back up test

Many have pointed out that the coalition's 'localism' and 'growth' agendas are on a collision course. The doublethink that is involved was identified a while back by the late political philosopher Jerry Cohen who lamented so-called conservatives who 'blather on about warm beer and old maids cycling to church and then they hand Wal-Mart the keys to the kingdom'. The rise of nimbyism has coincided with that of planning policies about 'town centre first', building on brownfield land before green field etc. If high density mixed use walkable neighbourhoods are the goal, then things need to be built close to, if not actually in, people's back yards. Thirty years ago, we were building supermarkets and business parks well away from anywhere that anyone lived, and well away from anywhere nice. The downside of prioritising the preferences of the nimbies could be more hypermarkets on the ring road. An alternative upside model would be to build some...

The Government has signalled a return to the Enterprise Zones of the 1980s. The aim is to encourage development by freeing up planning rules and offering tax incentives. This is just one more approach to 'regeneration', i.e. public sector measures to secure development where no one wants to develop (private sector development that claims to be 'regeneration' is now ubiquitous, but is in fact just 'development' - no shame in that). Last time around, we had Enterprise Zones, which were cheap, passive measures, but also Urban Development Corporations (UDC's), which were costlier, but active in facilitating development, for instance by assembling sites and providing infrastructure; and they, rather than local authorities, had development control powers in their areas. Both (the measures were not mutually exclusive) had mixed results, with more failures than successes. In some places, a great deal of public money was spent, and nothing of consequence was bu...

Neighbourhood planning is likely to make the planning system more complicated, but luckily, it probably won't apply everywhere, and it is likely to be most prevalent in places where there isn't much development anyway. All a bit Alice in Wonderland. My latest quarterly column for the RIBA Journal, here , has more considered views on this.