Open Source Planning, the Conservatives' Policy Green Paper No. 14, was launched in February to much fanfare and to some bemusement. What exactly did the term mean? Why had waste management, among the most contentious of local planning issues, not merited even a brief mention? Words like “broken”, “hampered” and “crippled” described the present planning system and its impact on development, but would OSP deliver anything better?
Waste and recycling expert Gev Eduljee is director of external affairs at SITA UK We can certainly agree with the green paper that at least for waste management, our strategic planning system is fiendishly complex, and that regional spatial strategies are increasingly a side-show, what with the emphasis on local solutions for locally-generated waste, directing recyclates, heat and energy to local offtakes.
Furthermore, local planning authorities wishing to work together by forming waste partnerships do not need the additional layer of a regional body directing their efforts. To that extent, doing away with the regional planning structure will have a liberating effect – but the gap between national targets and strategic aspirations versus local delivery then needs to be bridged.
It would be naïve to assume (as OSP seems to do) that left to their own devices, communities would “do the right thing” and agree to host the often unpopular facilities needed to, for example, deliver the UK's landfill diversion targets from the bottom-up.
Rather, communities might well want to flex their muscles and invoke the right to third party appeal that OSP gives them, for even the most innocuous waste facility. Although grounds for third party appeals are restricted, that would not stop communities, goaded by some protest groups, adopting spoiling tactics if only to delay (and add costs to) the application.
OSP's solution is to rely on the persuasive power of incentives. Language is used rather loosely here. Local disamenity often boils down to a row of houses or a couple of streets, whereas the green paper talks in terms of “your community”, “local communities”, “neighbourhoods” and “local people”. How local is the incentive to be applied? More to the point, who pays?
Adding an incentive to a waste contract will in effect raise the cost of that service, which the community, through its local authority, will ultimately have to pay.
Consultation
The unspoken assumption in the green paper seems to be that we don't consult enough, and that local communities are crying out to be heard. Certainly as far as waste management is concerned, nothing could be further from the truth. Each stage of our present system (Regional Spatial Strategy – Local Development Framework – Core Strategy – Development Plan Documents – Detailed Policies – Site Proposals) requires separate consultation.
If anything we have a surfeit of representation but a democratic deficit – often the loudest shouts of a vociferous minority pull down democratically arrived-at decisions. Where does one draw the line of democratic accountability? At what scale? If “every single resident of [a] neighbourhood” takes part in developing a local plan, does each resident have a power of veto over the entire scheme? How small does a “small minority of residential neighbours” need to be in order to lodge a valid objection? These questions are left unanswered in the green paper.
Finally, as with the present system, OSP will be plan-led. We already face severe delays in getting our local development plans adopted. According to a recent report from PINS, by mid-2009 DCLG had received only 10 adopted waste plans (out of 107) with a further 18 projected by July 2010 – totalling approximately 25% of English waste plans. Infraction proceedings against the UK for not complying with Article 7 of the (old) Waste Framework Directive are a possibility.
Ironically, OSP's solution for laggard planning authorities is to bypass the elaborate structures of “collaborative democratic methods” it so eloquently espouses, and instead judge the application against national planning guidance!
For seasoned waste-watchers it is easy to snipe cynically at the planning system. While most of us would say that we need yet another wholesale revision of the strategic planning system like a hole in the head, we cannot by the same token continue with a regime that most commentators agree is stifling the flow of investment into the sector, hindering the timely delivery of waste treatment infrastructure.
We need a fresh approach, new ideas, and above all political leadership and resolve at national and local level to make things happen. If OSP is the start of that debate, all power to its elbow.
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