House of Commons West Midlands Committee Inquiry – Planning for the Future

The House of Commons West Midlands Committee has recently invited submissions for its Fourth Inquiry – Planning for the Future : Housing and Economic Development in the Wes Midlands. Below is a summary of my submission

“GETTING THE REGION BACK ON ITS BIKE”

SUMMARY: SPECULATION, SPECULATION, SPECULATION

This submission asks the Select Committee to support the 4 key aims of the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy (WMRSS) which refer to:

• URBAN RENAISSANCE
• Rural Renaissance
• Economic Development
• Sustainable Transport

It also asks for the concept of “Urban Renaissance” to be strengthened with reference, in particular, to sub-regional and other significant centres outside the Major Urban Areas (MUAs), such as Worcester, and given an enhanced economic development role.

Investment in Sustainable Transport is key to Urban Renaissance both within and beyond the MUAs, and it is submitted that this is currently one of the weakest links in the present and future development of the West Midlands region.

Current and emerging policies for housing and economic development appear to diverge from the WMRSS commitment to Urban Renaissance and this is leading to excessive speculation which will undermine sustainable regeneration if allowed to continue.

The Committee should also have regard to Rural and Semi-Rural Areas within the region, and, in particular, the need to support land uses associated with food production, and the sustainable management of natural resources and historic environmental assets.

For a full version of my submission please email : consult@crookbarrow.com

This House of Commons Regional Committee Inquiry follows publication last September of the Planning Inspectorate Panel Report on the proposed WMRSS Phase 2 Revision Examination in Public. The Government response to this is currently awaited, but may not be available until after the General Election.

WMRSS Draft Phase 2 “Revision”* – Need for More “Polymorphic”** Spatial Option

The WMRSS Draft Phase 2 “Revision” Examination-in-Public (EIP) opened properly at the end of April and is due to conclude its sittings in the next couple of weeks.

During the ”Revision” the polycentric structure of the West Midlands region has been re-iterated. However, the Preferred Spatial Option (PSO) proposed by the West Midlands Regional Assembly (WMRA) is overly-simplistic in seeking to impose the concept of  “Settlements of Significant Development” (SSD)  onto an existing spatial strategy which focuses development in the Major Urban Areas (MUAs), as a means of accommodating growth outside these.

A report for the Government Office for the West Midlands (GOWM) by the consultancy Nathanial Lichfield and Partners (NLP)  is helpful in some respects (if not in others), in putting forward a broader set of spatial options for accommodating development in the period 2006-2016, albeit with the aim of promoting even more unsustainable levels of housing-based growth outside the MUAs.

It is questionable, however, whether the work on Sustainability Appraisal (SA) undertaken for either WMRA’s PSO or NLP’s report for GOWM, has fulfilled the requirements of the European Union Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)*** – albeit that the SA process is supposedly ongoing – in respect of the selection of alternative options, and in the case of the GOWM/NLP report, public consultation.

As the changes to the existing WMRSS proposed in both the WMRA and GOWM work go beyond, in the Crookbarrow view, the scope of a Revision, and constitute instead a Part or Full Review of the Regional Spatial Strategy, we suggest that the EIP Panel recommend that the Government proceed with an actual Review, already effectively underway in the work on a new Single Integrated Regional Strategy (SIRS).

Such a Review needs not only to embrace the existing polycentric structure of the West Midlands region – both within and outside the MUAs – but also to recognise that not all “major” and significant” centres have equal scope for sustainable development and regeneration  in the future. Thus the approach to assigning development quantum should be “polymorphic”. In short, a more pluralistic RSS, particularly outside the MUAs, is required.

* In fact more of a Part or Full Review

** Polymorphism (from the Greek meaning “having multiple forms”)

*** See also http://janetmackinnon.wordpress.com for more on SEA issues

Mysterious Britain* – More of The Deep Stuff

* Extract from “Mysterious Britain” by Janet & Colin Bord

“…..the ancient men built upon the hills not for reasons of war, but because the re-moulding of the countryside was an integral past of their way of life. By sculpting the forms of the hills and downs they could enhance and magnify those currents of natural energy that flowed, and still do flow, through the body of the earth, by the use of sound, movement, and, above all, thought. In the form of solemn and joyful ceremonies, they could manipulate the vibrations in order to bring the bountiful and vital life force flowing through the land and the people.”

Thus it should come as no surprise that Crookbarrow Hill – until severed from its hinterland by major road construction – was the focus of the local community’s religious – ie Christian – celebrations and holidays, notably at Easter and Whitsuntide,  as shown in this account provided by St Peter’s Baptist Church :

“The annual SS (Sunday School) treat was always arranged for the Whitsun bank holiday Monday and for many years Crookbarrow Hill, Whittington (more familiarly known as Whittington Tump) was the venue. In one account of this in 1908 we read ‘We started at 1.30 pm from the school and marched to Whittington, the infants being conveyed there on a dray kindly lent by Messrs Barnett Ltd.’  Our oldest member, Beat Clinton, who started going to SS in 1915 at the age of three, recalls the annual treat with great affection. She remembers the use of Mr Gammon’s dray to transport the children at 1pm. Tea was at 4pm and races at 6pm followed by a football match for all the fathers, everyone returning home about 9pm….”

The Deep Stuff (1) – SWJCS Site Allocations & Policies

Crookbarrow is interested in the relationship between depth psychology, deep ecology, and sustainability. However, concepts such as these may be difficult to grasp in the abstract, and may be best illustrated with reference to actual events.

Synchronicity, in the form of major climatic events co-inciding with key phases of the development planning process has been noticeable around Worcester in recent years.

Thus Examination of Worcester City Council’s Balanced Housing Market Development Plan Document (DPD) was preceded and followed by the Summer 2007  floods.

Equally syncronistic, a planned consultation event yesterday for a South Worcestershire Joint Core Strategy Site Allocations and Policies DPD - which presumes the outcome of the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy Examination – had to be cancelled due to the snow.

Deep Stuff !

What is the difference between a Spatial Strategy and a Development Scenario ?

This question lies at the heart of the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy (WMRSS) Proposed Phase 2 Revision which is now the subject of Examination in Public.

When the Proposed Phase 2 Options were subject to consultation between January and March 2007, I asked for (and was most helpfully supplied with !) a very useful background document which dealt with the “Implications of the Housing Options.”

This “Implications” document referred to a number of Spatial Options against which the housing “development scenarios” (ie Options 1,2 & 3 in the Consultation report) could be assessed.

From recollection, these Spatial Options were as follows :

1. Focusing development on the Major Urban Areas
2. More development of Sub-Regional Centres
3. Development of New Settlements (ie Eco-Towns)
4. More dispersed patterns of development

In my response to the 2007 WMRSS Consultation, I pointed out that Option 1 above came out the most favourably against a range of environmental criteria, including impact on climate change, and Option 2 least favourably. I also expressed reservations (subsequently justified !) about the Government’s housing-based growth agenda.

In the event, the West Midlands Regional Assembly opted for both Spatial Option 2 and Housing Development Scenario 2. Whilst a subsequent report from the Government Office for the West Midlands has gone for something between Spatial Option (and Housing Development Scenario) 2 and 3.

My own preferred Housing Development Scenario (and indeed Spatial Strategy !) remains that contained in the existing WMRSS (ie incorporating the Phase 1 Revision), which approximates to Option 1 in the proposed Revision. However, I question whether even this scenario will be realisable in the period to 2016.

All comments welcome !

Crookbarrow launches New Website

Please see www.crookbarrow.com

West Midlands Spatial Planning : Quantum & Little Solace

The public consultation on Preferred Options for the South Worcestershire Joint Core Strategy (SWJCS) closes on 31 October, whilst the consultation on the Preferred Option for the Phase 2 Revisions of the West Midlands Regional Spatial Stategy WMRSS) has been extended until 8 December. Comments on the WMRSS Phase 2 Revision were orginally due last March.

However, the Government Office for the West Midlands (GOWM), in response to a National Housing & Planning Advice Unit Report, commissioned consultants to consider how additional housing development could be accommodated in the WMRSS Revision, and, therefore, local development frameworks such as SWJCS. It should also be noted that further consultation on the WMRSS Phase 3 Revision, which deals with major environmental issues, has been postponed.

If all this sounds needlessly complicated, the obvious answer is that it is probably intended to be. Moreover, to complicate matter still further, the West Midlands Regional Assembly, which has hitherto been responsible for regional planning, is in the process of being abolished and its powers transferred to the Regional Development Agency (RDA), Advantage West Midlands, and the County Councils.

From the Crookbarrow perspective, the problem is basically this : too much development “quantum”  (particularly housing) is proposed in the SWJCS and WMRSS Preferred Options, and even more in the GOWM consultant’s report; and there is little solace by way of proposals for genuinely sustainable development and environmental conservation.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending upon one’s perspective), reality has imposed checks on the spatial planning process, notably in the Summer floods of last year (see below), and in the so-called “Credit Crunch”, global financial crisis and impending economic recession which have unfolded in the past 12 months or so. The question remains, however, as to whether these “quantum” developments have yet properly registered on the collective planning psyche, and the answer almost certainly offers little solace.

Drivers braving the Worcester ring road (TheMailOnline July 2007)

About Crookbarrow Associates

The Crookbarrow is a semi-natural tumulus whose origins lie in antiquity, located next to Junction 7 of the M5 Motorway. Brock Hill, or Whittington Tump, as the mound is also known, is an ideal place for Horizon Scanning.

Crookbarrow Associates is a new consultancy venture whose aim is to facilitate improvements in the way client organisations “construct the future”, both physically and psychologically, during the spatial planning process.

A central issue for Crookbarrow Associates is the options development process, whether for individual projects or strategic programmes. We are, therefore, interested in statutory procedures such as Environmental Assessment.

We must stress that our consultancy process is based on “Limits to Growth” principles. The earth’s resources are finite, much natural heritage (biodiversity etc) cannot be replaced, and man’s environmental boot-print is growing.

The dangers of conscious planning which under-values the importance of “unconscious process” has been recognised (and usually overlooked) for many years, so we apply process consulting methods to development planning.

A key part of our role involves a better understanding of communications structures, both organisational and in the type of language deployed. Minimising the use of “group-speak” and jargon underpins this work.

The consultancy methods of Crookbarrow Associates have evolved over nearly a quarter century through the broad experience of Principal Janet Mackinnon, and especially during her work in the London Thames Gateway.

We are now particularly interested in helping clients and stakeholders evolve sustainable transport strategies where a history of failed/flawed scheme promotion exists for the reasons described above, as well as other factors.

www.crookbarrow.com