No more planning reforms, please!

Posted on 23 August, 2016 by Fiona

On 14 July 2016, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced her new Cabinet, following a significant reshuffle and re-structure of Government. In this context, researchers from all over Newcastle University express their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the Government in the Ideas for May’s Ministers blog series, considering how individuals, communities and societies can thrive in times of rapid, transformational change.

To: Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
From: Professor Simin Davoudi, Professor of Environmental Policy & Planning, Newcastle School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

On 12 May 2016, two months before Sajid Javid became the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Housing and Planning Act was given Royal Assent. Starter Homes were a key priority for the Housing and Planning Act but faced some of the strongest opposition on the ground that it adversely affects the availability of affordable housing. The Act also introduced changes to speed up and streamline the planning system so that permissions for development are granted faster and more often. Concerns over planning delays have been a force for legislative change since 1947. However, these acts often create more confusion and delay in the system they were hoping to reform.

The 2004 reform, for example, created a complex system with a host of new acronyms and terms that were incomprehensible even to professional planners, let alone members of the public they were trying to engage. Attempts by the government of the time to clarify things led to the publication of thousands of pages of good practice guidance. But, these only added to the confusion. The statements in the guidance were often complex and convoluted, such as this one:

‘The local development framework will be comprised of local development documents which include development plan documents, that are part of the statutory development plan and supplementary planning documents which expand policies set out in a development plan document or provide additional details’ [i]

In the last 12 years, the dizzying pace of reforms has itself become a key factor in slowing the system down because, before one set of reforms is fully operational, another one comes along and planners have to start all over again and all in the name of speeding up and streamlining the planning system.

So, my plea to Sajid Javid is twofold: first, please do not embark on new planning reforms and instead, allow the current one to bed down. Second, do not let the obsession with speeding up the decision-making get in the way of sound and well thought-out decisions. While nobody wishes to advocate inefficiencies and unjustifiable delays, the quest for speed needs to be kept in perspective. As a chief planner once put it, ‘it is easy to take a bad decision quickly and to repent at leisure; but it is doubtful whether people would regard this as good planning’[ii]. The developments of today will not be judged in the years to come by whether or not their planning applications were determined in eight weeks instead of ten. They will be judged on the soundness of the decision that allowed them to go ahead and on the quality of the outcome.

Have you ever seen a plaque put on a building to commemorate that the decision to build it was taken in eight weeks? Me neither.

It is wrong to think about speed in isolation from the purpose of planning which is about making better places. This implies that the performance of planning should be judged not just by how fast decisions are made and plans are produced, but also on the impacts of these decisions on places, and on people’s quality of life. The 2016 reform, like most of its predecessors, focuses too much on procedures and too little on outcomes. And, when outcomes are talked about, the focus is almost entirely on economic growth measured by the GDP, with little attention being paid to the role of planning in creating fairer and more sustainable places.

What people consider as good planning is its outcome delivered through a fair and efficient process. They want to see good development happening in the right places at the right scale and with high environmental and design standards. They want the process to inform them adequately, engage them properly, listen to their views carefully, and seek an outcome that responds constructively to what is said. All these require time, resources, expertise, skills and crucially a supporting environment which is appreciative of what planners try to achieve rather than demoralising them.

While nobody claims that our planning system has been an unqualified success, it is hard to imagine what would have happened without it. So, it is time to stop talking about planning as a burden and start utilising and mobilising planning as a positive force, and as a powerful means for meeting societal goals including the much needed affordable homes

Prof Simin Davoudi, Newcastle University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

To engage in the conversation, please tweet us @Social_Renewal #IdeasforMaysMinisters

[i] Creating Local Development Frameworks: A Companion Guide to PPS12 (2004) para. 1.4, London: ODPM

[ii] Late Dr Ted Kitchen, former chief planner at Manchester City Council and professor at Sheffield Hallam University

To end urban hunger, focus on low-income housing and settlements in cities

Posted on 22 May, 2015 by Fiona

Millions of adults who live in low-income urban areas regularly fall short of the calorie requirement recommended for a healthy life. The relationship between low income housing and food security needs to be targeted by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in order to achieve Goal 2: ‘to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture’. Dr Suzanne Speak (GURU, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape) contributes to the Newcastle University Societal Challenge Theme Institute blog series by showing how the UN SDGs could end urban hunger.

Food security for the urban poor

In its 2013 report on the State of World Food Security, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated that one in eight people in the world were suffering from chronic hunger and undernourishment in 2011-13. While the crises of acute famine or drought afflicting small farmers and rural dwellers are well reported to the international community, the ongoing, daily undernourishment of many low-income people in urban areas is less well understood or prioritised.

The focus on food security has, until recently, been overwhelmingly on rural problems and on issues of food availability at a global and national scale. The UN Sustainable Development Goals do little to address this rural focus. Despite SDG 2 aiming to ‘end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’, there remains no explicit reference to urban hunger. Yet many millions of urban adults regularly fall short of the 2,100 kilocalories recommended for a healthy, active life. Urban food insecurity has been significantly overlooked, especially by some of the professionals who could influence it most. Food security remains invisible to urban planners and managers in comparison to other problems such as unemployment, overcrowding and decaying infrastructure [1].

Urbanisation has brought with it the urbanisation of poverty and now, many low-income urban populations are equally at risk of poverty and food insecurity. Indeed, the UN itself acknowledges the food security and malnutrition issues associated with this urbanisation of poverty [2]. There are many reasons for this urban food stress. While it is difficult for urban policymakers to intervene to address all of them, here are three points around housing and settlement policy which can help drive urban food strategies.

Increase secure livelihoods

Urban dwellers pay up to 30% more for their food than rural households [3]. However, livelihoods are unstable, being more dependent on waged income from precarious informal employment. Much of the informal-sector activity takes place outdoors (construction, street vending, or rickshaw drawing), making the rainy season an especially difficult period. Seasonal variations need to be taken into consideration when designing urban interventions. Urban households may need to remit funds back to the rural family, putting further stress on income and budgets.

The UN SDGs can help to address the problem of urban food insecurity through focused work on urban poverty. However, poverty is not the only issue affecting urban food security. We need to recognise the synergy between food security and several of the goals, especially Goal 11 on cities and human settlements, and Goals 6 and 7 on water, sanitation and energy.

Promote sustainable urban agriculture and improve access to land

As the homes of the poor are usually small they have less storage to set food aside for harder times. Urban agriculture could play a significant role in managing fluctuations in food availability and support women who are unable to work outside the home. Indeed target 5a urges ‘reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land ….’ Urban land is as vital for women’s livelihoods as is rural land. However, authorities seldom recognise this. Many urban migrants, men and women, tend to have good agricultural skills but there is less land available. However, encouraging urban agriculture for low income households would support SDG 12 to “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”.

City authorities can do much to support both food security and gender equality by enabling the urban poor to have access to land for livelihood and agricultural purposes, and reconsidering their attitudes towards urban agriculture. This cannot be achieved easily, given the spiralling cost of urban land in many cities of the south. Nevertheless, urban planning policy can, and in some countries does, manage to regulate in such a way that undeveloped urban land can be temporarily put to more productive use. This requires municipal planning authorities to have strong vision and commitment to addressing urban hunger. It also requires strong governance and improved capacity within municipalities to develop and enforce regulation, such as land banking, which pushes up the cost of land and removes it from productive use.

Ensure easy access to food markets and adequate conditions for cooking

The absence of markets and the small size of low-income housing, which has limited kitchen facilities, means an over reliance on street vendors and processed ‘snack’ foods for daily calorie intake. Street foods are often more expensive, and less nutritious, than home-prepared foods. Urban household budgets also compete with other resources such as water, devoting a significantly higher share of their limited household budget to drinking water than rural households.

SDG 6 aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. However, food safety can be more problematic in urban settlements, where inadequate space and services for food production and storage have implications for both individual and public health. The lack of basic water, sanitation, drainage and solid-waste disposal services makes it impossible for the poor to prevent contamination of water and food.

Reliance on street foods further exposes urban residents to higher levels of food contamination and low nutritional intake. In this respect, two SDGs are particularly relevant — SDG 6 to ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’ may be critical in improving food safety. Targets 6.1 – 6.5 are especially relevant to enabling low-income urban people to avoid food borne disease and lead healthier lives in general. In this respect they will be more productive for the city and better able to improve their own livelihoods.

Even if food can be purchased and stored effectively, much cooking is done on open fires or kerosene stoves, both of which produce toxic fumes in small, badly ventilated houses. In this respect SDG 7 can help in its determination to “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”.

SDG 11 recognises the importance of making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. However, this cannot be achieved until the availability of, access to and use of food in low income settlements is recognised as a specific and urgent issue, and addressed by urban professionals not simply those engaged in agriculture.

Summary of action points for reaching SDGs on hunger:

The UN SDGs can help address urban food insecurity by targeting urban poverty, but it is not the only issue affecting food security which includes human settlements, water, sanitation and energy.
Rather than be seen as inappropriate in urban planning by city managers, low-income households should be encouraged to take up urban agriculture to alleviate hunger in cities.
Create food markets, sharing networks and urban agriculture projects to decrease reliance on street food which is often more expensive, less nutritious and more likely to be contaminated than home-prepared meals.

These are only some examples of actions that could be taken to address food security for the urban poor. However, the importance of markets and income-earning opportunities cannot be over-emphasised as it is sustainable livelihoods that will enable people to ensure their food security for present and future generations. Urban planners and similar practitioners could play a key role in achieving food security, improving food nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture together by focusing on the plights of low-income urban areas.

[1] Maxwell, D. (1999). The political economy of urban food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.World Development, 27(11), 1939-1953.

[2] United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition August 2013 available at: http://www.unscn.org/files/Statements/August_31-_UNSCN_World_Urban_Forum_6-_Statement_final_3108_finalfinal.pdf

[3] World Food Programme. Annual Session. Rome 20-23 May 2002 Report on Agenda Item 5 Policy Issues (http://www.wfp.org/eb)

Newcastle University Societal Challenge Theme Institutes:

Making school buildings fit for purpose

Posted on 17 April, 2015 by Fiona

In ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ no. 14, Dr Pam Woolner from the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences argues that with pupil numbers rising, our schools are under pressure, and our school buildings need to catch up. Her idea is to make working with school students, staff and the wider community a priority in tackling the problem.

What’s the problem?

Our school estate is not fit for purpose. Although this government and the previous Labour administrations have overseen new school building, it was long overdue and has not got anywhere near renewing or refurbishing all the schools in need. It has also led to very uneven provision: schools built over the last 150 years that have been designed for disparate understandings of education.

Meanwhile, student numbers are generally rising, putting pressure on this already-strained infrastructure. For the first time in decades, the UK is experiencing a sustained increase in birth rate which will translate into steady increases in school numbers. As Sarah Healey (then Director, Education Funding Group, DfE) commented in 2013, “this is not a very short temporary bulge […] so it will continue to be a challenge.” (Westminster Education Forum, 16.1.13).

This is concerning because there is an established, if not entirely understood, link between the quality of the school space and student outcomes. In particular, research shows that there are clear negative consequences of inadequate school buildings. Focused research has found direct effects on learning of specific physical problems including noise, high and low temperatures, poor air quality and limited learning space. Other studies reveal correlations between measures of school building and classroom quality with student outcomes including attitude, attendance and attainment. We can see how a poor school environment might contribute to a spiral of decline: this could involve declining student attitudes, increases in poor behaviour, reduced well-being and attendance, lowered staff morale and difficulties in staff retention.

Yet research into the physical environment of education also demonstrates that there is not a single perfect or ideal setting for learning. Although spacious, well-ventilated classrooms with good acoustics and temperature controls will tend to be beneficial, the suitability of other aspects of the school building will depend on what the school community wants to do: collaborative learning in groups, hands-on science, musical performance and sport all make particular, sometimes conflicting, demands on space.

The solution

There is some evidence that in effective schools, staff tend to engage with the physical environment and attempt to make it fit their needs. Other research suggests an important role for students in such evaluation and adaptation activities. In these processes, everyone comes to understand the helps and hindrances of their particular building much better and are able to make better use of it.

The evidence base reveals the negative effect of poor school premises, but it does not provide priorities for fixing them, and shows that there is no ideal to aim for. We need to understand the intentions and needs of the school community to design them an appropriate setting.

This all implies a necessity of actively involving school students, staff and the wider community in any redesign or rebuilding, helping them to think collaboratively about exactly what their requirements are. There is expertise among architecture and design professionals to make such participation happen, but it needs to be a central requirement of rebuilding and refurbishment processes to ensure that it does. Unfortunately, it is this element of participation that is being determinedly left out of the current government’s funding arrangements for school rebuilding.

An incoming government needs to ensure that the understandings which school users have of education in their settings are brought together and developed to drive decisions in re-builds, re-designs and refurbishments. Ultimately, this is the most productive way to address the shortcomings of the school estate, which if ignored will detrimentally affect the education of the citizens of tomorrow.

The evidence

Bakó-Birób, Zs., Clements-Croomea, D.J, Kochhara, N., Awbia, H.B. and Williams, M.J. (2012) ‘Ventilation rates in schools and pupils’ performance’, Building and Environment, 48: 215-23.

Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Moffat, J. Kobbacy, K (2013) A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on pupils’ learning. Building and Environment, 59: 678-689.

Durán-Narucki , V. (2008). School building condition, school attendance, and academic achievement in New York City public schools: A mediation model. Journal of Environmental Psychology 28: 278-286.

Flutter, J. (2006). ‘This place could help you learn’: student participation in creating better learning environments. Educational Review 58(2): 183-193.

Maxwell, L.E. (2003) Home and School Density Effects on Elementary School Children: The Role of Spatial Density Environment and Behavior 35: 566 – 577

Uline,C. L. Tschannen-Moran, M., and DeVere Wolsey, T. (2009).The walls still speak: The stories occupants tell. Journal of Educational Administration, 47(3):400–426.

Woolner, P. (2015) (Ed.) School Design Together, Abingdon: Routledge

Woolner, P.and Hall, E. (2010). Noise in Schools: A Holistic Approach to the Issue, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 7(8): 3255-3269.

Woolner, P., Hall, E., Higgins,S., McCaughey, C., Wall, K. (2007a) A sound foundation? What we know about the impact of environments on learning and the implications for Building Schools for the Future. Oxford Review of Education, 33(1): 47-70.

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Tag Archives: planning

No more planning reforms, please!

To end urban hunger, focus on low-income housing and settlements in cities