The British government intends to ditch 65 years of planning law and practice by introducing a radical reform in planning guidelines for England. These were published last week following a row over the original draft that was out for consultation last year.
Mepa has tended to follow the British fondness for publishing innumerable documents with countless overlapping- Michael Falzon
Britain’s complex planning rules are being slimmed down to a 50-page set of guidelines – replacing 1,300 pages of guidelines in 44 separate documents – with the UK government claiming this will give new momentum to the economic recovery byfreeing up land for housing and business development.
Greg Clark, the UK planning minister, insists the new rules will remove a major obstacle to growth and put the onus on councils to approve “sustainable development”.
In the proposed new regime there will be a presumption in favour of sustainable development, giving the go-ahead to development unless negatives significantly and demonstrably outweigh the positives. This stance has been criticised as one that changes the existing planning regime to a developers’ charter.
NGOs such as the National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England are opposing the proposals that have the support of business lobbies and developers, while homelessness charities and social housing providers issued a joint response, welcoming the intention of simplifying the planning system and speeding up decisions,
The proposed guidelines specifically defines ‘sustainable development’ according to five guiding principles: living within the planet’s environmental limits; ensuring a strong, healthy and just society; achieving a sustainable economy; promoting good governance; and using sound science responsibly. But undoubtedly, ‘sustainable development’ has been a notion that defies definition and there will be many who think these vague principles are not enough.
The controversy is not unlike the one we had some yearsback in Malta when the government decided to launch therationalisation exercise that slightly extended the limits of development areas.
Meanwhile in Malta, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) has published a public consultation draft of a document to establish the strategic objectives of the Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development (SPED). This will eventually replace the Structure Plan that is now over 20 years old. The new document must inevitably recognise the substantial and significant changes in the Maltese economy over the past two decades.
It is evident the government has prodded Mepa to rush things: I think the timeframe for the finalisation of SPED is too short and the unholy haste is not justified other than by the glaring mistakes in the existing approved Local Plans and Mepa’s past inertia to update the Structure Plan.
It seems that Local Plans will be revised eventually in line with parameters to be established by SPED.
Personally, I do not think there should be much controversy in the strategic objectives as set out. The underlying presumption seems to be in favour of the environment rather than development, although this has not been spelt out clearly. Economic growth is impossible without development and unnecessary obstacles to development hinder economic growth, as the UK government is maintaining.
What is happening in the UK is of interest to us because our planning law and practice were based on UK practice and convention, with British planners helping us to set up and launch our planning regime and train local personnel.
As a result, Mepa has tended to follow the British fondness for publishing innumerable documents with countless overlapping (or even contradictory) policies. We launched our planning regime some 40 years after the UK, but we do not need to wait another 40 years to realise that our excessively complex planning rules need to be slimmed down.
In any case, there is no comparison between the problems that have to be overcome if the Maltese economy is to enjoy sustained growth. We have inherent problems resulting from Malta’s small geographical area and its intense population density and have to find solutions tailored for our own specific circumstances.
While there should be no serious objections to the proposed overall objectives of SPED, the devil is in the detail that will follow. It will be in the policies that will be set out to achieve those objectives and even more in the planning guidelines that will translate these policies into practice. I trust that by now we have realised the futility of complicating things unnecessarily.
It is obvious that over long periods, there are cyclical swings with importance being given to environment more than to development or the other way about – hence the rethinking in the UK.
At the end of the day, the crux of the problem is to find the right balance between the environment and development. For this we need to have a clear idea of the meaning and consequences of that much abused term: sustainable development.
However, finding the right balance has never been a forte of the Maltese character. Our pendulums tend to defy gravity, lying horizontally on one side or another and hardly ever resting vertically!
Will SPED be an exception and help us find the right balance?
micfal@maltanet.net