The times they are a-changin'

Simon Creer is Communications and External Affairs Director at the Royal Town Planning Institute

When Bob Dylan took to the stage and picked up an electric guitar at The Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 a single voice in the crowd shouted ‘Judas!’.

The great folk singer had made a change and it was being perceived as betrayal. In more modern framing, he had failed to take his audience with him.

I’ve been thinking about this incident recently because the times are indeed a-changin'. And the wind is blowing from Manchester.

These changes encompass the new NPPF, a myriad of new local plans, the introduction of spatial development strategies, local government reform, the leadership of the Labour party and much, much more.

So, how in this inflection point of major change do planners and policy makers avoid the charge of betrayal and successfully take communities with us?

Andy Burnham has been making a great deal of positive noise about place-based approaches and Manchesterism. It would appear he understands the value of place and potentially planning. His support and championing of the Greater Manchester Plan would certainly suggest that he at least worked with and empowered the benefits of planning while he was mayor.

So, the question is how do we harness that understanding of the system and manage the changing landscape to the benefits of communities across the country.

For a solution to be truly place-based it must involve truly engaging with and listening to local communities and harnessing their pride in place. As Fiona Reynolds said at her recent lecture in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, ‘you can’t achieve anything unless you have the people with you.’

I would argue that the new NPPF and the introduction of Spatial Development Strategies are the vehicle through which to facilitate that activity of listening and truly understanding what it is they want from their area and their future. The timescales of both local plans and SDSs mean that they are perfectly designed to do just that. They are not simply vehicles for land allocation but genuine opportunities to collaborate with communities and co-design postcodes that provide long term benefits for everyone.

More than that they are an interface with communities that operate at a local level. While working within national parameters they have the flexibility to deliver genuinely responsive place-based solutions.

That is, if we let them.

That is, if we have the foresight, capacity and commitment to use the stages of engagement embedded in the systems to provide genuine conversations with communities and respond to their wants and needs.

The risk of not grasping that opportunity and failing to communicate and take the communities with us will be the cry of betrayal akin to the one Dylan received in Manchester.

The work we sponsored with Demos - The Mimby Majority, makes it clear that, with certain caveats, communities would accept development. The data accompanying our It Takes Planners campaign last year shows that more than 30% of people are proud of their area but only 7% have ever engaged with the planning system.

We need to find a way to facilitate and mobilise those communities who are proud of their area to engage with the planning system and then adopt the caveats they make clear would make them more amenable to development.

I’ve said before that RTPI will be publishing a white paper on this containing expert voices on consultation and communication that we hope will help to shape this process. But tools are one thing; an understanding of how the current political landscape is shifting to accommodate that level of place-based thinking is something we all need to understand on a bone-deep level.

I’m not suggesting that we all pick up electric guitars but perhaps it’s time to recognise the incredibly powerful tool that community engagement and communication offers the planning systems across the UK and embrace it. Maybe that way we will be well positioned to take the audience with us. I think we can do that. Don’t think twice, it’s alright.

Our white paper is due for publication this month, at or around the same time as we expect the new NPPF. We hope that it will help planners across the country shape the tasks ahead.