Introduction

Spatial planning is purposeful, action-oriented and undertaken for public benefit. It brings developers and communities together to identify and to help deliver beneficial and preferred futures for places and spaces.

Most outcomes of spatial planning need to be decided in conversations between spatial planners and the communities in which spatial planning is taking place involving those who will deliver, those who are affected and those who are elected to represent communities.

Some outcomes of spatial planning need to be set at a higher level through a conversation between spatial planners and the users of spatial planning more generally. The recent debate within the RTPI has identified some principles and priority outcomes of spatial planning that need to be set at this level and the actions that the RTPI and others need to take to deliver them. The principles emerging from this debate are set out below. Click here to view the priority outcomes.

The principles for spatial planning are that:

• Planning is global and local
• Planning should happen at the right scale
• Planning should use the right skills
• Planning is a campaigning profession
• The RTPI promotes ‘21st Century professionalism’ that draws these principles together

Spatial planning: from global to local

Spatial planning operates at all different possible scales of activity. Issues about the movement of populations and the use of the globe’s natural resources have to be understood and managed at a global or continental scale. Within nations, spatial planning forms scenarios and visions of the future, from large-scale national or regional strategies to the more localised design and organisation of towns, villages and neighbourhoods.

Spatial planning affects everyone, making policies and supporting decisions about proposals ranging from the location of major new transport or energy facilities and employment development, through to the development of new shops, schools, dwellings, national parks or local parks needed by local communities.

It considers the things that we value and that support our ongoing use of the environment; from the integrity of the atmosphere to limit climate change, to the provision of habitat for individual species; from the identification of global cultural heritage to locally valued townscapes. It maintains the best of our inheritance, whilst encouraging innovation and adaptation in the design, development and renewal of the built and natural environment to meet our future needs in a sustainable manner.

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Spatial planning: undertaken at the right scale

Effective spatial planning aims to resolve conflict where possible, drawing together the professionals, governments, community organisations, public sector agencies, private sector developers and operators and the local and global economic players involved.

Plans cannot always be made or decisions taken at the local level. Some policies and proposals must be considered at a global, continental, national or regional scales including plans for major infrastructure investment, work to ensure a sustainable and equitable distribution of housing to respond to demographic and economic changes and the availability of natural resources and to deliver an integrated public transport network over a city region.

The RTPI stands for plan-making and decision-taking at the lowest level consistent with good, sustainable, equitable and efficient outcomes. We support global action on global issues such as climate change, rapid urbanisation and urban poverty. We support European and national spatial planning and national policies to guide regional development and the delivery of key major infrastructures.

Within the United Kingdom we call on the Government to identify those issues of truly UK scale and to plan for them through a United Kingdom Spatial Planning Framework (UKSPF). We support the expression of planning visions for devolved nations: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We continue to support and campaign for a national spatial planning framework for England and will support the development of National Policy Statements for major infrastructures in ways that will bring this about. We support the use of integrated regional, subregional and city regional plans to coordinate issues that cannot be managed effectively at the local level. We support plan making at the local level to set out an essential and unique vision for the future of each individual place.

The RTPI supports transparent, accessible and inclusive planning at all levels from the global to the local. Our practical commitment is demonstrated through hosting Planning Aid which enables professionals to volunteer to provide access to planning processes by otherwise excluded communities and individuals.

The RTPI will work with governments and communities at all levels and campaign for planning systems that respond to this element of our vision.

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Spatial planning: using the right skills

As the professional body for spatial planning, the RTPI is the custodian and public guarantor of skills and professionalism in the planning sector. We have entered into a large number of partnerships with educational institutions to ensure that planning professionals have the skills necessary to deliver society’s needs. Our code of conduct obliges our members to ensure that they maintain and develop their professionalism throughout their working life. It requires them to produce and implement personal development plans which the RTPI monitors.

The RTPI has a lead role to influence government and to support individual planners in developing their own competencies in spatial planning. Action is required to promote research and to manage knowledge for spatial planning at all levels. Action is also required to advance effective practice in spatial planning to work with associated professions and practitioners by consolidating the on-going shift from inflexible regulatory models towards more flexible “outcome focused” models of spatial planning capable of adapting to the rapidly changing needs of society, the economy and the environment.

As planning becomes more integrated, spatial planners work with people from many disciplines and communities who all contribute towards future visions for their places. The RTPI is committed to a vision of itself, its members and of a new professionalism as a broadening and inclusive community as opposed to a narrow or exclusive one. There is a place and a voice in spatial planning for politicians, community activists, business people, engineers, ecologists, architects, urban designers, health professionals … and many more. This is why the RTPI has designed multi-disciplinary networks which are open to all interested in spatial planning and why it has worked closely with partners such as the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Transport Planning Society to secure greater integration.

The RTPI will work with governments, professions, interest groups and communities to ensure that spatial planning encompasses the skills necessary to deliver sustainable development. We value the contributions of all partners that combine to make great plans and great places.

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Spatial planning: a ‘campaigning profession’

Those involved in what is now called spatial planning have a long tradition of cross disciplinary campaigning for better outcomes for people and the environment, facing the major ills and threats of their day, fire, disease, pollution, overcrowding or social exclusion.

In the 17th century, before the term ‘planning’ was conceived, architects such as Sir Christopher Wren and the authors of the London Building Acts worked to ensure that London was relieved from the risk of mass death and destruction by fire.

The engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette worked with what became the Metropolitan Board of Works (a precursor to the Greater London Authority) to provide sewers that resolved the ‘great stink’ of 1858 and safeguarded London from epidemic cholera.

Ebenezer Howard published ‘To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform’ in 1898, charting a future for Garden Cities that would provide ‘bright homes and gardens, no smoke, no slums, freedom [and] cooperation’. This thinking went on to inform housing improvement agendas delivered through planning and housing across the 20th century.

The RTPI today hosts Planning Aid, a powerful and innovative social invention, through which professionals volunteer to ensure that the voices of excluded individuals and communities are heard, before important planning policies or decisions are made.

The vision for spatial planning suggests that professionals will continue to think critically about the effects of their actions, advising and where necessary campaigning to secure sustainable development policies and outcomes and to ensure effective responses to climate change, in much the same manner as previous generations of planners addressed the priorities of their day.

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Towards ‘21st Century professionalism’

Planners are good at managing change, at finding synergy amidst competing demands and at synthesising complex situations into integrated policies and programmes of action. The RTPI will encourage professionals in spatial planning to build on their strengths, to be multi-disciplinary, globally responsible, socially ethical and progressively campaigning to deliver its vision.

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Author:

Rynd Smith

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

16-Jun-09

Categories:

 

Sections:

What Planning Does

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