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842   13 October 2003   

Deceitful Green Belts

"Green Belt" is a deeply destructive and socially divisive concept.  It has become a vehicle of social oppression, a residual battleground in the flagging English Class War. It reinforces the greatest "planning lie" of all, which is that we are desperately short of living-space, an overcrowded island without room to spare for others. And it is grounded on an awesome mistake, a fallacious analysis.

For most readers, these statements will be counter-intuitive.  Surely, "Green Belt" is a good thing?  Surely we should strive to conserve it, if modern civilisation is to survive?  Surely we need to conserve green lungs around our urban settlements?

• My answer is No, No, and No.  Let me explain.

The story starts in the 1930s, well before our contemporary planning framework was put in place (which was 1948).  In 1937 the London County Council, struggling with the problem of improving the quality of life in London in the grip of recession, secured the passage of the Metropolitan Green Belt Act.  The object was to empower the Council to acquire parks and recreational facilities outside the tightly drawn boundaries of the London County Council - "out-County" acquisitions.  In the absence of any concept of "land use planning" (which was a later intellectual invention), the only way in which the LCC could improve the lot of its people was to buy land and devote it to public recreation.  And the term "Metropolitan Green Belt" (there were no others) referred simply to the area within whiich these special powers of out-County acquisition applied - the expression was otherwise without planning content or substance.  And the great LCC did just that (in the 1938/40 period), buying extensively and creating country parks, some of which have survived.  Many of these residual land-holdings were, however, tragically dispersed upon Thatcher's dissolution of the Greater London Council, the LCC's successor Council.

Then came WW2.   As part of the preparation for post-War reconstruction, great attention was focussed by the Wartime Government on a new system of urban management and renewal.  Three major Reports were published, in the classic English reform tradition, alongside Beveridge - Scott, Barlow and Uthwatt, and they shaped the post-war intellectual world.  And the great perception emerged that the key control concept, for modern cities, was that of land use.  If the State took control of all changes of use, the new reasoning went, it would control the key determinants of urban development.

And so it proved.   As soon as the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act was enacted, it became clear that Britain had a major "First" on its hands - and our planning systems have been profoundly influential, worldwide, ever since.  And in London, in the preparation of the first Greater London Development Plan, the 1938 "Green Belt" was integrated, lock-stock-and-barrel. 

But the combination did not work, either in theory or in practice.  The 1938 had not been intended as a planning-control concept - it had no planning content, and could not be defined in the new land use terms.  Planners strove to give it some meaning, but the exercise was fraught with difficulty.  There should in principle be no new development in the Green Belt, they argued - but that was impracticable.  The Thames Valleys gravel beds were essential to post-war reconstruction, and so they were permitted, as "exceptions" to the Green Belt.  And the landed gentry held many country estates in this area - and so "large houses in their own grounds" (including hospitals and public schools) were permitted - again, as "exceptions".  Polo grounds were obviously exceptions, weren't they - in spite of the busy-ness of the spectator-attraction process?  And many thousands of expensive houses were built, as part of tidying up the Green Belt boundary - simply as "exceptions".  And this absurd piece of irrational planning (which was always subject to arbitrary "exceptions") came to be imitated by social engineering planners throughout the UK.

In practice, "Green Belt" has been a social control device, protecting the few - the upper middle-classes - and denying quality suburban housing to the many, who are driven out to Basingstoke, or Newbury, or Basildon or Crawley or more distant destinations.  The same protection has been accorded to the professional and managerial classes, right across the country - sadly, with the enthusiastic connivance of thousands of Labour Councillors.

"Green Belt" is merely a convenient land reserve, which should be deployed to improve the quality of life for all.  The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  I agree with the old LCC strategy: huge swathes of open countryside within the Green Belt should be bought and opened up for public use - they are indeed green lungs, and should be accorded public status in perpetuity - not left in private agricultural ownership.  But in the interstices of such parks, millions of our fellow citizens could be allowed to enjoy a better quality of life, and a better home-life balance.

• That is truly radical cause.  Labour should appoint a Royal Commission to review the role of all "Green Belt" designations and their continuing utility.  I would be queuing up to give evidence.

843  13 October 2003  

Dishonest Planning Agreements

 Our planning system has been modified and tweaked extensively, over the years.  Since 1948, we have introduced the requirement to give reasons for planning decisions.  We have introduced the (widely misunderstood) two-stage device - an Outline Application and the approval of details.  And after 20 years of operation, it became clear that the simple Yes/No planning consent was insufficient to encompass the complexity of many situations, and that the administrative process should be supplemented by formal, enforceable agreements, between developer and planning authority.

These were introduced in 1968.  A planning permission could thereafter be backed up with a site-specific contract.  This took the form of a deal done between planning authority and developer, formally registered and therefore "running with the land", if the permitted project were sold on to a third-party.  A residential developer might agree to pay for a new classroom, or local park, or highway improvement, when called upon by the Authority. Development control as an administrative system was immeasurably strengthened.

But the new procedures were problematical.  Just consider what was being attempted.   "Planning Permission" was a simple administrative act, a one-way process: the Applicant proposed, and the Planning Authority disposed.  Within that process, there was no room for dealing, for "consent", for agreement.  Nobody had to agree with anyone.  

But under the new system, this process had to be combined with "dealing", horse-trading, proceeding towards agreement.  Parliament, aware of the risks of corruption, set out the procedure quite precisely: if an agreement were needed, it should be entered into at the outset, and should be conditional upon the subseqent grant of a specific planning consent.  When Planning Councillors came to consider the Application, they should know precisely what package they would trigger, if they approve it  This was one way of countering the suggestion that the Authority was "selling" planning consent, always a nasty implication.  I well remember Agreements in the early 1970s which had the DRAFT Planning Consent terms carefully attached to them as a Schedule: I was in no doubt that if planning consent were granted, the Agreement would automatically become final and binding.

In practice, that procedure has collapsed - and we have the systematic "sale" of planning consent.  The negotiation of the "Planning Agreement" is intimately intertwined with the process of considering whether or not planning consent should be granted.  And in practice, all the deals are done between the professional planning officers and the managers of the development process, professional to professional. The collapse was accelerated, even encouraged, by the Thatcher Era.  Local authorities were encouraged to go out into the market place and "do deals" with the private sector.  The effect, the Thatcher Tory Government thought, would be to reduce demands on the state sector - which would be a "good thing".

843A  13 October 2003  

The logic of my case against "affordable housing" projects has already been set out.  That is because the legal cradle for this practice is the very same distortion of "Planning Agreements" which I have criticised elsewhere.  Within that context, this is merely an example of one specific illegal practice, encouraged by Margaret Thatcher and tragically perpetuated by my own Party, Labour.  If you have not already done so, I ask you to read first Dishonest Planning Agreements.

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