Place-based policy making is having a moment. For planners, it is intuitive to talk about place, the connections that we make to them and in them. Places are deeply personal for people. As we welcome Prime Minister Burnham into No. 10 (North and South), it is refreshing to hear him talk about people and their connection to the place they call home.
It is also good to welcome some familiar faces back into MHCLG – in particular Minister Pennycook (with his new seat round the Cabinet table). As we have argued, what is needed now is continuity and clarity in the English planning system to allow the reforms to bed in. This will allow communities, councils, and developers to get on with delivering the infrastructure, homes and climate resilience and nature recovery that the country so desperately needs. Matthew Pennycook and Angela Raynor’s appointments indicate that this message is being heard.
We’ve written to the PM, the Minister, and the Secretary of State to welcome them in role, and invite them to meet with our members who are working hard in the public interest up and down the country. In every postcode, some might say.
I spent much of yesterday in Medway – visiting the Rochester Riverside development, and meeting with the heads of planning of Medway and the other three local authorities with whom they will be joining as part of Local Government reorganisation. We had a roundtable with the SME developers, and then a major developers forum in the evening.
What they’ve delivered, working in partnership across public and private sector, housebuilders and infrastructure providers, and indeed with the local community and nature, is really impressive. There are homes, yes, but also shops, cafes, a restored salt marsh, and even a new railway station. This is what is possible with strong leadership and a shared sense of purpose.
This trip underscored what I’m hearing from other parts of the country: the planning system is no longer at the core of the problem holding back delivery. There are, of course, always ways you can improve – but by and large there are broader questions about funding and viability, about the wider players in the systems like statutory consultees, and indeed about community buy-in that are at the fore, rather than another tweak to planning policy per se.
What is brilliant about my role at the RTPI is that I get to meet planners working across all the nations of the United Kingdom, with different planning systems, places where the National Planning Policy Framework does not apply, and they are facing the same challenges as in England. There is much we can learn from different approaches to solving the same fundamental problems of providing homes and infrastructure to support a vibrant economy that genuinely works for (and dare I say delights) people.
How we talk to people about ‘planning’ matters because places matter to people. This week The Planner and the RTPI have teamed up to publish this collection on engagement in the planning system. Drawn from all corners of the United Kingdom, there are both practical examples and inspirational ways of thinking about bringing people into engaging in the process of placemaking.
This is a good place to start for people wishing to deepen their engagement with people on the places they love – which frankly doesn’t just apply to planners.