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The Land Use Framework for England (the Framework) runs to 2050 and sets out the Government’s assessment of the current land uses in England.
The Framework is in many ways very good, yet intrinsically, undeliverable and when you step back and look at how they plan to achieve their aims, it seems horrendously convoluted and inefficient.
The challenges identified are significant with the Framework forecasting the impact on land use ambitions and an assessment of the capacity to accommodate this degree of change. I have considered the Framework from a development perspective, but it covers a range of other equally important users of English land.
The Government aims to build 300,000 new homes per annum, but, at the moment, it is only achieving around 50% of that target. In addition, economic development is crucial to growth and needs resources to drive this forward.
Whilst reading the Framework, I put together a note of the plans and policy documents which it identified as needing to be dovetailed together to form a comprehensive policy environment. Along with the Framework itself, there are 15 of these.
I completely understand that we need a suite of documents, but it’s a shame we have not had a more radical consolidation of these. The result would be a more effective, more user‑friendly system which takes fewer resources to produce and manage, freeing up staff to deliver outcomes on the ground.
The reality is that our planning system is complex, costly, slow and often disproportionate. There are not enough planning officers to process the current volume of planning applications, let alone a doubling of that workload. Without additional resources, it is wholly unrealistic to reverse the current underperformance.
There is much good stuff in the Framework about a digital revolution to bring disparate data sets together, to streamline processes and improve efficiencies. This is horrid conundrum because it requires resource now to free up resources later and in the meantime, the desired outcomes fail to be delivered.
Last year, the Government introduced meaningful planning reform to make the system more efficient yet at the same time, I watched councils progress local plan‑making and Local Nature Recovery Strategies on broadly parallel but otherwise separate tracks. This has involved different officers consulting the same people on similar, interrelated issues, resulting in two wholly independent yet complementary documents.
This is deeply inefficient, creates a sub-optimal outcome and is an illustration of the systematic challenges which the Framework should have tackled.
What we have is an inter-related web in which Spatial Development Strategies inform Local Plans which in turn inform Neighbourhood Plans. These must also reflect the Infrastructure Strategy, Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, Local Nature Recovery Strategy, Environmental Delivery Plans, Regional Catchment Water Plans and, where relevant, National Park Management Plans and National Landscape Management Plans. These plans then need to reflect each other. This system lacks any real co-ordination yet sucks up resources in the hopeless task of trying to achieve the impossible.
My view is that we need one regional strategy covering all land uses with a single detailed delivery document for smaller geographic areas where needed.
In addition, instead of tying up resources micromanaging the life out of projects, we need a clear set of goals and parameters that give professionals the freedom to bring these forward.
Having spent many years working in development, I believe that once land has been allocated, we should set clear design parameters that reflect the local vernacular and trust the professionals to deliver within them. Will there be some mistakes and things people don’t like? Of course there will, but imperfect progress is better than no progress.
That’s why this Framework, despite its intent, is a real opportunity missed.
GSC Grays News
Land use Framework is horrendously convoluted, inefficient and a missed opportunity
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