Hannah Hickman is an Associate Professor in Planning Practice at the University of the West of England.
Until 2010, strategic planning had been an integral part of the UK’s planning systems. This was in recognition of the fact that key issues such as addressing housing need, mitigating and adapting to climate change, and prioritising and investing in infrastructure, could not be addressed by local authorities in isolation from one another.
This longstanding principle ceased in 2010, since which there has been no mandatory requirement to produce strategic plans. The result has been a highly variegated approach to strategic planning across England, with some local authorities appearing to engage in very little meaningful cross-boundary work and others voluntarily progressing a variety of types and scales of strategic plans including statutory spatial development strategies, non-statutory strategic frameworks and joint local plans, but with little guidance or resource.
Together with Catriona Riddell and Richard Wood, myself and colleagues at the University of the West of England, have been delighted to undertake the first nationwide study to understand the nature of current strategic planning practice and, importantly, the demand for alternative approaches in the future. With the recent election of a new Government, and its already signalled intent to re-initiate strategic planning in some form, the publication of this research is very timely.
The new Government is certainly aided by the clarity of the evidence. The research shows overwhelming support across both the public and private sectors for the need for effective strategic planning in England, with 96% of survey respondents either agreeing or strongly agreeing a change to current practice is needed, and over 80% of respondents in favour of strategic planning being mandated by Government. This is a direct response to the perceived inadequacies of the current system in being able to address cross-boundary issues effectively and the overwhelming predominance of local politics in current practice resulting in the avoidance of unpopular decisions and creating competition between authorities.
The new Government should also be encouraged by this appetite for reform. It is perhaps unsurprising, however, that after a 14 year hiatus, the research does evidence a lack of understanding in some places of the value that effective strategic planning can offer not just in supporting sustainable growth but also financially (for example in terms of efficiencies of scale, building investor confidence, and in infrastructure prioritisation and funding). It is paramount, therefore, that any forthcoming change is accompanied by a narrative that focusses on the power of strategic planning as a positive enabler.
There are many important details to work through in this re-incarnation. There is a danger that in an inevitable focus on designing the system, that the need to rebuild the culture, capability and capacity of strategic planning is overlooked, but with many professional planners having only experienced planning practice since 2010, this is just as, if not more, important as systems design.
