What the English Devolution White Paper means for strategic planning

The government has released its English Devolution White Paper: Power and partnership – Foundations for growth, which is not so much a white paper as a roadmap for completely restructuring local government in England. As background, the government’s intention is to move from our current system of local government to a more uniform system in which all councils are unitary authorities. By way of contrast, our current system involves a multitude of structures, including district councils, county councils, unitary authorities, mayoral authorities and national park authorities The government is also looking to create a new form of “strategic authority”, which will either be: A foundation strategic authority: This category will include non-mayoral combined authorities and combined county authorities automatically, and any local authority designated as a strategic authority without a mayor; or A mayoral strategic authority: This category will include the Greater London Authority; all mayoral combined authorities and all mayoral combined county authorities will automatically begin as mayoral strategic authorities. Those who meet specified eligibility criteria may be designated as established mayoral strategic authorities. This unlocks further devolution, most notably an integrated settlement. These strategic authorities, once created, will gain new powers, responsibilities, and funding. One of those new powers (which does not appear to be optional) is strategic planning. One important nuance: It is recognised by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that moving to a fully unitary local government system will take much time. This means strategic authorities will be created well before the local government reorganisation completes and that, for two-tier areas, the strategic authority will be a combined county authority that the government will create by grouping county councils together. District councils will, therefore, not be a member of the strategic authority for their area; albeit that the government is expecting “effective levels of collaboration” between the strategic authority and the district councils moving forward. What does this mean for the planning system? The government appears fully committed to getting to the point where all of England is covered by a strategic plan. So committed, in fact, that strategic planning is coming forward before the whole of England is covered by a strategic authority. Where there is no strategic authority, or at the very least no plans for one, the government will introduce a power in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to direct specific groups of county councils, unitary authorities, etc to act in its place – at least for strategic planning purposes. The fundamental plank of these proposals is the creation of a spatial development strategy which will guide development for the local planning authorities in the area, and their local plans will need to be in general conformity with it. The SDS is intended to be a “deliberately high-level” document that leaves detailed policy and site allocations to the local plans of constituent LPAs. It is however intended to include: the identification of strategic growth areas and key infrastructure requirements; a total housing need figure, which is created by adding up new standard method figures for the whole area; and details of how this is to be apportioned between the constituent LPAs. The apportioned figure set for each LPA would then be the minimum housing requirement for its next local plan and is, therefore, mandatory. As a result, there will be a formal duty for the body drawing up the SDS to consult district councils on its development and an ability for district councils to raise concerns with the Planning Inspectorate about its content. All of this will be backed up by MHCLG wielding a big hypothetical stick. Namely, the creation of new intervention powers, which will enable the government to step in where spatial development strategies are not produced quickly enough. These will include giving directions on timetables or particular policy content such as the distribution of housing need, taking over the preparation of an SDS and adopting it on behalf of strategic planning authorities, plus everything in between. And when they say “quickly enough”, MHCLG is not messing around. It wants spatial development strategies covering all of England by the end of the parliament. In short, if fully adopted these proposals will be nothing short of transformational. Our planning system will be very different to how it is now, albeit somewhat familiar to anyone whose planning career pre-dates 2011. They will also be controversial. Anything that involves this level of government reorganisation is pretty much guaranteed to prompt concern. Whether that concern translates into meaningful opposition to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill or the English Devolution Bill remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that both pieces of legislation will have a lot riding on them. Read the white paper here Nicola Gooch is a partner in the planning team at Irwin Mitchell