1. in search of
positive planning
David Adams and Alister Scott look beyond current political
and economic aspirations for growth in the search for ways to
re-enliven planning as a force for good
Is planning on the wane? At present, much of the segregation of different ethnic and income groups,
planning profession’s energy is being devoted to its and poor and/or harmful urban (and rural/rural-
survival and to reactionary responses to central fringe) landscapes have become hallmark features
government attacks on its efficacy and professional of the unintentional consequences of capitalist-led
delivery.1 Given the market-orientated stance of the land development.5
current UK Government, and the trend towards the For Devine et al.,6 an insidious culture of
deregulation of land development evident in materialism has, to some degree, also removed the
proposed legislation such as the Growth and capacity for concerted collective action. However,
Infrastructure Bill and policy guidance such as the as Castells7 notes, there is strong evidence of
National Planning Policy Framework – all set against thriving collectivised networks, often drawing on a
a backdrop of austerity – it could be argued that the sense of outrage over the perceived failure of
planning profession is not in a particularly strong government and financial institutions, which have
place to be making demands for a more socially and done much to create new spaces of democracy and
environmentally just, egalitarian ethic. Yet it is offer potential ways forward for political economy
precisely these circumstance that make the debates.
articulation of such thinking necessary, providing a As Holling et al.8 point out, we all have to live in
challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy of the an environment that is shaped and constantly
overriding pursuit of economic growth. reconfigured by the workings of government and its
Drawing inspiration from Professor Dennison’s associated institutions in response to key drivers of
1942 Minority Report from the Committee on Land change (such as economic growth, climate change,
Utilisation in Rural Areas (the Scott Committee)2 and community cohesion, energy and infrastructure).
Peter Ambrose’s reflections on possible ways Thus it is important for planning education to
forward for UK planning,3 this article argues that prioritise a critical understanding of the functioning
constructive proposals can be made both for and dependencies of the environment within a
planning education and for the wider strategies that systems perspective, and it is here that an
might be employed by a future government so as to ecosystem approach can help to signpost a way
reconnect planning and environment as a positive forward.9 This could be positioned appropriately
and political agent of social, economic and alongside the development of more visionary and
environmental change. spatial plans that embed a long-term approach to
planning and generate a new, more humane and
Joining up planning and the environment environmentally sustainable economy (for example
There is a need for further and higher education the Foresight Land Use Futures project).10 Ideas of
to encourage students of planning to critically ‘prosperity without growth’11 or a ‘Green New
consider the political economy of the built and Deal’12 provide precious insights into the sort of
natural environment, aligning urban and rural new political economy that might be desired and/or
matters as part of a connected and interdependent realised.
system.4 This should be rooted in the perspective It is likely that achieving these ambitions would
that the environment (in the widest sense) is the also require much stronger intervention in the
direct outcome of the (often unequal) power economy through incentives and regulation,
relations in the society that produced it. alongside an overall behaviour change in our
Commerce-dominated city centres, car-dominated policy- and decision-making processes. Such a
movement, undesirable market-determined shift, according to Massey,13 is necessary to re-
88 Town & Country Planning February 2013

2. invigorate society’s collective capacity to ask how with this information, and with important new
the economy can be re-organised to improve skills in place-making and community participation,
wellbeing and help to create more sustainable public sector planners can make a considered
places. assessment of the commercial viability of a
development consent, and can enter into a realistic
Planning as an agent of change debate over the long-term distribution of benefits
It is salutary to remember that planning is an and profits.
agent of social change, and an effective mechanism Planners also need to move away from their risk-
for the redistribution of wealth. Some of the recent averse nature and favour more experimental types
selective dismantling of planning’s machinery has of project though the imaginative use of Section106
been in the interests of powerful and (let us not agreements.16 In a sense their fix on order and
forget) minority groups. It is therefore worth zoning needs to be relaxed in favour of uses which
reminding ourselves of Ambrose’s idea that public generate societal benefits.
sector planners could be more proactive when
entering into negotiations over private sector Planning in austerity
investment.14 One practical way forward here would In 1942 the Scott Committee on Land Utilisation
be for all public planners to develop a more in Rural Areas deliberated within an imperative to
informed understanding of how private sector support agriculture and forestry on the one hand
developers begin to identify and assess an and restrict the growth of towns and cities on the
other. This was entirely logical given that the
Second World War had emphasised the UK’s
vulnerability in ‘food security’, and that unchecked
suburban expansion into vast tracts of countryside
had created a significant backlash among the
landed elite. Hence incentives for farming and
forestry were established, with restrictions placed
on urban development, resulting in a ‘no growth’
ethic enshrined in the subsequent 1947 Town and
Country Planning Act and the 1947 Agriculture Act.
Professor Dennison’s 1942 Minority Report from
the Scott Committee17 also provides a significant
lesson in long-term planning, looking as it did
outside the immediate political and economic
imperative to consider key drivers of change.
Dennison was critical of the lack of economic
analysis and justification in the Majority Report and
argued:
‘I can conceive of no more proper way to use
rural land in the national interest than it should be
Above used for the development necessary to provide
better living conditions for the people and their
An ecosystems approach, together with more visionary children after them, now living in our congested
spatial plans, could underpin a re-organised economy and towns.’ 2
more sustainable places
Dennison was able to build a set of rural policy
opportunity for investment development, which imperatives for 1942 that largely reflect rural policy
financial interests might be involved in assisting today. He challenged the unequivocal support given
with land assembly, how development schemes are to agriculture and the limiting of rural development
promoted, and approximately what rate of profit and highlighted the distributional effects of policy on
might be accrued from a potential scheme. different groups, enshrining in his approach
As Scott et al.15 acknowledge, there are principles of equity, diversification and need-based
weaknesses in many public sector planners’ development. While criticised by some for holding
expertise in development and property economics, views that seemingly ran counter to the prevailing
leaving them in a disadvantageous position when economic and political ideology of the time,17
entering into negotiation with speculative property Dennison, in effect, had the foresight to envision
developers, consultants, and (sometimes) their the long-term needs of the countryside, and
powerful financial backers. Echoing Ambrose’s questioned the development of policy that was
earlier suggestions regarding the skills and rooted in securing economic growth based on
knowledge of public sector planners, when armed protecting agriculture and forestry alone.
Town & Country Planning February 2013 89

3. Supplying land for development planning and infrastructure investment to support
It is useful to remind ourselves of the idea business interests, these acquiring agencies would
developed by some of the notable ‘political need to operate at a scale larger than existing
economy’ theorists of the 1970s, such as Castells, district, unitary or county boundaries and would be
Lefebvre, Massey and others, that any future responsible for the flow of land to meet rationally
government of the centre or left, even if seeking to assessed future demand for the area (i.e. re-
re-enliven planning as a force for good, could not invigorating the strategic co-ordination of
realistically implement policies that were seen to be infrastructure that has been dismantled by the
threatening to rates of capital accumulation.18 current UK Government).
Simplifying in the extreme, in this area the state However, under this scenario planners would
has, effectively, two options. First, it could intervene wield more control over the evolution of
to expropriate the whole construction development development, and, as a consequence, the land
sector. While this may perhaps be seen as a market could be regulated because a self-financing
justifiable aim for a centre-left administration, it is a public authority would effectively control both the
completely unrealistic prospect. On the other hand, price at which land is acquired and the price at
the state could seek to create the conditions in which it is then released for construction.
which a socially-just output is privately produced, in Significant moves towards this ambition have
a way that offers an attractive return on funds already been (partially) realised in the Community
invested. This would involve a rather more radical Right to Buy scheme in Scotland (which has been
departure from the well-intentioned (if, according to in place for nearly ten years), where a significant
some commentators, potentially socially-flawed19) lesson is that the scope of community rights should
ideas surrounding the use of Tax Increment encompass all land sales, whether public or private
Financing (TIF) initiatives as a means of funding the (instead of pursuing the ‘land of community value’
public sector investment required to spur future concept in the Localism Act, where land eligible for
Community Right to Buy is determined by local
authorities).21
‘The state is ideally situated As Falk explains,22 there are also notable
to intervene to set out exemplars elsewhere in North West Europe. In
Helsinki, for example, 85% of the land is owned by
parameters and guide good the city or other public bodies, and this has enabled
planning across the country the city to develop, creating high-quality housing,
maintaining socially-mixed neighbourhoods and
based on social and extending sustainable transport routes (tram, cycle
environmental justice. This and ski) through the administrative area while
needs a move away from the generating euro 200 million a year in surplus for the
municipal budget.
current direction of travel of In the UK context, the Green Party’s Land Value
planning, to stand up against Tax Bill23 has set out a comprehensive yet perhaps
more immediate reform, and proposes a move
those who seek to undermine towards land and property value taxation which
it and shout clearly and with will provide an incentive against speculative holding
of empty flats and assist with the funding of
confidence that there is a important infrastructure.
way that we can make this
journey together’ Ways forward?
Although in some regards highly aspirational (and
potentially contentious), the broad thrust of policy
regeneration, towards an extension of powers for direction considered here would be to achieve a
the state to acquire all land for development more progressive and integrative approach to
through the vehicle of democratically-elected public planning. Such an approach would be underpinned
agencies. by a belief in democratic decision-making and would
This would, of course, also require central be designed to offset land speculation, reduce the
government to embrace (and draw upon) what discriminatory tensions that exist between local and
Castells7 calls the creative capacity that is fostered national governance structures, ensure a flow of
among people engaging in a multiplicity of social business to an under-pressure construction sector,
networks. From a perhaps radical organisational and provide regulation on the prices that govern (or
perspective, and broadly similar to the way in which delay) new development.
the Local Enterprise Partnerships20 have been Ultimately, this article argues that the state is
established to ensure that there is the necessary ideally situated to intervene to set out parameters
90 Town & Country Planning February 2013

4. and guide good planning across the country based 15 ‘Disintegrated development at the rural urban fringe:
on social and environmental justice. This needs a re-connecting spatial planning theory and practice’ (see
move away from the current direction of travel of note 9)
planning, to stand up against those who seek to 16 D. Adams, M. Hardman and A.J. Scott: ‘Guerrilla
warfare in the planning system: revolutionary progress
undermine it and shout clearly and with confidence towards sustainability?’. Geografiska Annaler: Series B,
that there is a way that we can make this journey Human Geography (forthcoming)
together. One way forward would be a good spatial 17 See the House of Lords debate on post-war planning
plan. reconstruction between Earl de la Warr and Lord
Balfour: Hansard, HL Deb. 19 Nov. 1942, Vol. 125.
q David Adams is a Lecturer in Planning and Alister Scott is
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1942/nov/19/
Professor of Environmental and Spatial Planning at the School
planning-and-reconstruction
of the Built Environment, Birmingham City University.
David Adams can be contacted at david.adams@bcu.ac.uk. 18 For a summary, see N. Taylor: Urban Planning Theory
The authors would like to thank Professor Peter Larkham for since 1945. SAGE, 1998
his insightful comments. The views expressed are personal. 19 K. Larkin and Z. Wilcox: What Would Maggie Do? Why
the Government’s Policy on Enterprise Zones Needs to
Notes be Radically Different to the Failed Policy of the 1980s.
1 A Manifesto for Planning and Land Reform. Draft Centre for Cities, 2011. www.centreforcities.org/
manifesto. Planners Network UK (PNUK), Nov. 2012. assets/files/2011%20Research/11-02-
http://pnuk.wikispaces.com/file/view/ 25%20Enterprise%20Zones.pdf
20121027pnukmanifesto.pdf 20 ‘Local Enterprise Partnerships’. Letter to local authority
2 S.R. Dennison: Committee on Land Utilisation in Rural leaders and business leaders from the Business,
Areas – Minority Report. HMSO, 1942 Innovation and Skills and Communities and Local
3 Peter Ambrose, who died in August 2012, was the Government Secretaries. Department for Business,
author of several important planning texts, including, Innovation and Skills/Department for Communities and
perhaps most notably, Whatever Happened to Local Government, Jun. 2010.
Planning? (Routledge, 1986) www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
4 See P Allmendinger and G. Haughton: ‘Post-political
. attachment_data/file/5649/1626854.pdf
spatial planning in England: a crisis of consensus?’. 21 See, for example, A.F Mackenzie: ‘A working land:
.D.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, crofting communities, place and the politics of the
2012, Vol. 37, 89-103 possible in post-Land Reform Scotland’. Transactions of
5 See, for example, P Hall: ‘Geographers and the urban
. the Institute of British Geographers, 2006, Vol. 31 (3),
century’. In R. Johnston and M. Williams (Eds): A 383-98
Century of British Geography. Oxford University Press, 22 Growth Cities: Local Investment for National Prosperity.
2003 URBED, for Regional Cities East, 2010.
6 P Devine, A. Pearmain and D. Purdy (Eds): Feelbad
. http://media.urbed.coop.ccc.cdn.faelix.net/sites/default/
Britain. Lawrence & Wishart, 2009 files/Growth%20Cities.pdf
7 M. Castells: Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social 23 Land Value Tax Bill. House of Commons. TSO,
Movements in the Age of the Internet. Polity Press, 2012 Nov. 2012. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/
cbill/2012-2013/0045/20130045.pdf
8 C.S. Holling, L.H. Gunderson and D. Ludwig: ‘In quest
of a theory of adaptive change’. In L.H. Gunderson and
C.S. Holling (Eds): Panarchy: Understanding
Transformations in Human and Natural Systems.
Washington DC, Island Press, Washington, DC, USA,
2002
9 The ecosystem approach is defined by the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity as ‘a strategy for the
integrated management of land, water and living
resources that promotes conservation and sustainable
use in an equitable way’. See also A.J. Scott et al.:
‘Disintegrated development at the rural urban fringe:
re-connecting spatial planning theory and practice’.
Progress in Planning, 2013 (forthcoming)
10 Land Use Futures: Making the Most of Land in the 21st
Century. Foresight Land Use Futures Project.
Government Office for Science, 2010.
www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-work/projects/published-
projects/land-use-futures/reports-and-publications
11 T. Jackson: Prosperity without Growth. Routledge, 2011
12 The Green New Deal Group website is at
www.greennewdealgroup.org/
13 D. Massey: ‘Economics and ideology in the present
moment’. Soundings, 2011, No. 48, Summer.
http://lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/issue/48.html
14 P Ambrose: Whatever Happened to Planning?
.
Routledge, 1986
Town & Country Planning February 2013 91