Planning is crucial to the UK’s built environment because it shapes the way our towns, cities, and countryside develop and evolve. It is a key democratic process and the main interface between the public and the design of our urban and rural landscapes, stretching from mega masterplans to house extensions and everything in between.  

With new Government calls for planning reform now on the horizon, we should ask ourselves whether the real problem lies with the planners themselves or with the chronic underfunding that’s left the system creaking under huge pressure. One can also question what trust or authority is there within a system in which council planning departments upon recommending a scheme for approval, can easily be overruled by their own local councillors who have no design or planning experience?

When looking into what gets permission and what gets refused, do planning decisions promote positive compromise or do they prove to be just compromised? Local authority planning departments need not be misrepresented as obstacles to growth, development or creative design, as they ultimately seek similar aspirations to architects and urbanists for a better environment. The built environment in evidence around us maybe tells another story, so what is it about the process of planning that is choking progress and positivity?

Before ripping up the rule book, it’s important to properly examine how planning has ended up where it is today, caught between the push for new developments and the pull to protect the character and identity of our towns and cities. A revolving door of housing ministers have tended to claim that “cutting red tape” is essential to unlock development and the recently elected Labour government is similarly gearing up to overhaul the system and “get Britain building again”.

The question remains if this desire for change will aim to ensure that a new improved planning resource is put in place across the country or further reduce it?  Will the mooted reforms ultimately empower more qualified, more responsive and more multi-level decision-making? Or will we remain stuck at an impasse where political posturing will continue to hinder the move toward a more progressive planning system?

Speakers:

Lachlan Anderson-Frank, Enfield (chair) Joe Morris, Morris+Company
Pooja Agrawal, Public Practice
Joanna Averley, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Justin Elcombe, Hollybrook and all others who want to contribute….

On the night….