The next 100 years of professional planning

Abstract

IntroductionRoyal Town Planning Institute was founded in 1914 to promote the art and science of town planning for the benefit of the public. Town planning is on everyone's lips these days. The National Planning Policy Framework (England) was originally intended to be a consolidation and redactive exercise, but turned into a national debate on the future of housing and landscapes. Housing - and land for it - appears to be higher on the political radar approaching a UK general election than at any time since 1979. There is widespread interest in infrastructure, and agreement that more needs to be provided. And the implications of a changing climate continue to hit headlines from one year to the next. So this is a very inter- esting time for the Royal Town Planning Institute to be celebrating 100 years of professional planning. Clearly, the need for planning is as great as it was in 1914, and, indeed, at least one of those issues - housing - is a direct throwback to the early twentieth century; even the root causes of the problem, land prices and ownership, are the same.Looking back, looking forwardThe course of planning professionalism in the UK is a well-rehearsed story. Town planning's roots were physical and design-orientated. Perhaps the phrase 'art and science' had a more 'arty' feel. Those were the days, after all, when planners worked in studios with glass roofs for lighting and wore smocks to keep their clothes free from watercolours. After the 1950s, the profession moved to a more socio-economic basis. After 1980, impact mitigation took on a key role, fuelled by the increasing role of the private sector in promoting development and a concomitant increase in quasi-legal systems of addressing 'externalities'. The question for the profession and for the RTPI is: 'what happens now, and in the next 100 years?'Part of this is connected to understanding what are the big issues. The RTPI is publishing, in this centenary year, a series of five 'Planning Horizons' papers looking at the key questions for the future. These cover climate change, changing demography, health and urbanisation. Although many of these issues are global in nature, they will present themselves in different forms in different countries. But the other part of this is the question of what kind of planners we need to tackle these issues - in particular, to undertake positive planning for the future.Project management: editing or discerning?'A specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less' (Mayo, 1927). I can recall in my first job we all had to do office 'weeding' every Friday for an hour. This involved weeding out material from old files so they could be microfiched. This was actually a fascinating insight into planning history from the 1950s and 1960s. One thing that struck me was that an application could be described as: 'Erection of 1250 houses, maisonettes and flats together with primary school, playing fields and community centre'. The decision notice was one sheet of flimsy carbon copy with one (preprinted) condition: 'The development shall be commenced within FIVE years of this date'. And the whole file would have about ten sheets of paper in it composed of letters from the County Council asking the Borough Council what they thought, together with the Borough Council's reply.Major development these days seems much more complicated. One reason is the growing levels of detail and specialisation. We nowadays have biodiversity specialists, flood specialists, heritage experts, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and, of course, judicial review, not to mention letters of objection. The (UK) coalition govern- ment is piloting a scheme to 'compensate' property owners (but not, as far as we can establish, tenants) living near developments for the loss of a view (HM Treasury, 2014) and is keen on dealing with biodiversity by means of offsetting. However, I do not see any forthcoming simplification measures leading to a return to planning files of just ten pages any day soon. …