land in every region of England'. (1) This headline-grabbing Parliamentary announcement by John Prescott is clearly designed to allay criticisms that the Government, in its...

Transport and the urban pattern: following recent reports on sustainable communities and the land use implications of the 10 Year Transport Plan, Stephen Marshall considers wider and longer-term transport and urban patterns, and how these might inform the planning agenda. (Sustainable Communities).
March 1, 2003... The map of any country tells more than one tale. A first glance at Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future (1)--may give a polarised impression of the nation. In the starkest interpretation of the Government's new urban development...

Good news for renewables? (Future Work).
March 1, 2003... The Government published its Energy White Paper, Our Energy Future--Creating a Low Carbon Economy, at the end of February. It has been a long time coming--remember the Performance and Innovation Unit report, The Energy Review, published in...

With our backs to the wall ...
March 1, 2003... Re:urbanism By Kelvin Campbell and Rob Cowan Urban Exchange, (c/o Urban Initiatives, 35 Heddon Street, London W1B 4BR Tel. 020-7287 3644), 2002, PB, 15 [pound sterling] plus 2.50 [pound sterling] p&p (20 [pound sterling] inc. p&p...

Cities and networked infrastructure.
March 1, 2003... Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition By Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin Routledge, London, 2002, ISBN 0-415-1896.5-9, PB, 479 pp. + xxix, index, 22.99 [pound sterling] (HB, ISBN...

Let's go and see ...
March 1, 2003... The Good Place Guide: Urban Design in Britain and Ireland By John Billingham and Richard Cole BT Batsford, 2002, ISBN 0 7134 8786 0, PB, 320pp., index, 12.99 [pound sterling] You always know that you've started in earnest on the 'Big...

What's on.
March 1, 2003... April 16 Designing Out Crime: Strategy and Tactical Measures to Reduce Crime in the Urban Environment, London. Details: Landor Conferences, London. Tel. 020-7582 0128 16-17 Congestion Charging in the Capital and Lessons for the Rest...

Criminalisation and enforcement. (Write Back).
March 1, 2003... While I sympathise with John Harrison's desire to strengthen enforcement procedures in respect of certain abuses of the planning system ('Paying for enforcement', T&CP, Feb. 2003), before advocating heavy-handed solutions such as...

Workplace travel plans. (Write Back).
March 1, 2003... The feature on workplace travel plans (T&CP, Nov. 2002) understated the benefits they could bring to sustainable transport. The key idea should be that public transport serving a given development should link up with other services to provide...

Backlash--revolt against planning? (Inside America).
March 1, 2003... Whenever American politics moves to the right, or the economy is sluggish, it seems as though planning takes a hit. When both happen at once, trouble surely follows, and the present time is no exception. With the Bush administration in the...

Modelling a sustainable future. (Connections).
March 1, 2003... Deciding what kind of development is likely to be the most sustainable is far from easy. A new computer-based model known as SPARTACUS (System for Planning and Research in Towns and Cities for Urban Sustainability), developed with EU support,...

Who's in charge? (Connections).
March 1, 2003... SPARTACUS is, of course, not the only modelling program available to help find the most sustainable solutions to our problems. Another--IWM--has been developed in Canada to help local authorities evaluate the lifecycle environmental and...

Nothing new. (Connections).
March 1, 2003... Every government is accused by the opposition of failing to control expenditure on large public works projects, despite the fact that the opposition almost certainly presided over exactly similar failures. Overspends on such projects are...

Secure? (Connections).
March 1, 2003... Nuclear power enthusiasts often argue that their power stations offer greater security of supply than either fossil fuel stations that rely on imported fuel or renewables [hat are often weather reliant. However, they don't seem to have...