It is one of the privileges of a President to be able to deliver an address to an audience of those involved with or interested in planning on a subject of one's own choosing. Naturally, one approaches such an occasion with some awe as well as pleasure.
I have the special privilege of being the first woman to be President of this Institute. I find that people look for a 'woman's point of view' from me - perhaps I have one, but that is for others to judge. I certainly do not intentionally pursue a feminine approach to planning. What I do see myself as being is one of a group of Presidents who have sought to build and develop on the foundations laid during Walter Bor's presidency five years ago, when he set the direction of the Institute as being 'forward and outward'.
I am taking this opportunity to stand back and take a broad look at environmental planning and the direction in which it is going. While the focus of this Institute's concern is the physical environment, the environment is not an end in itself, since our real emphasis must be on man in his urban and rural surroundings. Planning is an evolutionary process which must be constantly adapted to the needs of society. The Institute is intensely aware of the need to look at what the future has in store and to encourage the necessary changes in the planning process.
I think it is appropriate at the end of our Diamond Jubilee Year to be looking ahead. It is my concern that the activity of planning should contribute, even more than it has in the past, to the development of a better society. Doxiadis[1] referring to cities, says that it should be our purpose to make them humane places where the citizens can be happy, safe and helped in their human development. What I want to discuss is the extent to which our present planning system is helping to achieve that aim.
There are, of course, two aspects of the planning process - the system and the people involved. Paul Tyler[2] said recently in a television discussion, using a rather dubiously mixed metaphor: 'The planning system is creaking at the joints because it has no teeth.' There is some validity in that statement, but the causes of any problems in the system are, of course, more complex than Tyler suggests. Good planning depends, not only on an efficient and sensitive operation of the environmental planning system but also on a symbiosis between politicians, planners, the public, developers and the media. In this address, I want to explore problems relating both to the system and those involved in it by reference to two broad areas of planning - city planning and resource planning. I shall then go on to talk about the future for planning, the challenges which it offers to us, and the kind of responses required both from individual planners and the Institute.
City planning
Cities are organisms of enormous complexity in which economic, social and physical change is occurring so fast that it is almost impossible to control. In fact, the imbalances caused by all this change throw up problems which are proving some of the most intractable ever experienced in planning. Populations are not properly housed, inner city communities are unhappy and disrupted, suburban communities suffer from a sense of isolation, juggernauts shudder through living areas, huge areas of blight await development, high buildings punctuate the skyline as a monument to our unfortunate enthusiasms, heritage buildings are destroyed or dwarfed, and the economic health of cities is highly unstable. People blame the 'planners' but they do not mean us alone, but Government and local government, powerful developers and even the public, all of whom share the responsibility for the development of cities.
The inhumanity of cities is perhaps the most worrying phenomenon. A recent programme on Houston, Texas, showed a frighteningly dehumanised city - an indoor, air-conditioned place dominated by machines and structures, in which man becomes a sort of urban spaceman divorced from the natural environment.
Then, again, let us listen to some Battersea teenagers:
'Oh, what a dirty, closed-up box Battersea is'.
'Flats are great stone slabs like boxes piled on top of each other with people imprisoned in them'.
'You don't want to move very high in the flats because you don't meet anyone and it's lonely'.
'They (teenagers) usually get fun by smashing windows and beating up people'.
Planners are intensely concerned about the kind of social problems and their relationship to the environment which are highlighted by these quotations. However, we usually find ourselves analysing and dealing with the symptoms, not the causes. It is, of course, possible to deal with each problem as it arises but, Hydra-like, the problems continue to come, because it is so difficult to understand and get at the root causes. In early medicine, a patient with fever was hot so you put ice on him - very logical, and sometimes he lived; what you did not know how to do was to find and kill the microbe causing the fever. It is a great pity that, as a nation, we are so unwilling to give priority to organising and financing studies and research on the scale and at the speed required to give us effective help in understanding the intricate life and malfunctioning of cities.
In our long-established towns and cities, planning is perhaps the most difficult and challenging of the many tasks facing planners today, complicated not only by the inherent complexity of cities but also by new systems of local government, planning and management. I want to discuss a few features of city planning which contribute to making it the problem it is. The important point to note is that their origin is very mixed, being economic, political, financial, organisational and technical aspects of the system, and not simply what might be called 'planning'.
The pace of change
The boom in property development of the last decade has outrun existing plans and put severe pressure on control mechanisms. In the case of office and city centre redevelopments, development has less to do with community need than with the profitability of the investment. I believe that the present slowing down in the pace and pressure of development is a blessing in disguise. Not to put too fine a point on it, determined developers have been running rings round local planning authorities and the planning control system. We now have a breathing space and should make sure that any revisions to the planning control system are designed to deal with this developer pressure. If the White Paper on 'Land' is carried through to legislation and achieves its objectives, then the consequences for both the pace of change and the nature of the control system will, of course, be very considerable: public authorities would at last have control over a vital element in the system for city development.
Problems of implementation
It is a familiar criticism that very few plans actually get implemented: indeed, many planners are themselves frustrated by either the slowness or lack of effective action following their own work. Politicians, not planners, are the decision-makers, although of course, planners and other professionals are involved in all the processes leading to decisions and action. The main problems lie in the absence of long-term strategies, the lack of positive action to implement agreed policies and the unwillingness to enter boldly upon new enterprises, and the rather frequent reversals of decisions to go ahead with particular projects. 'If in doubt, cut it out' may be wise in the case of highly controversial proposals, but I rather feel that posterity may be more grateful for the new towns than for the mass of literature on Maplin and Hook. I attribute some of these problems to the rapidity of the political pendulum at the moment, and others to shortage of resources. However, I think it goes beyond that to an attitude of mind. Today's problems in cities were created yesterday. Politicians, just as much as planners, have a responsibility to posterity. They must be prepared not only to deal with today's problems decisively, but also to commit financial resources and take action to minimise the problems of the future as well.
Lack of integration in the planning process
The complex problems of inner cities, involving social and economic aspects of community life as well as environmental and transportation problems, demand a very close integration between social, physical and transport planning and between planners and managers, implementation agencies and community workers. Despite the linkage of planning and transportation departments in many authorities, the attempts to set up social planning at the metropolitan level and many successful small-area planning and implementation exercises, no really satisfactory integration of these processes has yet occurred. Some will argue that total integration is not necessary provided that the right groupings are set up in response to each different problem. This is obviously true on the small scale, but at the city-wide level, social, transport and economic planning must become an integral part of the whole environmental planning process. In particular, it is the social contribution to city planning which is crucial and is still not satisfactorily developed or integrated either at political or technical level. As I indicated earlier, there are considerable difficulties in analysing and solving the problems of human beings in their environment. Central government has set about the problems of inner cities recently with a plethora of social and environmental initiatives ranging from GIA's to comprehensive community projects. These are all most welcome but, apart from the obvious need for rationalisation, it is questionable whether these initiatives really get at the fundamental problems of inner cities: hence it is questionable whether they will achieve really long-term benefits for the communities involved.
Problems of public participation
A great deal of time and effort is spent on participation by both the public and by local authorities. Yet, there is undoubtedly a credibility gap between the public and the planning process. There is considerable disillusion with government, anyway, and planners, as instruments of government, become included in that disillusion. Public participation in all its forms is a result both of this lack of trust and of certain failures by planning authorities to understand community needs; in consequence, participation in a positive sense is still in the minority. It is necessary now that we really should learn how to listen to the public, how to understand public needs, and how to work out with the public those most difficult decisions which involve sacrificing individual good to the good of the wider community. Public understanding needs to grow, not only through involvement in local community planning, but also through the increase of environmental planning education for both children and adults. For this I think the media, especially television, should become an important positive influence.
Problems of statutory planning
Finally, in this part of my paper, I want to look at the planning system itself - plan and control - in the statutory sense. The control system is not the negative system that it is often represented to be, nor are the delays as severe as usually believed. George Dobry[3] is setting out to streamline the existing system and I hope his final recommendations will help in this respect. However, the real question is whether the system itself needs to be fundamentally reviewed in order to be able to respond more firmly to development pressures and operate more positively as an implementation instrument. Certainly, I think that it must be looked at carefully in the context of any change in the system of land control.
The new development plan system is only beginning to be experienced by the new authorities. In London the GLDP[4] was the forerunner of the structure plan and has not proved a very happy experience, either in technical or administrative terms. Work started on it a decade ago - today, the Plan still awaits approval by the Secretary of State. However, I intend to go beyond that to something that someone wrote to me recently; 'the development plan system is only one window through which we look at the world - it is an important window but does not provide a full panoramic view'. I think that the present form of the system relating to structure plans, improved though it is, has caused difficulties in London and could do so in other cities. The problems of a conurbation require intricately linked spatial and non-spatial policies on social and economic issues in the context of the environment, which need to be evolved and implemented speedily; there is a certain Jack of correspondence between these requirements and those of the structure plan process. The existence of a corporate planning system helps but does not solve the problem; it is the structure plan process itself which may need adjustment. The same comment is much less applicable to the local plan system, which I think can probably provide a very reasonable basis for effective planning at local level.
I have made a fairly extended analysis of the problems which have an impact on the planning process in cities in order to demonstrate that it is not so much a question of the planning system creaking, but of the whole system of urban governance being under strain. Effective planning depends not only on the system, and on the skill and knowledge of the planner, but also on a greater commitment by all involved in the process. There must be a mutual understanding of roles, better mutual trust and a much better developed sense of social responsibilities and of the importance of long-term thinking and action. However, even if a great improvement in attitudes and cooperation between planners, politicians and the public in cities were achieved, this would not solve city problems on its own. If we really want a more fundamental and effective approach to dealing with cities, then I believe that central government must be prepared to rationalise its multiplicity of initiatives, to make more effective use of existing resources in assisting hard-pressed city governments, and to examine critically the whole range of city problems and the system of government, planning, action and finance required to deal with those problems and achieve acceptable and required change. Of course, every city is different, but this does not mean that the present empiricism is the best method of dealing with cities in the future.
Is it humane?
I have given you a rather sober review of city planning problems and their complexity. I should now like to become rather more subjective for a moment, in concluding this part of my paper. I saw four cases in the media on a single day recently, which seemed to me might cause people to ask these questions:
- Why should a large office block be permitted opposite Centre Point by the Government, when that same Government has confirmed its intention to limit office development severely in London?
- Why should an efficiently functioning colony of artists inhabiting some attractively adapted warehouses round Camden Lock have to disappear, along with the warehouses, for a redevelopment scheme?
- Why does someone have to write about the use of local corner shops: 'I almost feel it's immoral, but I like it'?
- Why does a local action group from Birmingham have to go on television as part of their fight against the redevelopment and disruption of their community?
Now, of course there are rational, sound, economic, social or environmental justifications for each of the changes taking place. However, I believe that all of us concerned with change and development in cities need to think very hard about whether our rational, sound plans and actions are not contributing to the dehumanising of cities and whether we have not got trapped in a system which, as Doxiadis suggests, is serving the powerful and the lucky to the detriment of the rest. It is our responsibility as an Institute both to ensure the quality of planning and to watch over the planning process to see that the end result is achieving the most beneficial results for the community - we can take an objective standpoint and should do so as often as necessary. During this year, the Institute will be encouraging the exploration of a whole range of problems of city planning in sessional meetings, which are all concerned with the theme 'Cities in Crisis'. I am also hoping during the year to have the opportunity to discuss the operation of the new system for planning with as many local authority planners as possible. I believe it to be very important for the system to be monitored by the Government as it progresses, but we need to do so informally ourselves. In particular, we need to think very carefully about the aims and role of planners in relation to the problem which Doxiadis has highlighted.
Resources and conservation
I now want to turn to another aspect of the planning process which is showing signs of serious strain: national planning. In particular, I refer to the problems which arise through massive or extensive developments which may first appear as planning applications to local district councils and thereafter escalate. I am going to take as an example oil resources and the implication which their extraction has for the conservation of our natural heritage. Because energy or mineral or water resources occur so frequently in or adjacent to our best areas of environment, we have the unenviable task, as David Brower puts it, of 'deciding as a nation on balance what is good for the pocket and what is good for the soul and acting to preserve the balance'. In that same book about Snowdonia, Amory Lovins[5] puts the conservationist's viewpoint in a nutshell:
'It (Snowdonia) is so small an island that a man could walk across it in a day. The web of its life is tenuous, stretched nearly to breaking point by the conversion of its dense forests to barren grazing moors. Year round roads penetrate its fastenesses, hordes trample its fragile grass, jets rip its clouds, builders rubble at its valley, engineers covet its lakes, miners lust after its metals.'
Emotional stuff, you may feel. But then if we were not idealistic, sensitive human beings seeking to better the human condition, as well as rational technocrats, we should not be planners.
The economic crisis has thrown us back on our own natural resources, particularly fuel and minerals, and it will increasingly give prominence to the use of the land for food production. The difficulties which this situation raises for planning are exemplified and have been brought to prominence by the effect on Scotland of the exploration for and exploitation of North Sea oil. What has happened there has highlighted three major problems for planners.
1. The lack of national forward planning.
The recent guidelines for oil and gas developments on the Scottish coast produced by the Scottish Development Department are welcome, but belated. The pipers who have called the tune have been the oil companies who, because of the competitive situation in relation to North Sea oil, have not felt able to have full discussions with the Government during their own planning processes. The effect of this was that a group of small local authorities was faced with a rush of applications for development linked with various aspects of the oil extraction and production process, without having a strategic framework to which they could refer.
2. The absence of criteria for judging what the 'national interest' or the 'local interest' may be when the issues involve the environment and the economy.
In this case the 'national interest' aspect weighed the importance of the coastal heritage of Scotland against the balance of payments crisis and the shortage of fuel. The question of what the 'local interest' was, lay between retaining the existing economic and social structure of local communities and developing a thriving but short-lived situation of economic prosperity for a number of rural areas. It is of interest that the problems of balancing pros and cons have put Government departments on opposite sides of the fence. It is also of interest that the rejection of the Drumbuie site and the approval of the Loch Kishorn site in a 'preferred conservation area' have been so much in the true spirit of British compromise that the question of what value is accorded to a heritage coast as against an economic resource has been almost totally unanswered.
3. The strain placed on the development control system.
There was a very disturbing readiness by a previous Government to overturn the legal constraints of the development control system which the nation has painstakingly erected over the last twenty five years to protect itself from development in the wrong places. It is vital that the control system should not be by-passed when convenient for what is not universally agreed as being in the national interest, or when, as in this case the control system was having difficulty in dealing with a major new development without the advantage of a plan to back it up. These problems are all a part of the one major issue - the extreme difficulty of making the choice between environmental and economic benefits to the population in a case which has national implications. Are the profits from North Sea oil going to be more immediately significant for a large proportion of the population of the UK than the intangible benefits over time of the preservation of the coast? Which will benefit the underprivileged section of the population of Glasgow or London more over a period of years? These and many other questions present the planners who are trying to deal with them at national and local level with considerable difficulties. They have little assistance either from the planning system or the cost-benefit experts in trying to reach a wise decision, and they are subject to considerable public and political pressures. The adage 'planning is for people' helps them not at all – they can only say 'which people?'. Thus again, in this national sphere, problems with the existing system and techniques are inhibiting the achievement of the planning aims which I outlined at the beginning of this address - namely to contribute to the development of a better society.
The Future
I want to turn now to look at the kind of future that the nation is facing and the implications which this has for planning. Five years ago, in his Presidential Address, Walter Bor painted a picture of the future of planning based upon the reasonable assumption of a growth economy - he did, however, have the prescience to note that we might at some time have to face the effects of a slump. Even a year ago in his Presidential Address, Graham Ashworth was talking about growth and yet, six months later, all that had changed and the energy crisis and economic slump were upon us, as he considered in his paper to the Annual Conference. We are in a period of what the business editors call 'stagflation' (stagnation and inflation) and it seems as if energy and raw materials will never again be cheap and plentiful. However, it is as well to remember that our economy is cyclical and so we cannot assume that there will never again be an upturn in the economy.
Be that as it may, we stand at a point in time when society is peculiarly exploitative and greedy, hypnotised by the profit motive, and with a continuing gap between rich and poor - much as Patrick Geddes[6] fifty years ago described what he termed as the 'Palaeotechnic era'. Geddes also drew a particularly picturesque analogy when he said that an industrial age based on resources with the possibility of swift exhaustion is like the mould on a jam pot which spreads until there is a marvellous fungus city - but no jam left. The energy and economic crises may have come just in time to make us think about the kind of society that we should be and the effect that our actions may have on posterity. As environmental planners, our concern must be to think about some of those future possibilities as they affect man in the environment and the kind of system of planning required to achieve the best results for society. We cannot afford to have ostrich-like attitudes, because every decision taken today has a bearing on the future. As an example, I want to look at some existing situations and their future implications. Building materials are already short - should the trend to rehabilitation of existing buildings be intensified and 'need' become a criterion for new building? Some cities are already doing this - for example Birmingham has already sharply reversed its policies from clearance to urban retention and renewal; it was rewarded by receiving a 'Times' headline 'City that puts human happiness before property.' Secondly, if fuel is going to be expensive and in shorter supply, what will the effect be on size and density of towns, volume and mode of public transport, distribution of roads, expansion of industry, pattern of the agricultural industry, commuting patterns, self-sufficiency of communities, countryside recreation and the value placed on home-produced fuels as against heritage scenery? Thirdly, if the economy is going to remain in a slump condition for any length of time, are local authorities going to be able to continue to give priority and resources to assisting the rehabilitation of deprived communities in inner cities; what will the effect be on central area redevelopment: will there be a strong swing back to home food production? I am sure that my point is made without going on with these questions. Every one of these issues has a considerable effect on the future of communities in their environment and hence is very much the business of planners, politicians and the rest of the community.
I think that there is a lot to be optimistic about in the present situation which I have described. If the pace of development is checked, if the problem of the cost and availability of land can really be tackled firmly by Government, and if the urge to tear down old buildings is tempered by the state of the economy, then I feel that we have an essential breathing space in which to improve the quality of the environment in response to the real needs of the community. It is European Architectural Heritage Year next year; looked at in the context of a general conservation planning approach, it could be occurring at exactly the right time, but must be balanced by concern over other aspects of our heritage. Conservation planning may be the order of the day for some time to come but, however reduced the economic future, it does not mean that planning itself should be reduced - merely redirected and perhaps re-vitalised.
Planners and the Institute
I have talked more about planning than about planners in this address, because it is a major purpose of this Institute to concern itself with planning for the benefit of the community. However, before I finish I want to talk a little about planners and the Institute.
Planners in England and Wales are facing all sorts of challenges in the period following the reorganisation of local government - something which planners in Scotland are just beginning to face. The Inlogov Survey has suggested that there is a current shortage of about 3,300 professional planners in English and Welsh authorities, and that there will be a continuing shortage for at least six years. Thus the pressures may be very strong, the problems of structure and local planning more difficult when split between two authorities, and the responsibilities which have been thrust onto younger planners quite considerable for a few years. We are an increasingly young profession: 58% of RTPI members in England and Wales are under 35 at present. The future that I have been talking about lies with these younger planners and those in planning schools now. The future depends upon planners holding to their strength of purpose, vision and humanity. It also depends, perhaps more prosaically, on each planner ensuring that his own skills and approach to planning are kept up-to-date during his career. The Institute does what it can to ensure that mid-career opportunities are available but each planner must make sure that he uses them.
It is my firm belief that this Institute only justifies its existence as a professional body if it devotes its major efforts to ensuring that its members have the right skill and integrity to serve the community as planners. Professionalism outside the medical profession, has sadly become a rather tarnished concept, largely because of its monopolistic overtones. To my mind we need a new professionalism, one which is synonymous with skill, and integrity. Although this is not an issue for this Institute alone, I am hoping that, during the year, we shall produce a discussion paper on the subject for consideration both inside and outside the planning profession.
The Institute has a responsibility not only to its members but also, and indeed primarily, to the community. As individuals, Institute members rarely get the opportunity to stand back and look at the context and the future. This is the role of the Institute as a corporate body. Through our Council we can take these perspectives and examine the fundamental issues of the day. Critics like to perpetuate the image of the Institute as the rather faded Edwardian lady of our crest. This is nonsense - we are a modern and forward-looking Institute responding to change, taking the initiative in stimulating or encouraging modifications or new developments in the planning system, planning education, and Government policies whenever and wherever they are required.
I have spent some time in my address reviewing present problems as a preliminary to looking at the challenge offered by the future. In a recent book, Doxiadis said: 'Doomsday is not coming tomorrow and, instead of crying, we would do better to help ourselves constructively to overcome this era of confusion and distress'. I want to conclude by discussing the ways in which I see that a constructive contribution can be made to dealing with present and future problems.
Scapegoats?
First, I believe that the nation should get over its love-hate relationship with planning, of which the professional planners are too often the scapegoats, and make sure that the system is effective and backed by sufficient financial resources. The country needs the system more than ever before and yet it allows it to be emasculated through anti-professionalism, political opportunism, the divide-and-rule principle, an over-active bureaucratic system, short-term thinking, over-active participatory democracy and too little controlled private development. Politicians and the media will be particularly important in helping to change attitudes.
Next, it is necessary to devise ways in which our general philosophy and approach to planning can be re-shaped to deal with the very different economic future that this nation is facing, and to re-shape it in ways which will help to build a better society. I believe very strongly that there is an urgent need to think about the implications of the future situation for environmental planning in realistic and comprehensive terms. It is, of course, a national problem and one which we urged the Government to consider earlier this year. In the absence of a national study, I think that this Institute as a responsible body within society should begin to explore these issues from the standpoint of the relationship between the community and the environment. To that end, the RTPI Council is already considering a proposal that we should initiate a study by a multi-disciplinary group of the implications of the economic future for planning and development. It would not be of great value if planners did this alone, and I hope very much that other professions, individuals and politicians involved with environmental planning and development will be prepared to give us their backing and co-operation if we take an initiative of th.is kind. This kind of collaboration between all those who actually achieve development is real participation in government. The major policies which should emerge from such a study would be the essence of a real national strategy or plan.
In the last analysis, however, it is not the system, but those involved in it who can achieve better looking and better functioning cities and countrysides, happier communities and a balance between conservation and much needed resources. Planners can only achieve their aims for society and the environment if every other element in the nation is prepared to increase its sense of social responsibility and to decrease the element of self-interest and short-term thinking. A year ago this would have been a vain hope - now I believe it is more possible. There is no room for complacency but a good deal of room for optimism. I believe that planners can do much to make a really positive contribution to the future of society - provided that their approach can be closely related to human needs and aspirations, sensitive in human and environmental terms, action-oriented and concerned with ends rather than means. We should only be satisfied when the people whom we are planning for understand what we are trying to do, and when they enjoy living and working in the environment that has been created or conserved for them, or which they have helped to create.
[1] Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis well known Greek architect and urban planner is often considered to the father Ekistics, science of human settlements. As a mode of study, ekistics uses statistics and descriptions, organized in five principles: nature, anthropos, society, shells, and networks to develop plans for every kind of human settlement, with particular attention to geography, ecology, human psychology, anthropology, culture, politics, and occasionally aesthetics.
[2] A Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from February to October 1974 and from 1992 to 2005, and sat in the House of Lords as a life peer until October 2021. Housing and planning was one of his focus areas
[3] George Dobry was a was a Polish-British barrister and judge. He was commissioned by the government of the day to looking into relaxing planning controls and in 1974 produced an interim report: Review of development control.
[4] GLDP (The Greater London Development Plan): The London Government Act of 1963 established the Greater London Council (GLC) as a strategic planning authority with responsibility for an area extending to approximately 22 km from Central London. In 1969 the GLC produced a draft Greater London Development Plan. The plan was approved by the Secretary of State for the Environment Peter Shore MP in July 1976
[5] Amory Lovins is an American writer, physicist and co-founder of Rocky Mountain Institute a think tank in] dedicated to the research, publication, consulting, and lecturing in the field of sustainability, with a focus on profitable innovations for energy and resource efficiency.
[6] Sir Patrick Geddes is widely regarded as the founder of modern town planning. His interest in the natural sciences led him to a professorship at Dundee University in botany, after which he developed his interest in sociology and planning