The Planning System, Policy

and Practice in England (1)

Nick Gallent, 3 November 2022

Today

• Planning in the UK - Introduction

• Roots of the modern planning system
• The comprehensive system, 1947
• The planning hierarchy
• Planning policy and practice
• Recent policy developments
• Reflections

2
Planning in the UK
Planning as a contributor to positive ‘place making’
through:

• Visioning the future of places;

• Addressing spatial inequalities;
• Facilitating the provision of infrastructure;
• Allocating land for key uses, including housing;
• Promoting the regeneration of urban areas;
• Conserving built and natural heritage;
• Promoting sustainable arrangements of space;
3
Planning in the UK

Achieved in the context of:

• Private land ownership;

• Discretionary plan and decision making;
• Absence of zoning and zoning ordinances;
• Power localised in lowest-tier authorities;
• Significant inputs from community and
development actors;
• Perception of a regulatory, unambitious mind-set.
4
Planning in the UK
Two alternate views of planning:

“What’s England really? If you want to be brutal

about it, England is shopping malls, staggeringly
thick-witted and insensitive road schemes, lousy
architecture, supermarkets, theme pubs and crowds
of people wandering round, looking puzzled and
disgruntled … North to south, you find the same
chain-stores, the same eateries, the same cretinous
planning f**k-ups” (Charles Jennings, Up North,
1995)
5
Planning in the UK
Two alternative views of planning:

“Our built environment is never merely functional or

utilitarian, but an expression of the values we hold
dear, the kind of society we are and aspire to be […]
Planning matters because it is the means by which
we achieve those aims. It is how we avoid making
places distorted by individualism and greed, and
encourage towns and communities shaped by an
ideal of the common good”, Secretary of State, CLG,
2008 6
Planning in the UK

• Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) make plans and

manage development in line with principles and
policies contained in those plans;
• This is development planning, which happens
downstream of national policy and strategic
planning and upstream of neighbourhood
planning;
• How did the system come about?

7
Roots of the Modern Planning System

I turned into an alley 'neath the wall-

And stepped from earth to hell. -The light of Heaven,
The common air was narrow, gross, and dim-
The tiles did drop from the eaves; the unhinged doors
Tottered o'er inky pools, where reeked and curdled
The offal of a life; the gaunt-haunched swine
Growled at their christened playmates o'er the scraps.
Shrill mothers cursed; wan children wailed; sharp coughs
Rang through the crazy chambers; hungry eyes
Glared dumb reproach, and old perplexity,
Too stale for words; o'er still and webless rooms,
The listless craftsmen through their elf-locks scowled.

From The Saint’s Tragedy (1848) by Charles Kingsley

8
9
Roots of the Modern Planning System

• 19th Century UK cities had grown rapidly on the

back on industrialisation;
• They were filthy and disease-ridden;
• Chadwick Report, 1842 on ‘sanitary conditions of
labouring population’ linked bad housing and lack
of infrastructure to poor health;
• Argument made that national government should
intervene;
• Public Health Act 1845 strengthened ‘by-laws’;
10
Roots of the Modern Planning System

• But government action was slow, largely because of

reticence to interfere in matters of private property;
• Also system of local government (and local
responsibility) had to be strengthened before
coordinated planning could be established;
• That happened via Local Government Acts:
empowerment of County Councils (1888) and
District Councils (1894 and 1899);
• But the in the meantime, philanthropists and
social reformers developed model projects.
11
Roots of the Modern Planning System

Ebenezer Howard
famously described
how planned ‘Garden
Cities’ could provide
an alternative to
unplanned slums.

12
Roots of the Modern Planning System

• Those models shaped a debate over what might

be achieved through planning;
• At the same time, the benefits of regulating private
development (to avoid slum conditions) were
discussed alongside plans to provide public
housing;
• Housing of the Working Classes Acts 1885 and
1890 legislated for public housing;
• Newly empowered local authorities were
instructed to provide it, but given no funding.
13
Roots of the Modern Planning System

• That funding came after World War I: Housing,

Town Planning Etc. Act 1919 – The ‘Addison Act’;
• Suddenly, local authorities are planning for, and
building public housing;
• Boom in housebuilding 1919 to 1939: 4 million
new homes, 1.1 million of which ‘public’;
• But no effective planning of private housing,
leading to ‘ribbon development’ and sprawl;
• A comprehensive system needed that deals with
the problem of private land ownership and rights. 14
The Comprehensive System, 1947

• During World War II government debated the

challenges faced before the war (housing growth,
rural protection and social welfare) and those it
would encounter after (social and economic
reconstruction);
• The need for comprehensive planning was clear;
• Its details were set out by three major inquiries:
Barlow (1940: regional development and de-
concentration), Uthwatt (1941: nationalisation of
rights), Scott (1942: farming and urban
encroachment) 15
The Comprehensive System, 1947

Inquiries underpinned key post-war legislation:

• Distribution of Industry Act 1945

• New Towns Act 1946
• Agriculture Act 1947
• Town and Country Planning Act 1947
• National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act
1949
16
The Comprehensive System, 1947
Town and Country Planning Act 1947
• Nationalised ‘development rights’;
• Defined ‘development’ as: ‘the carrying out of building,
engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or
under land, or the making of any material change in the
use of any buildings or other land’;
• Defined the types of development, or material change, that
would require ‘planning permission’
• Defined those things not requiring permission
• Charged local authorities with drawing up of local plans;
• Directed local authorities to direct and regulate
development in line with those plans. 17
The Comprehensive System, 1947
Key features:

• A principle-based rather than compliance-based system;

• Proposal plans and not ‘zoning ordinances’;
• Discretionary: plans become ‘material consideration’ in
decision making, alongside other ‘material
considerations’
• Local authorities have two main statutory duties: draw
up plans (‘forward planning’), make land use decisions
in light of those plans (‘development control /
management’)
• Land owners need ‘permit’ to develop. 18
The comprehensive System, 1947

• The system sought to encourage healthier living

conditions through building better quality housing
at lower densities and clearing slums; to promote
open space ‘green lungs’ in areas of high density
development; to create mixed communities; to
influence and control new development in the
wider public interest;
• Also sought to protect the ‘best’ landscapes (e.g.
National Parks); to protect the most historic areas
and buildings (e.g. Conservation Areas and Listed
Buildings). 19
The Comprehensive System, 1947

• The principles of the 1947 system are largely

unchanged today;
• But layers of added complexity, affecting the
planning hierarchy and how the system achieves
different goals, and how people input into the
system, are now present;
• So, to the planning system, policy and practice
today.
20
21
 1998/9 2004 2004 2010 2010/11 2022
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Department for Communities and local Department for
(ODPM) (until May 2006) Government Communities and
National

local Government /
MHCLG** (DLUHC)
National Planning Policy Guidance Gradually Planning Policy Statements
(PPGs) (PPS) replaced Planning Policy National Planning
Guidance( PPG) Policy Framework
(NPPF) 2012 / 2018
Government Offices Government Offices
Regional

RDAs / RAs RDAs / RAs Nil - after 2012

Housing / Economic Strategies Housing / Economic Strategies

REGIONAL PLANNING GUIDANCE REGIONAL SPATIAL STRATEGIES
County Councils
County

Nil Nil

STRUCTURE PLANS
Local Planning Authorities Local Planning Authorities Local Planning
Authorities
Local

DEVELOPMENT PLANS LOCAL DEVELOPMENT LOCAL PLANS

FRAMEWORKS
Parish / Community Councils Parish / Community Councils Parish / Community
Community

Councils
Parish /

VILLAGE DESIGN STATEMENTS / VILLAGE DESIGN STATEMENTS / NEIGHBOURHOOD

PARISH PARISH PLANS & ORDERS
APPRAISALS / PARISH PLANS APPRAISALS / PARISH PLANS
22
The Planning (System) Hierarchy

• The planning system overlays onto a complex

hierarchy of local government;
• Above that hierarchy, there was the European
Union (until end of 2020);
• Below that hierarchy, there are ‘Neighbourhood
Planning’ areas

23
The Planning (System) Hierarchy

The European Union

National Government(s)

Sub-National (Counties and Regions)

Local Government

Communities / Neighbourhoods
24
The Planning (System) Hierarchy

Directives / Funding

Policy

Higher-level Spatial Strategy

Local Plans and Development Management

Neighbourhood Plans and Local Democracy

25
Planning Policy and Practice – European
Union (no longer applies to UK)
• European Union (EU) does not have a direct role
(‘competency’) in town planning, which remains the
responsibility of member states;
• However, some areas of EU policy have big impacts on
planning and the spatial distribution of people, industry and
commerce (e.g. Structural Funds);
• Key goals of EU policy include promoting economic and
social cohesion, promoting the conservation of natural
resources (require EIA) and cultural heritage and helping
achieve a more balanced economy across Europe;
• Territorial Cohesion principle in 2009 Lisbon Treaty.
26
Planning Policy and Practice – European
Union (no longer applies to UK)
• European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), 1999:
(https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/offici
al/reports/pdf/sum_en.pdf)
• Not a binding plan, but a document which aims to
coordinate the development strategies of EU member
states;
• Seeks to achieve ‘balanced and sustainable development,
in particular by strengthening economic and social
cohesion’;
• Central policy of ‘poly-centricity’ – aim to disperse
economic development from congested urban regions,
refocusing it on less developed regions. 27
28
Planning Policy and Practice – National
Government(s)
• UK comprises ‘Great Britain’ (England, Scotland and
Wales) and Northern Ireland;
• Planning sits in ‘Department for Levelling Up, Housing
and Communities’ in England (from Sept 2021);
• National government / DLUHC sets the legal and
policy framework for planning;
• Legal / law in the form of Acts of Parliament (primary
legislation) and subordinate (secondary) legislation;
• Policy and guidance (e notes.

29
Planning Policy and Practice – National
Government(s)
Primary Legislation Secondary Legislation Policy / Guidance
(examples) (Statutory Instruments) (setting out duties of
local authorities)
Town & Country Town and Country Planning DoE Circulars
Planning Act 1971 (Use Classes) Order 1987
(as amended)

(subordinate to the Town and Planning Policy Guidance

Country Planning Act 1971) Notes (PPG)
Town and Country Town and Country Planning Planning Policy
Planning Act 1990 (General Permitted Statements (PPS)
Development) Order 2015
(subordinate to Town and National Planning Policy
Country Planning Act 1990) Framework (NPPF)
30
Planning Policy and Practice – National
Government(s)
• Policy (guidance) tells local authorities how to
interpret and deliver statutory duties;
• ‘Guidance’ accumulated over 70 years, first as
‘circulars’, then as ‘notes’, then ‘statements’, then
a single ‘framework’ from 2011;
• NPPF was an attempt to simplify guidance in one
place – in just 53 pages;
• Last updated in 2019: controversial for definition
of ‘sustainable development’, ‘default yes’ and
loss of detail. 31
https://assets.publishing.s
ervice.gov.uk/government
/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/810
197/NPPF_Feb_2019_re
vised.pdf

32
Planning Policy and Practice – National
Government(s)

• Police local compliance with national policy,

through Planning Inspectorate (PINS);
• Monitor Local Plan preparation through PINS;
• Coordinate appeals through PINS;
• ‘Call in’ and directly determine applications of
national significance;
• Coordinate ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure
Projects’ (NSIPS), removed from the regular
planning process after 2008.
33
Planning Policy and Practice – Sub-National

• There is no higher level ‘plan’ for England or the

UK;
• Structure Plans for England between 1968 and
2004, at the ‘county level’;
• Advisory ‘regional planning guidance’ from 1998
till 2004;
• Regional spatial strategies from 2004 till 2011/12;
• No statutory sub-national (‘strategic‘) planning
after 2012.
34
Planning Policy and Practice – Sub-National
• Regions provided
framework between 2004
and 2011/12;
• But no ‘culture’ of regional
government in England;
• Thematic strategic plans,
framing local plans;
• Set housing targets;
• Unpopular in the fast-
growing southern regions;
• Revoked in 2011.
35
• There is a ‘London
Plan’, formulated under
different powers –
published in March
2021;
• the_london_plan_2021
.pdf
• It provides a strategic
framework for local plans
in London

36
Planning Policy and Practice – Sub-National
• Lack of ‘strategic
planning’ tends to puzzle
people;
• Local Enterprise
Partnerships (LEPS),
since 2010, coordinate
investment;
• Voluntary partnerships
that support business;
• But not democratic and
no formal planning.

37
Planning Policy and Practice – Sub-National
• Emergent ‘city regions’ in
England;
• Loosely orchestrated by
government as part of a
devolution ambition;
• More powerful city mayors
leading on planning across
‘combined authorities’;
• E.g. Greater Manchester
Combined Authority
producing Greater
Manchester Strategy.
38
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
• Development planning and management;
• Making plans and dealing with planning
applications;
• 1947 Act required: ‘a plan indicating the manner
in which a local planning authority propose
that land in there area is to be used’;
• Indicative plans, conforming to national policy,
providing basis of discretionary decision-making;
• This is the ‘coalface’ of planning in England.
39
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
• Plans as expressions of local democracy, with
meaningful input from local interests;
• But also compliant with national policies and principles,
including ‘sustainable development’;
• Broadening of planning’s focus: from ‘land-use’ plans to
‘spatial’ plans:
• Visioning of local areas, responding to evidence,
delivering distinctiveness and sense of place,
though co-production with partners;
• Lots of rhetoric and warm words, but local plan
production and deliver still primary objective. 40
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
• Every ‘local planning authority’ (LPA) (district, borough or
unitary) required to produce a local plan;
• Looks ahead 15 to 20 years and includes:
1. A spatial vision for future development of area;
2. Strategic objectives for the area;
3. A delivery strategy for achieving those objectives: how
much development, where, when and how it will be
delivered;
4. Policies for achieving subordinate outcomes, including
types of housing for example;
5. Clear Local Plan monitoring arrangements.
41
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
Strategies and related policies needed for:
1. Housing and employment;
2. Retail, leisure and commercial development;
3. Infrastructure including transport, energy
supplies, water and so on;
4. Health, cultural services, schools;
5. Climate change mitigation, heritage and
landscape conservation
Spatial implications of policies mapped.
42
43
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
Plan Making:
1. Evidence gathered on area’s economy, social needs
including housing, environment etc.;
2. Evidence extends to engagement with stakeholders, from
communities to private sector;
3. Formulation of integrated strategies for housing,
employment, environment;
4. Plan formulated according to law and examined by
inspector (PINS);
5. Plans based on good data, and presenting most
appropriate strategy when judged against alternatives
deemed ‘sound’. 44
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
Development Management (DM):
1. Plan is indicative, not zonal. Development requires
‘planning permission’;
2. Judging proposal against plan (and other ‘material
conditions’) is essence of ‘development
management’;
3. Extends to attaching ‘conditions’ on permission;
4. Negotiating for developer contributions, including
affordable housing (if there’s a policy on that);
5. Unlawful development rejected; LPA achieves its
45
strategy through DM.
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
• Material considerations include: Local Plan,
National Policy (and changes not reflected in
plan), traffic implications (specific to proposal);
socio-economic benefits / drawbacks, impact of
development on neighbours;
• Power to weigh up different considerations makes
the system discretionary;
• Conditions attached to a permission can include
materials used for development, landscaping or
hours of business, for example. 46
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
Applying for Permission:
1. Pre-application discussion;
2. Complete form, with
attached map and fee;
3. LPA publicizes application;
4. 21 days later…
5. Consider responses;
6. Officer makes decision on
small applications under
‘delegated powers’. 47
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
For larger schemes, the planning officer will write a report
recommending either approval or refusal of the planning
application and pass this to the ‘Planning Committee’, of
elected local councillors. Councillors make decision:

48
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
Agreements and Levies:
• How to capture value for public benefit, when land is
private but development rights nationalised?
• Through agreements – setting super-conditions – requiring
contributions towards infrastructure or affordable housing
(based on s106 of Town and Country Planning Act 1990);
• By setting a Community Infrastructure Level (CIL) that
requests cash contributions to infrastructure at £/m²;
• Contributions or levies have to be carefully justified in local
plans, and those contributions must be used to mitigate
impacts.
49
Planning Policy and Practice – Local
Government
• Integrity of system is vital; this means high ethical
standards when overseeing discretionary decision making;
and enforcement against unlawful development;
• Discretionary system can appear opaque and contentious,
and must be rigorously enforced in law:

50
Planning Policy and Practice –
Neighbourhood Planning (NP)
• Rich history of community level planning in England;
• Formalised as ‘Neighbourhood Planning’ in 2011;
• NP undertaken by ‘civil parishes’ in rural areas, and
by newly created forums in urban areas;
• Can draw up Neighbourhood Plans, adding finer detail
to Local Plans;
• Must be in conformity with National Policy;
• ‘Made’ (adopted) after light-touch inspection;
• Neighbourhood Planning will be subject of full
lecture on 11th November. 51
Recent Policy Developments

Rhetoric of ‘Localism’ versus ‘Deregulation’

1. Tory governments have two tendencies: localise
(and abolish sub-national structures) and
deregulate;
2. These are often incompatible: localism raises
expectation of community empowerment, but
deregulation hands power to development
interests;
3. Localism Act 2011 at odds with NPPF.
52
Recent Policy Developments
Permitted Development
1. The most controversial form of deregulation in the 2010s:
remove the requirement for planning permission on some
forms of change of use;
2. Office to residential permitted development signals an
anti-planning tendency and leads to poor housing quality.

53
Recent Policy Developments

A Planning System without Plans

1. No regional (strategic) plans – these were
revoked in 2011/12;
2. No national plan for England;
3. A quarter of local authorities without Local Plan;
4. Development of plans affected by austerity and
push for deregulation
5. Lack of plans affecting housing delivery and
infrastructure coordination.
54
Recent Policy Developments

Planning White Paper / Use Class E

1. Government published proposals to reform the
planning system in August 2020;
2. Move from case-by-case discretionary
permissioning of development to a ‘by right’
system;
3. Simultaneously, deregulate switches to housing
use from most high-street uses;
4. Fears that we are moving from democratic to
autocratic planning in England.
55
Recent Policy Developments
LURB
• White Paper’s zoning ambitions ultimately derailed by
local political opposition;
• Still a strong focus on deregulation;
• But the White Paper has gone, replaced by a
Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill;
• Seeks greater uniformity of plans, development
management policies and design code;
• To give private sector greater certainty, with the aim of
speeding up plan-making in support of faster
development. 56
Planning in England - Reflections

• The principles of planning have remained largely

unchanged since 1947;
• Structures have changed, and belief in its value has
oscillated;
• Planning system is often misunderstood – critics see
only its regulatory side, not its broader societal
function (in my biased opinion);
• Shocking ignorance of why we have a planning
system, of the nationalisation of development rights,
and of the socio-economic inequities and poor urban
quality that preceded formal planning.
57
Planning in England - Reflections

• Planning in England tries to carve good public

outcomes from a private land market;
• It sometimes struggles to exert influence, being
underfunded and undermined by right-leaning
governments;
• Land value capture is a huge challenge, and a
point of major contrast with planning in Hong
Kong, affecting how infrastructure is delivered and
levels of taxation.
58
References
Clifford, B., Ferm, J., Livingstone, N., & Canelas, P. (2019)
Understanding the Impacts of Deregulation in Planning: Turning
Offices Into Homes? Springer: Amsterdam
Gallent, N., de Magalhaes, C., and Freire Trigo, S. (2021) Is zoning
the solution to the UK housing crisis? in Planning Practice and
Research, 36, 1, pp. 1-19
MHCLG (2021) National Planning Policy Framework, MHCLG:
London (National Planning Policy Framework
(publishing.service.gov.uk))
Sheppard, A., Peel, D., Ritchie, H., & Berry, S. (2017). The essential
guide to planning law: Decision-making and practice in the UK.
Policy Press: London
Swain, C., Marshall, T., & Baden, T. (Eds.). (2013). English Regional
Planning 2000-2010: Lessons for the Future. Routledge: London
59