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Centre for Cities has produced a briefing arguing that the Government’s bold planning reforms and growth mission can both be achieved by replacing England’s discretionary system with a new flexible zoning system, and sets out how this could be done.
Centre for Cities writes:
The Government’s national growth mission depends on the success of its planning reform agenda. Ahead of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill later this year, this briefing explains why the Government should do this by shifting from the current discretionary system towards a flexible zoning system.
To introduce a flexible zoning system, the Government needs to:
- Pursue ‘Option 3’ of the Government’s Planning Reform Working Paper on Planning Committees, which would reduce discretion.
- Activate the National Development Management Policies, which would replace local planning policy and provide a consistent national rulebook.
- Replace the concept of ‘material considerations’ with a new system of ‘material designations’, which would provide special discretionary protections within the new flexible zoning system in designated locations.
- Together, these would create a flexible zoning system similar to that in other common law countries, where proposals that followed the rules would be guaranteed planning permission. A zoning system would see higher levels of housebuilding and economic growth, partly because planning reform is easier in a rules-based system.
The Government would then create a range of different zones, from suburban zones to city centre zones. Local planning authorities would then apply these zones to set the rules on what was and what was not allowed in each neighbourhood, and then decide where to overlay the material designations on top to provide additional local oversight. To ensure any planning reforms improve growth, the Government will also need to change tack in their devolution agenda. Single-tier county councils with all the powers of mayors and matching local economies should be how devolution is advanced outside the big cities. Zoning will not just result in a ‘sugar rush’ of economic growth over this Parliament thanks to a construction boom and cheaper housing costs. The removal of the discretionary system, created 80 years ago by the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 to constrain the big cities, would achieve a permanent and sustainable increase to national productivity by allowing cities to play the role they should in the national economy.
