The value of exploratory Scenario Planning

The name Pierre Wack is not one that most planners or academics will have heard of, more’s the pity. As an executive at Shell Oil in the 1970s he was the first to develop the exploratory scenario planning (XSP) method and then went on to lecture at Harvard Business School in the 1980s.

Neil at the Consortium for Scenario Planning, Utah

The XSP method has not become part of the UK planning scene but is becoming increasingly used in the USA and other parts of the world. So much so that the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts formed the Consortium for Scenario Planning a few years ago.

Last month, Leani and I attended its annual conference and I presented case studies of our XSP experiences on plan making projects for Buckingham and St. Neots. We have a long history of using XSP techniques in our work as I first came across Pierre’s work when studying for my MBA in the 1990s.

We are now finding the XSP approach increasingly popular with clients and stakeholders, refreshed by not having to predict the future of 20 years in the future and enjoying in much richer and productive conversations. The method is now the centrepiece of our Settlement Spatial Plan product that operates as a standalone piece of work to inform client representations on emerging strategic plans and major planning applications. Both large and small communities find this process extremely useful, with a final report that can be used flexibly and positively in any planning matter related to forthcoming development sites and securing infrastructure improvements.

For our town and parish council clients, the SSP is most often used to serve one or more of three purposes:

• To form the basis of representations made on an emerging Local Plan

• To form the basis of representations made on major planning applications and appeals

• To scope out the site allocation options in a new neighbourhood plan

In simple terms XSP is the antidote to ‘visioning’, ‘optioneering’ and ‘reasonable alternatives’ planning exercises that are either too bland, too dependent on future uncertainties or not helpful enough in shaping strategies that decision makers can actually use. Pierre was proven right as his work in the Shell boardroom helped steer the company though the turbulent, oil crisis waters of the 70s and 80s.

What struck us most at the conference was the scale and scope of the XSP work in the USA. It is being used by state and local governments across its urban and rural areas akin to our new Spatial Development Strategy geography to plan for climate change (including internal migration from the hot south to the cooler north), rapid housing unaffordability and new public transportation networks. Sound familiar?

How should Scenario Planning relate to Local Plans?

In our view it is essential that the new SDSs use XSP as an integral technical and engagement method instead of the ‘participatory visioning’ idea proposed in last year’s ‘Planning Positively for Growth’ report (in its Recommendation 10). We should surely have learned by now that the ‘predict and provide’ model is flawed in this modern, complex, uncertain age. Defining a mathematical SDS level housing target for 20 years makes no sense and will only be right by accident than design with so many variables in the equation.

Using XSP on the other hand would enable a clearer analysis of the drivers of change to 2050 and their inter-relationships and then to build and test three or four distinct, coherent and plausible spatial scenarios. Crucially, it would allow for different scales of housing and economic growth, and their spatial effects, to be tested to identify key dependencies and risks. In doing so, it would play a key role in delivering SDSs that are not glorified Local Plans.

The problem is that XSP requires a significant mind shift of spatial planners and one for which many may not have had training or practical experience. In some stakeholder meetings with LPA officers, the approach has been a new concept, that once grasped opens up a penny dropping moment of plan making possibilities.

We made some great contacts with learning institutions and practitioners in the States that might welcome the chance of sharing their learning for the benefit of SDSs. I hope to be able to make some connections in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, our growing number of Settlement Spatial Plans in the south-east, east and north-west will be keeping us busy with so many draft Local Plans being consulted on and examined over the next year.