RTPI/ESPON SEMINAR : Spatial Perspectives for Rural Development in the U.K.
Bristol UWE Wednesday November 9th 2009
A Rural Policy View
Trevor Cherrett, Commission for Rural Communities
SYNOPSIS
This paper summarises some of the key spatial perspectives relevant to planning for sustainable rural communities, a policy issue of considerable concern to the Commission for Rural Communities (1), working within the post-war English planning context of strong constraints on development in the countryside .
At national level there is a notable absence of any overarching spatial framework (2), although there is of course an array of Planning Policy Statements which guide and steer rural policy, notably PPS13, 3,7 and 4 (draft). The general drift of these PPSs is to `protect` the countryside, whilst increasingly acknowledging the social and economic changes taking place in rural England. The latter includes a policy rhetoric in favour of a “living and working countryside”(3), and the practical delivery of development which is demonstrably supported by evidence of local need. (4) Meanwhile the future of the wider rural landscape is considered within other policy arenas such as Defra (5).
However, there is little evidence of developing a coherent spatial perspective at regional level. Research commissioned by the Commission for Rural Communities (6) reveals minimal recognition of rural spatial perspectives, reflecting perhaps the implicit assumptions that only large urban areas, and the connections between them, are `strategic`, together with location policies which focus on urban concentration. Where regional rural strategies are presented, they are likely to be a marginal `add-ons` which fail to be translated into real delivery (7). Thus the profound changes which have been taking place in rural areas – population and housing growth, a widening economic profile, and complex patterns of movement - do not appear to be fully analysed at regional ( or city –regional) level. (8)
The story continues to be largely the same at local and community level. A typical `default` local planning policy will concentrate future development in market towns and larger villages, leaving smaller settlements to fend for themselves with the crumbs of `exceptional` development. Engaging local communities themselves in this planning process is patchy, at best encouraged by a dialogue with genuine community planning processes (9), at worst left to intermittent statutory consultations on the preparation of Local Development Frameworks.
This restrictive approach to rural spatial planning appears to derive from a historic English concern with protecting the countryside (10), an emphasis on the availability of services such as shops and schools, and a general aim to reduce the need to travel. Arguably, these three criteria now form an unofficial proxy for `sustainable rural development`, despite their narrow range (11), and recent research which seriously downplays the link between locational policies and carbon emissions (12).
The criteria selected to guide planning for sustainable rural communities will be crucial to the future of rural spatial planning, and deservemore detailed and coherent research and analysis. This must include better technical advice on the carbon impact of development (13), but also an assessment of the wider implications of rural development (or non-development) on such issues as economic well-being, social justice, and democratic processes (14).
NOTES
1 The Commission for Rural Communities is the government`s independent advisor, advocate and watchdog on policies impacting on the needs of people living and working in rural England. Publications on this policy issue include Planning for Sustainable Rural Communities: A New Agenda ? (2007)and The Big Picture (2008).
2. The TCPA has argued strongly for a national planning framework (see Connecting England– a framework for regional development; May 2006 )and is working on what such a national strategy might look like.
3. Notably the Rural White Papers of 1993 and 2000, the report of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission in 2005, and the Matthew Taylor Report of 2008.
4. For example the housing `exceptions` policy contained within PPS3, and the more positive support for local rural economic development in draft PPS4.
5. The lack of a strategic approach to the planning of rural land use outside existing towns and villages is highlighted in The Challenge of Strategic Rural Land Use by Terry Carroll in TCPA Journal Sept 2007 .
6. The rural housing content of regional strategies was analysed by Three Dragons consultants for the Commission for Rural Communities 2007
7. Author`s experience in practice.
8. The Town in the Country (Ray Green in TCPA Journal , February 2009) is an excellent study of the variation in the circumstances of 417 towns in the rural regions (drawing on the 2001 Census), which identifies three broad national socio-economic divisions of rural areas (from rural - urban peripheral to more remote), and the need for more subtle and varied planning approaches.
9. In theory, LDFs should be informed by community planning processes such as local strategic partnerships and sustainable community strategies, or direct input from community-led initiatives such as parish plans and village design statements, but in practice these linkages are often weak or sporadic. The Commission for Rural Communities is currently supporting a pilot project which endeavours to engage rural communities more comprehensively through a Toolkit for Sustainable Rural Communities.
10. Post-war town and country planning focused on rebuilding towns and cities, building new towns, preventing urban sprawl through Green Belts, and protecting the countryside for agriculture, conservation and recreation.
11. See Planning for Sustainable Rural Communities: A New Agenda ? (2007)and The Big Picture (2008) (Commission for Rural Communities op cit) for more detailed arguments.
12. See Spatial Planning, Sustainability and long-run trends ( Echenique at al in TCPA Journal September 2009) for recently completed EPSRC funded research undertaken by 5 Universities, which suggests that current land use and transport planning strategies have virtually no impact on major long-term increases in resource and energy use, and actually tend to increase costs and reduce economic competitiveness; and that alternative location options have only a small effect on environmental sustainability.
13. As called for by the recent TCPA/FoE Planning and Climate Change Coalition statement.
14. This wider agenda is being pursued by a new national rural coalition chaired by Matthew Taylor MP, in its recently published prospectus The Future is Rural too.