The clunking fist of the planners
One of the great achievements of the 1945-51 Labour Government was the passing of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act.
It was a piece of legislation that has influenced decades of national and local planning decisions in a very positive way.
The 1947 Act provided a framework to ensure that the quality of people's lives was something that was valued as an essential part of the progressive century.
Out of that legislation, new towns were created and although today such communities may seem a little dated and in some cases rundown, the principle was sound and the results impressive.
Planners were once people with vision who worked with far-sighted politicians to make things better.
Today, planning laws are interpreted as straitjackets that stifle creativity and ingenuity.
"Can do" has been replaced by the philosophy of "won't let you do" because it's not how we do things nowadays.
Local planning departments used to be the dynamic hub of the local authority, stuffed with bright young things who wanted to build creative and exciting communities.
Today, local planners are as dull and unadventurous as their dreary political masters.
What is worse, the planners, instead of being the enablers, appear to be the decision-makers – the local politicians having abdicated all responsibilities – and so the planning officers give the politicians reasons to delay and obfuscate.
Good planning requires a light touch, not a heavy hand. In Northampton it would appear we have the clunking fist approach to all planning matters.
Sixfields is an excellent case in point.
There is a universal desire to ensure that professional football remains in this town. The club needs to develop if it is to survive and part of that process is development around the stadium area.
Central to success is further retail shopping of the sort that exists all round the town. Call it what you will, out-of-town shopping, big shed shopping, or malls, there is a demand for large shopping areas with plenty of car parking.
But the planners and their political masters think differently.
They are determined that they will protect the town centre (aka Legal & General) for the next decade or so.
So they will determine what can or cannot be sold in shops at Sixfields.
A garden centre is one suggestion, but one that only sells plants so as not to conflict with the town centre!
So no garden gnomes, or coffee, or sauna cabins, or whatever the "planners" deem as unsuitable.
Leaving aside the obvious fact that shopping in the town centre should be a different experience from buying cat litter and baked beans in a shopping shed, just who are the council planners protecting?
Are they protecting the interests of the small niche specialist shops that belong in town centres?
Or perhaps they are protecting the baked bean trade for those delicate corner sheds like Terry Tesco or Wayne Waitrose or Sally Sainsbury?
You do not save the town centre by restricting trade elsewhere.
When the planners developed Milton Keynes they had a blank canvas to work on. A cultural corner here, a civic quarter there, a road system based on a grid.
Northampton has a medieval street plan and centuries of buildings to consider.
Shopping habits too have changed and so the task is much harder.
It requires imaginative planners and visionary politicians, not those whose only response so far has been to adopt the dying ostrich position.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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