Download What is ESPON

Integrated and strategic planning
Trudi Elliott
The Royal Town Planning Institute, UK
Introduction
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Who are we?
What is ESPON and ESPON – Interstrat?
The national planning policy landscape
How can ESPON – Interstrat get involved?
The Royal Town Planning Institute
Who are we?
The voice of the planning profession, with almost 23,000
members worldwide.
What do we do?
The RTPI exists “to promote the art and science of town
planning for the public benefit”.
Our work falls into five key areas:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Supporting members – news, education, lifelong learning;
Raising standards – Assessment of Professional Competence,
celebrating and disseminating good practice;
Shaping policy – building relationships with all political parties,
responding to government consultations, lobbying on specific
planning issues;
Developing knowledge – training the next generation of
planners, networks and associations, research and policy;
Empowering communities – Planning Aid – free independent
and professional planning advice to communities provided by
1,200 volunteers; it helped 38,000 individuals and 1,000
organisations use the planning system;
What is ESPON?
• European Observation
Network for Territorial
Development and
Cohesion.
• Research that is jointly
funded by 31 European
countries and the
European Regional
Development Fund.
• ESPON 2006 and 2013.
Where does ESPON fit in?
National / regional
Strategies
ESPON
Cohesion Reports
and Cohesion Policy
Territorial
Agenda
Key ESPON messages for practitioners
• Use local strengths to drive economic recovery and
sustainable development;
• Capture the opportunities for agglomeration economies
offered by urban centres;
• Promote policies that deliver a win-win in urban-rural relations;
• Foster and support rural business networks;
• Meet business needs (e.g. communication infrastructure,
supply of skilled and highly skilled labour etc.)
• Decisiveness and speed of public planning processes are
important to businesses;
• Ensure that potential spatial impacts and synergies are
factored into policy making;
What is ESPON-Interstrat?
• A transnational project of 9 EU countries: Belgium, Bulgaria,
Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and the UK
(lead partner);
• Funded by the ERDF and 31 European countries;
• Budget: approx. €882,000.
Main aims:
• to encourage and facilitate the use of ESPON findings in the
creation of integrated territorial development strategies (or
strategic spatial development plans in the UK);
• to develop and apply a common approach to knowledge
transfer between practitioners, policy-makers and researchers;
• to facilitate transnational exchanges of good practice and
ESPON concepts and data;
The UK’s first ESPON-Interstrat workshop
The National Planning Policy landscape
Political and economic context in the UK
– Coalition government since May 2010;
– Strong fiscal consolidation - Government’s spending review,
October 2010;
– 19% cuts (on average) to departmental budgets;
– Budget deficit @ 11.1% of GDP (£163 billion);
– Current growth figures: GDP @ 0.5%; inflation @ 4.5%;
Direct impact on planning:
– the abolition of Regional Development Agencies and the
Regional Spatial Strategies;
– Localism Bill – largest piece of legislation going through the
Parliament;
– much stronger role for local authorities and neighbourhoods;
Challenges to planning in the UK
We need to:
- Align the localism agenda with national objectives to
support economic growth;
- Promote cooperation between the public and private
sectors;
- Ensure that the planning system continues to act as a
driver for growth; not a barrier to growth;
- Make sure that housing supply meets housing demand;
The National Planning Policy Framework (I)
• England is unique in the UK in lacking any clear expression of a
vision for its future spatial development, whereas all the devolved
administrations have some form of such a vision.
• Despite an extensive collection of PPGs (Planning Policy
Guidance), Planning Policy Statement (PPSs), National Policy
Statements (NPSs), circulars etc.:
– Scotland has a National Planning Framework, updated in
June 2009 (currently under review);
– Wales has spatial Plan, updated in July 2008;
– Northern Ireland has a Regional Development Strategy
which is currently being reviewed.
The National Planning Policy Framework (II)
• The NPPF will consolidate planning policy statements, circulars
and guidance documents into a singe policy document.
• The NPPF will provide accessible and clear policy guidance for
the preparation of local and neighbourhood plans, and
development management decisions.
• Act as a mechanism for delivering Government objectives where
relevant to do so.
• Be localist in its approach.
• Provide a more streamlined and less bureaucratic national policy
framework.
• A key component of the NPPF is that it is expected to contain a
presumption in favour of sustainable development.
Planning at the heart of solutions
Planning is at the heart of the localism agenda.
Planning is central to:
• enabling communities to develop their vision for the future of their
area;
• providing the means for areas and the nation to decide on priorities
for investment, and
• tackling the challenges of sustainable economic growth, social
inequity and climate change.
Strategic planning – larger than local:
• strategic planning needs to be strengthened to ensure continuity
between the neighbourhood, local and national planning and to ensure
crucial sustainability.
What can ESPON offer to UK evidence base?
Indicators
Scenarios
reports
Benchmarking & data
Concepts
Methods
Targeted analysis
Typologies
Warning – ESPON can change your outlook
I blame
ESPON’s
idea of “The
New Rural
Economy”
No: it
was their
climate
change
project
“New
urban-rural
relations”
they call it.
Does
pink
suit
me?
ESPON lets you see things differently.
To find out more:
• Contact us at:
– www.rtpi.org.uk
– + 44 (0)20 7929 9494 (Switchboard)
– [email protected]
ESPON: www.espon.org.uk
ESPON-Interstrat: www.espon-interstrat.eu