WHY THE WEST MIDLANDS & OTHER REGIONS NEEDS TO GET ON THEIR BIKES

London Mayor Boris Johnson

I would put the statistical likelihood of a damsel in distress being rescued by a senior West Midlands politician on his bicycle as being about the same as winning £45 million on the Euro Lottery. However, if anyone has other views on this possibility, please feel free to contact me.

The fact is that West Midlands folk like their cars and, as far a I can make out, an executive vehicle automatically confers executive status no matter how lacklustre the individual in question : so whist I’ve encountered few cycling politicians hereabouts, I’ve encountered plenty of lacklustre ones.

The result, unsurprisingly, is a lacklustre region as demonstrated by a recent report for the West Midlands Regional Assembly and Advantage West Midlands (AWM) on the problems of the region’s economy, which boasts the highest unemployment levels in the country. Could the Longbridge debacle have happened any where else I wonder ?

When I suggested to a local politician that his council officers would do well to get on their bikes to arrive at a realistic view of the amount of empty property, derelict sites and, indeed, unutilised planning consents assigned for so-called employment land in their area, I could tell that this didn’t go down well.

I might have added, of course, that some of his colleagues would be doing the region a favour if they followed Norman Tebbit’s advice, and got on their bikes in search of alternative employment. I mention “Stormin” Norman because my reference is to Conservative-controlled local authorities, or the Regressive (some might say “Retarded”) Right.

For “regressive” – even “retarded” – is precisely the description I would give to much economic development and planning policy for the West Midlands Region. In short, I would suggest that the region is 25 years behind London in implementing transport policies to support sustainable regeneration in the Major Urban Areas (MUAs)

Moreover, I seriously question whether most senior decision-makers, whether in the private or public sectors, ever use public transport, let alone their bicycles. Indeed my overwhelming impression is of a region of car-driving executives semi-detached from the real world.

A case in point concerns the release of additional land for employment outside the MUAs as part the Revision of the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy process. This process, incidentally, has created unprecedented levels of speculative land-banking in the region, which have only been dampened by the present “Great Recession”.

Now when I worked in the corporate property business during the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was widely accepted that those companies who had embarked upon ambitions development schemes, for new headquarter buildings and the like, were amongst the most likely to hit trouble.

In the West Midlands, this lesson was borne out again only yesterday, when Swedish company Eriksson announced the loss of some 700 hundred jobs from its glossy new offices just outside Coventry, which had been developed with the support of AWM, and were used by them as an argument for additional employment land designation in the region during the WMRSS Phase 2 Revision Examination in Public earlier this year.

Even more annoying, this kind of regional policy is dressed up as sustainable ! So I was relieved yesterday to encounter a plain-spoken and un-reconstructed motorist from “The North” as a consequence of separate diversions to our mutual journeys :  his to avoid a traffic jam on the M5, and mine to avoid mud and pot-holes on a country lane.

Frankly, this experience was even better than being rescued by Boris Johnson, for I was able to regale said individual on the opportunities for demand management, whether with regard to roadspace, energy use or land banking, as well as  the economic competitiveness, not to say social and environmental, benefits thereof, as Londoners have long known !

COAL & POWER – SOME GOOD NEWS AND SOME BAD…

The decision by power company EON to postpone construction of the proposed Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent  - New Kingsnorth coal plant delayed‎ - provides some good news, at the same time as the Government’s decision to allow UK Coal to develop an open cast mine in Shropshire provides some bad  : www.cpre.org.uk/news/view/630

Both decisions point to the inadequacy of sustainable energy planning in Britain, and indeed, the need for a UK-wide strategy in the context of devolved planning in Scotland and Wales, together with the prospect of Single Integrated Regional Strategies or SIRS  for the English Regions, albeit that these may not survive a change of government.

Key to such a national strategy will, of course, be the evidence-base, including forecasts and future scenarios. As someone opposed to both the nuclear option and indefinite dependence upon non-renewal resources, I nevertheless accept that there may be a transitional period between the present situation and a “clean energy” end state.

The key questions for me relate to the main components of this transitional period, it’s likely timescale and, most importantly, the likely spatial implications of these including remedial measures. I don’t sense that this information currently exists in any meaningful,coherent and accessible form, and therein lies another problem for energy planning : a rather more serious one in my view than so-called Nimbyism.

WMRSS Phase 2 Panel Report – of Semantics & Sustainability

I received notification yesterday that the Planning Inspectorate Panel  Report on the proposed West Midlands Spatial Strategy Phase 2 Revision had been published – Please see link to : www.gos.gov.uk/gowm/Planning/515750/panelreport09/

A full and proper reading of this document by me will have to await my return from a conference – not the Conservative Party’s ! - next weekend at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Macynlleth, Wales. Please see : www.cat.org.uk

The CAT conference is entitled “Power & Place” and its subject is that much talked of (and rather less actioned) theme : locationally appropriate sustainable energy from renewable sources, from which might, incidentally, be derived the rather elegant acronym, LASERS…of which more later.

Returning to the WMRSS Phase 2 Panel Report, I note this refers to “Semantics”, with reference to my own submission, and “Uncertainties” with particular reference to the economy, and to which might be added “political”. However, the key question is whether the Panel’s recommendations are sustainable, according to the various meanings of the word.

Now I have to confess to enjoying the occasional semantic skirmish, and readers of my other blog @ http://janetmackinnon.blogspot.com may see that I was both tickled and tantalised (as the late Ken Dodd might have said) by Lord Mandelson’s use of the words “Flibbertigibbet” with reference to Tory Party Leader David Cameron.

In own humble opinion, however, it is former Deputy Prime Minister, and before that Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions – both roles carrying the burden of the planning portfolio – John Prescott  who really conjures up the qualities of a “Flibbertigibbet”.

Partly as a consequence – civic servants and others must still carry some of the can  - quite  a lot of “Flibbertigibberish” (as they might have called it in Diddyland*) has found itself into New Labour planning policy, particularly where issues of sustainability are concerned, and must be cut through (as with LASERS – see above).

* Ken Dodd’s sustainable community for Diddymen

A New Midland Bank ?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midland_Bank

 

The subject of regional banking is of considerable interest just now, and I wonder whether a New Midland Bank (see above) might be the best way forward for Central England, as part of the re-organisation of the regions proposed by the Conservative Party (see below).

East Midlands MP, current Shadow Business Secretary and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Ken Clarke might be a good person to progress such a venture, which would, of course, need to be headquartered in Birmingham.

Proposed Regional Paraphernalia Rationalisation

I am speaking, of course, about Conservative Leader David Cameron’s “War on Quangos” announced today. As someone who has generally advocated being “Tough on Quangos, tough on the causes of Quangos”, I am generally supportive of Mr Cameron’s initiative, and one previously announced by Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Mr Byrne was formerly Minister for the West Midlands and it is on this region that I want to focus.

However, whilst I agree that we have too much “regional paraphernalia”, here as elsewhere, I do not support wholesale dismantling of this. Indeed, I would have preferred that the Regional Assembly, currently in the process of being abolished by the present Government, had been retained as one of the main instruments of regional policy, but not, I would stress, the only one.

The reason for this is straightforward. Area-based Quangos, as Mr Cameron should be well aware, came to prominence during the reign of Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s, because major urban local authorities, mainly, but not exclusively, Labour-controlled, were regarded as incapable of delivering the scale of regeneration required following the economic re-structuring that occurred during the 1970s. This question of regeneration “capacity” still applies, I would argue, and not just in the major urban areas. Those of us who have dealings with the Shire Counties and District Councils also question whether local government is up to the task of adequately tackling regeneration challenges. Some will respond that this primarily an issue of funding settlements from central government, in which case they should consult Mr Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, who is an expert in this area. However, I’m not so sure.

It seems to me that local government in the West Midlands Shires operates as part of a wider established oligarchy, which includes senior officials from a range of public organisations and key executives from the private sector. In some respects, this arrangement has itself some of the qualities of a Quango, with accompanying lack of transparency and deals done behind closed doors.

The challenges of the present suggest that a more pluralistic approach to regional development is required.This would retain some of the “centres of excellence” associated with Advantage West Midlands (AWM), for instance with regard to the re-development of regionally important investment sites, such as Longbridge. Given AWM’s development role it is not, therefore, appropriate that it should have main responsibility for spatial planning in the region. This should probably fall to a consortium of government agencies, including local authorities, with the Government Office for the West Midlands as lead, notwithstanding currently unsatisfactory policies for housing-based growth.

There is also an important role for more community-based planning – something almost entirely “lost” under New Labour, notwithstanding all the rhetoric around communities, including a supposed government department for these – and for more “bottom-up” (as distinct from top down) approaches to local regeneration. These are usually better value for money and can deliver action on the ground where excessive corporatism (strategic partnerships and like) have patently failed. In short, bring back pump priming !