Deck the halls with consultations

Simon Creer is the RTPI's director of communications

As the year draws to a close, Santa submits his flight plan for Christmas Eve, and turkeys nervously eye the calendar, it seems we have developed a new end of year tradition in the planning sector.

What would the festive season be without a major consultation on some of the corner stone policies of the sector. That’s right, it looks increasingly likely that the Government’s much heralded consultations on National Decision Making Policies (NDMPs), and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) are going to land with us somewhere in December.

Again.

Given that these are essential elements of the system and therefore the Government’s growth agenda, it seems strange that they have become as associated with this time of year as much as Christmas cards and twinkly lights.

Government has an option to make consultation periods anywhere between four and 12 weeks, usually opting to split the difference at around six. But given that for all intents and purposes they remove at least one week from the middle of that period by launching them in December they actively limit the time for meaningful consultation.

At the RTPI we will do everything we can to have as meaningful a consultation as we can with members, so please keep your eye out for an invitation to an online session. And rest assured, after having to do something similar for at least the last three years we are well practiced at it.

However, it feels like we shouldn’t have to be.

Given the importance of these policies and the need for people more broadly, and not just planners, to understand them, pushing them into the cold winter evenings at the end of December feels counter-productive.

The planning system absolutely depends on public consultation and engagement with communities. That engagement can only be done through properly understood systems.

If even those systems are given an uncomfortable and difficult consultation period themselves what hope does the wider public have of understanding them.

Now, I am under no illusion that developing these policies is difficult, and that governments have a desire to keep things moving forward, especially when so much depends on growth through the planning system.

However, I would argue that it is a false economy to publish these consultations when we know that most people’s attention is elsewhere.

Government could benefit from a thorough and positive consultation process if they ignored the relative arbitrary nature of the annual calendar and held publication back until after Christmas. That would give the sector the proper opportunity to consult and hear back from our members who after all will be delivering against these new frameworks.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone in planning that even the most finally crafted policy comes under greatest stress when it goes out to consultation, so it seems strange that this newly emerged tradition of publishing consultations immediately before the Christmas break has come about.

It feels a little like going out on a dark and stormy night without Rudolph to guide your sleigh.