JUST THE AGE OF STUPID….OR SOMETHING MORE SINISTER ?

Yesterday, I reflected on the great bicycling London Mayor’s rescue of  “The Age of  Stupid” film director from a girl gang, and my own encounter with a real person who was like a character from the film. Incidentally, I sympathise with the damsel in distress, as I was attacked whilst recycling bottles at a curbside station, and my nose broken by a teenage girl cycling on the pavement,  shortly after New Labour were elected in 1997, something I took to  be a bad omen. Nevertheless, despite some horrific bruising, I made a swift physical recovery.

Very sadly the same can’t be said for the 7 female cyclists who have been killed by lorries in London this year, but their deaths  also remind me of why I diverted my own journey the other day. Although I mentioned mud and potholes – the latter contributing to a buckled wheel earlier in the year – on a country lane, the cause of these has little or nothing to do with farm vehicles. No, these ”holes” are a direct result of one of the worst examples of  “planning”  – or, more accurately, the absence of this – that I have come across in my 25 years in the promotion and prevention of development. In brief, there is an enormous vehicle storage depot along the narrow Church Lane, not far from M5 Junction 7, which is growing ever larger as lorry loads of material – quite alot of which falls on to the road, but alas not into the ruts ! – make their way to extend it. This is a classic case of inappropriate development, so classic in fact that I’m wondering whether I should contact “The Age of Stupid” director to ask her to make a film there.

However, does this matter really go beyond stupid planning, I wonder ? In fact, is it people like me who are the stupid ones ? For I’m constantly told by “real” people these days that local and central government is corrupt and this is precisely why we’re in the state we’re in. Until recently, I’ve tended to ascribe bad decision-making in this country’s public sector to stupidity, of systems if not of individuals, but now I too am beginning to wonder if something more sinister is afoot. Indeed so rattled am I, and not just by lorries passing too closely on country lanes, that I’m even considering a change of direction and the prospects of work in tackling corruption, both direct and that enabled by poor regulation and management practices in the public and private sectors. Other environmentalists might want to give more thought to this too….if we’re not to be thought as stupid ourselves !

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.

From Forum for the Future to Fight the Future ! Forum

Whilst doing a little surfing (of the net rather than the sea) yesterday, I came across a web  ”community” for scientists called Network Nature – www.network.nature.com/groups/futures I was delighted to find a forum on this called “Fight the Future !”, moderated by Nature (the highly regarded scientific journal) writer Henry Gee, and, even more pleased to note that one of the latest forum topics is science fiction.

Now I have to confess to being something of a science sceptic – I know this isn’t fashionable just now ! – and to regarding many “scientific” environmentalists as suppressed technocrats with strong top down planning inclinations. So Mr Gee’s Fight the Future ! Forum, and, indeed, his personal blog, is most refreshing.

This helps me put in perspective the likes of the self-proclaimed leading think-tank on sustainability issues Forum for the Future – www.forumforthefuture.org.uk- which seems to have increasingly become a haven for techno greens and all their science-based visions of the future, based on, I would suggest, a fetishism for forecasts which many more down-to-earth folk might want to fight.

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

Collapse in Value of Quango Land Bank

The following article is taken from “Inside Housing” (25.9.2009).

“The 2008/09 accounts for English Partnerships – quietly posted in July on a website that has supposedly been defunct since December – reveal the financial devastation visited on the agency in its last eight months of existence, as it posted an operating loss of £492.2 million. It was so badly hit by the house market collapse it had to seek an extra £67 million of funding from the Communities and Local Government department to continue trading.

Its two divisions – the Commission for the New Towns and the Urban Regeneration Agency – were both absorbed by the Homes and Communities Agency in December. Each organisation prepared separate accounts.

The URA, the main land holding division, was particularly badly hit by the housing market downturn.

It was forced to wipe £263.7 million from the value of its land. Its operating deficit more than doubled from £200 million in 2008 to £406 million in 2009. The agency always ran at a deficit because of the way it was funded.

The Commission for New Towns made a £56 million write-down. It lost £12.6 million in a land deal after a developer which owed it £15 million became insolvent. It got the land back but its value had dropped to £2.3 million.

Overall, the value of the URA’s £719 million land bank in 2008 was slashed by a third over the eight months from 1 April to 30 November, leaving it £481 million of land assets to transfer to the HCA on 1 December 2008.

Communities secretary John Denham will face a barrage of questions over the revelations.

Conservative shadow housing minister Grant Shapps, said: ‘When Parliament returns I will be lining up a series of questions for the secretary of state to uncover the truth behind what looks like a very murky situation. When you find out these things months after the event it becomes difficult to hold the quango to account. Why weren’t we told about this at the time?’

The accounts raised a ‘host of questions’ about how EP assets were transferred to the HCA, he added. ‘I was critical of setting up a mega-quango because it is very difficult to track what is going on.’

An HCA spokesperson said the housing market downturn had left EP with ‘a deficit between anticipated receipts and spending commitments’.

‘This was constantly monitored by EP and the CLG,’ he added. ‘To ensure EP did not breach its allocated budget, additional capital budget cover was requested.’

The extra £67 million of funding was approved at the end of last year. The spokesperson said EP had ‘short-term budget issues’ which the HCA had inherited. ‘Short-term operating budget pressures are not the same as technical insolvency. EP passed £1.8 billion of assets to the HCA on 1 December so was clearly not insolvent.’ A link to EPs’ accounts was posted on the HCA’s website.

A history of EP

• 1961 Commission for the New Towns created
• 1993 The Urban Regeneration Agency established
• May 1999 English Partnerships set up to run the agency and commission
• November 2008 Both organisations cease trading
• December 2008 Homes and Communities Agency launched”

WMRSS Phase 2 Revision EIP CLOSING SUBMISSION

My written closing submission is provided below :

This submission comprises 2 parts :
1. Summary of Key Points made to the Examination
2. A New Mercian Hymn (for WMRSS) based on A Re-Construction of the opening to Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns*

1. Summary of Key Points made to the Examination

My original response to the WMRSS Phase 2 Spatial Options Consultation (2007) identified the need to align the development of options with Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and expressed scepticism about the potential scale of housing-based growth, even prior to the subsequent economic downturn.

In the event, the issues of SEA compliance, in relation to the development of spatial options in both the West Midlands Regional Assembly’s Preferred Option and subsequent work for the Government Office by Nathaniel Litchfield and Partners, have been highlighted during the Examination Process.

2. A New Mercian Hymn (for the Regional Spatial Strategy)

King of the West Midlands Heritage, Local Distinctiveness :
Overlord for Sustainable Transport : Architect of
Renaissance in the Major Urban Areas and Telford,
Regeneration in the North Staffordshire Conurbation :
Master of the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment :
Protector of Natural Habitats : Contractor to Location
Appropriate Place-Making in the Shire Counties :
Financier : Manufacturer : Commissioner for Rural
Communities : Friend of the Social Landlord, the Old
And New Economies.

“I like that” said Offa, “SEA EU again”.**

* In the original poem a metaphorical King Offa is part-humorously invoked as the Genius Loci of Mercia/the West Midlands Region
** My poem is also an invocation to Offa, this time re-constructed as Contractor for Eco-Logical Infrastructure and Low-Carbon Development, and, indeed as “Sewer King” – re-calling the Fisher King of Ancient British and Anglo-Celtic Arthurian Myth – to allay the Welsh Assembly’s and others’ concerns about “Water Issues”.

24 June 2009

Further posts (3 & 16 June)  on King Offa & Mercian Hymns can be found @ http://witchofworcester.wordpress.com

West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy Proposed Phase 2 Revision – SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) Compliance Issues

The following note should be read in the context of  the series of letters posted on 22 June  in respect of the SEA Directive @ www.planning-inspectorate.gov.uk/pins/rss/west_midlands_phase_two/ 

WMRSS Proposed Phase 2 Revision Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (SEA)  Compliance Issues  – Note following Matter 1 Hearing

The SEA Directive requires : “An outline of the reasons for selecting the alternatives dealt with, and a description of how the assessment was undertaken including any difficulties (such as technical deficiencies or lack of know how) encountered in compiling the required information” (Par 4.9 Sustainability Appraisal/Non-Technical Summary of Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP) Report for GO-WM: Development Options for the West Midlands RSS in Reponse to the NHPAU Report October 2008/CD 182)

In the previous paragraph (4.8) entitled “Difficulties” the NLP SA acknowledges the following issues : “….uncertainties in the 2007 SA (for the West Midlands Regional Assembly Preferred Option), limited consultation which may have generated further information, and that spatially specific effects cannot always be identified”.

 In turn, the report by URSUS Consultants for WMRA entitled “Review of the Sustainability Appraisal of the NLP Housing Study Relating to the West Midlands RSS Phase 2 Revision” (CD236) notes a number of difficulties with the NLP study, and observes that : “The (NLP SA) report does not describe the reasons for choosing the options or scenarios…”

This difficulty, I would argue, is also central to the URSUS SA. Moreover, a crucial weakness of the URSUS SA, I suggest, is a lack of evidence that “spatially specific effects” have been have been properly integrated into the process for selecting the “Preferred Option”, which emerges from WMRA’s 3 housing “scenarios”.

On the issue of the “limited consultation” to which the NLP Report “Options” have been subject, this clearly raised difficulties about how far these can be tested through the present Examination, and, therefore, whether a further “Review” process will be required, as I submitted in the context of wider procedural compliance issues.

Of relevance to the above comments is the recent judgement on the East of England Plan SEA, where legal advice indicated that there were legitimate grounds to lodge a challenge, principally on the failure of the strategic environmental assessment to consider reasonable alternatives to the four strategic growth proposals.

The following information is taken from the website of Landmark Chambers (www.landmarkchambers.co.uk) :

“Following a hearing earlier this week [last], Mitting J. has held in response to a challenge by Hertfordshire County Council and St Alban’s District Council under s. 113 of the Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, that the Secretary of State’s approval of the East of England Plan (RSS for the east of the country) has breached certain requirements for strategic environmental assessment in regulation 12 of the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004 .

The challenge concerned the decision to require significant additional housing to be met in Hemel Hempstead, Welwyn Garden City, Hatfield and Harlow by means of significant releases of land from the Green Belt without a lawful strategic environmental assessment which considered the reasonable alternatives to the proposals, given the changes made to the policies at the Proposed Changes stage. The Judge rejected the claim so far as it related to Harlow, but upheld the claim relating to the other settlements (and the implications for St Albans). “

WMRSS Proposed Phase 2 Revision/SEA Compliance Issues Respondent 586/Janet Mackinnon/26 May 2007

Landmark Ruling Heralds SEA Change for Regional Planning ?

Extract from “Region home goals at risk” by  Susanna Gillman in Planning, 29 May 2009

A landmark ruling that the East of England Plan failed to comply with environmental law could affect other regional plans, the barrister leading the case has argued. Hertfordshire County and St Albans District Councils’ challenge (Planning, 22 May, p1) was the first on the application of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) rules in England to be successful. High Court judge Mr Justice Mitting ruled that the government flouted SEA regulations by failing to consider alternatives to building thousands of homes in the Hertfordshire green belt. He has ordered communities secretary Hazel Blears to re-examine policies for 12,000 additional homes at Hemel Hempstead and a further 10,000 at Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield.

Landmark Chambers’ David Elvin QC, who represented Hertfordshire in last week’s case, said the government lacked rigour in applying the regulations “Because SEA is working its way through the system on plans due for adoption, these issues will continue to present themselves,” he said. “The ruling could have implications for other regional plans. The South East Plan has just been adopted and may prompt challenges.”

A judicial review of the South West regional spatial strategy has recently been threatened on housing numbers, although it is not clear whether this would be contested on similar grounds (Planning, 15 May, p2).

The DCLG said it is considering whether to appeal. A spokesman said: “We are determined to deliver the housing that is desperately needed in the region.” However, the prospect of further expense may deter it. The DCLG has to foot a legal bill including 80 per cent of Hertfordshire’s costs – likely to exceed £50,000 – and £15,000 of St Albans’ estimated £28,000 costs. Tory MP for Welwyn and Hatfield Grant Shapps said the ruling is “an important step towards holding the government to account for failing to consider the effect of top-down housing targets”.

See also : www.unece.org/env/eia/sea_protocol.htm

Need for “SEA” Change amongst Sustainability & Environmental Activists

Now that the United States President and his First Lady have declared themselves “Activists”, the activist is once again a respectable member of society; and it is from this respectable position that I want to reflect on the relationship between sustainability and environmental activists.

On the radio recently – I think in the context of Severn Barrage Saga – the Chairman of the UK Commission for Sustainable Development (who support a barrage), Sir Jonathon Porritt, distinguished himself from “environmental activist” organisations like the Royal Society for the Protection of the Birds (who oppose a barrage), as, primarily, a “sustainability” activist.

For my own part, I have noticed a great many “sustainability suits” – many of them stuffed ! – in recent years and, I would suggest, quite a number of these work for and with the good Sir Jonathon, although I would not include him amongst them.

The fact is that those of us who are genuinely concerned about the future of the planet – and who are acting locally, as well as thinking globally – need to be both sustainability and environmental activists. A good starting point for this is some understanding of Sustainability Appraisal and Strategic Environmental Assessment or SEA.