Councils without access to architectural advice should have their plan-making and development control functions taken away, said Lord Tyler in a House of Lords debate on the recent Farrell Review, while Baroness Andrews argued that ‘place is character’.
Baroness Andrews said: ‘The unifying and really big idea in the report, which has not been provided with such clarity or meaning before, is about what constitutes the elements of good places and good place-making. What makes the argument in the report compelling is not least that it presents a view of planning which is potentially creative, humane, connective and dynamic—somewhat the opposite to the constrained and rather mean-spirited version that we have had in recent years, which is focused on development control, is seen to be burdensome and has been unfairly blamed for failure, notably to deal with housing supply. I suggest that those failures have their roots in the economic and social challenges which show up the clear failure of policy on place-making and regeneration as a whole.’
‘I am inclined not just to welcome the report but to say, ‘Amen: at last a different vision’. A prospect for the sort of change that so many people who care about this country and what it feels and looks like have wanted for a long time’. In particular, the report makes clear a positive and integrated version of place-making, in which you indeed need planning, landscape, architecture, conservation and engineering working together across disciplines. We have never needed such a powerful vision more urgently than we do now. As a country, we need to plan on a scale which has simply eluded us so far. We need to build new power stations, green energy sites, gas storage facilities, reservoirs, airports, railways and towns. That all requires of us an approach to spatial planning, integrated labour markets, environmental sensitivity and climate change. We need to plan for food, energy and climate security. At the same time, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made so clear, we need to conserve and work with the character of what makes this country so beautiful and different: the spectacular heritage of the everyday and everywhere.’
To do all that means accepting the second definition in the Farrell report: that place is character.’
Lord Tyler said: ‘While I am wholly supportive of the localism agenda, I must question whether local authorities, who have no such architectural expertise at a senior officer level in house and not even a department on permanent call, should continue to be allowed to exercise the full range of plan-making and development-control responsibilities’.
Read the debate at theyworkforyou.com
For the Farrell Review see IHBC NewsBlog
