Town Planning and Population

This one-day conference is a joint venture between the RTPI East of England and the British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) to discuss the potential and principles of demographic modelling for planners.

Current President of the BSPS, Ludi Simpson, is professor of population studies at the University of Manchester. He says:

Looking only a decade ahead, we know that there will be more elderly needing care and more children in secondary schools.

These children have already been born, and we know where they are because they registered with local doctors. There will be more elderly people, partly because 70-80 years ago the birth rate was also rising and partly because the expectation of life has continued to increase despite the dampening effects of obesity and smoking. A rise in numbers of residents aged over 65 and of the very elderly, aged over 85, is expected in almost every part of the UK.

The biggest unknown when it comes to the demographic future is migration. Will families with babies continue to move from the local flats as their children become mobile? Will the high income families that have established gentrified inner-town enclaves remain there as they age? Will the next group of immigrants swept to Britain by war or economic competition settle in the same urban places or feed agricultural labour needs? Will the tightened housing market not just restrict movement but change its patterns? Will benefit cuts reduce or impel movement? Will student fees depress the housing market by keeping young people at home for longer? Will the cost of adult care force more older people to rely on their children for longer before moving to a residential home? Will new housing lie empty or attract new residents?

The trick for local planners is to distinguish how much of future demographic change is predetermined, how much is effectively uncertain and unpredictable, and how much can be seriously influenced - and then to plan accordingly. The mantra should be: predict what is not under your control, plan what is under your control.

Official demographic projections for local authorities are traditionally trend-based; they continue into the future the patterns of recent demographic change. They are said to be free of assumptions about policy, but on the contrary they assume that any impact which policy has had on the recent past will continue into the future.

When it comes to land, the dictum 'plan what you can control' has long been at the forefront of planning policy. It is standard practice to plan the future number of housing units and where they will be built - and to calculate the impact this will have on population change. Developers are involved in attempts to have them contribute to the education and transport infrastructure that new housing implies.

The tools for this job are already available. The question mark is whether the local authorities and planners more generally have the skills and the confidence to state local priorities, and to translate these priorities into plans for housing and jobs. Inevitably this involves choosing between a series of scenarios, and their implications for population and services, which the demographic tools can describe well.

These tensions have been exacerbated by cuts to local research staff, while localism has thrown inexperienced district councils at the feet of developers' lobbying presentations. Who is actively promoting quality in local pubic planning and demographic forecasting?

The RTPI President for 2013, Peter Geraghty, and the RTPI Chief Executive, Trudi Elliott, will also be participating in this event.