How Can Communities Engage in the New Spatial Development Strategies?

The Government has announced the way in which it proposes England (or most of it!) will be covered by the new Spatial Development Strategies (SDS) in a consultation that extends to 26 March.

These sub-regional strategies will agree housing needs, co-ordinate strategic infrastructure and shape economic development and environmental improvement over 20 years. They will be prepared by groups of planning authorities (LPA), many of which will be new with local government reorganisation. Whilst the Regulations for their preparation are expected later in the summer, the Government is keen for LPAs to prepare for starting their SDSs in advance, with an expectation that they will be completed within two years.

If Local Plans already feel remote to many communities, how can they engage in SDSs? Some answers may be found in the Planning Positively for the Future report last year, which has shaped the thinking about how this will all work. It acknowledges the current problems and future challenges for a tier of spatial planning that will be further removed from local areas. It suggests a combination of ‘representative bodies’, citizens assemblies, focus groups and surveys to build and test visions and options.

It seems to us that the larger town councils, including new councils emerging from the impending disappearance of districts and boroughs, should be types of ‘representative body’. Their towns will be too big to ignore in the search for growth area candidates at the sub-regional level. They should be prepared to engage in the SDSs, perhaps as the centres of multi-parish consortia to overcome inconvenient parish boundaries.

But clusters of smaller towns and parishes that share a functional geography could also seek to engage if they share common issues and likely destinies, and especially if they anticipate their areas will feature as SDS growth candidates. Many have collaborated successfully in this way in producing multi-parish neighbourhood plans.

Some are now working with us on new Settlement Spatial Plans (SSP) which we think could enable local communities to get on to the front foot in shaping SDSs rather than waiting to react to emerging proposals. SSPs encourage communities to think of different futures for their groups of towns and villages by looking at what factors will drive those futures. They are therefore ideal in providing a ‘bottom up’ perspective based on the lived experience of those communities to reality check what’s coming over the SDS hill.

So, there’s plenty still to come from Government on this in the coming weeks. We will be ready to share our insights and advice for communities as things move forward.