Andrew Lainton has drawn attention to the fact that in Australia, a new planning policy, Creating Places for People, has recently been out for consultation. While our own NPPF managed to attract 13,700 responses (many, we imagine, highly critical), the Aussie equivalent had just 33 responses, and most of them were positive.
Why? Because Australians don’t get upset by planning the way we do? Unlikely. Rather, it’s because the planning guidance there properly reflects sustainable principles of growth and development. It promotes Smart Growth ideas, to make cities liveable places.
The Communities and Local Government department in England would like to think the NPPF does the same, but as many have observed, it doesn’t. We are now in the waiting game, while we wait and see what CLG will do with the consultation responses.
The thought occurs, though, that the consultation process itself may be at fault. The NPPF has only had a relatively short consultation. Although the Practitioners Advisory Group version appeared beforehand, the official NPPF consultation began on 25 July, and ran to 17 October. Hence, it opened just after Parliament had gone into recess, and closed only a few weeks after the party conference season had ended.
The official Cabinet Office code of practice on consultations states that:
2.2 If a consultation exercise is to take place over a period when consultees are less able to respond, e.g. over the summer or Christmas break, or if the policy under consideration is particularly complex, consideration should be given to the feasibility of allowing a longer period for the consultation.
And yet… we are hearing that there is unlikely to be any further consultation on the NPPF. Not least this is because the Plan for Growth sets a deadline of April 2012 for the publication of the final version of the policy. A second consultation would require another 12 week minimum period. This means that Greg Clark would have to read 13,700 responses, rewrite the NPPF, and publish it before Christmas, to allow time for a second consultation to be taken into consideration before 1 April 2012.
It’s not going to happen. In fact the only way it might, is if the Plan for Growth was changed, to build in more time for reflection and consideration on making the NPPF as sustainable and effective as possible.
If the Government were truly interested in a balanced approach to planning, they might do this. But planning is increasingly becoming the battle ground on which the fight for the economy is taking place. Government is defiantly pursuing its approach to ‘unblock the system’ (as the PM put it in the Financial Times earlier this week).
With stakes like these, who would want to bet on a properly balanced NPPF as the outcome?
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