A planning expert warns of a "battle for Britain" emerging between rural and urban planners as the government looks to reform the nation's planning system. The expert, Professor Alister Scott, says separating rural and urban planning approaches is misguided and that integrated, locally tailored policies are needed instead. Professor Scott also challenges views that environmental protections should be relaxed for economic growth, noting that protected environments support climate, water and health outcomes. He will share his views at an upcoming conference on the challenges facing integrated planning.

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/JT March 16, 2012
A new ‘Battle for Britain’ looms between town and country planners, warns expert
The furore between policy-makers and campaigners over reforms to the nation’s
planning system is becoming bogged down in a damaging ‘town versus countryside’
debate, say national expert.
“Not only is this sterile but it’s damaging to both our rural and urban economies,” says
Alister Scott, Professor of Spatial Planning and Governance at Birmingham City
University.
“Crucially countryside and town should not be separated within different planning
approaches but would be better integrated, based on proper assessment of needs,
assets and sustainability.”
Professor Scott made his comments in the run-up to a controversial planning review
announcement. Coinciding with Budget Day (Wednesday, March 21) Chancellor
George Osborne is expected to liberalise environmental protection to help boost
economic growth – and green campaigners fear the decision will be a ‘Black
Wednesday’ for the countryside.
“At present the planning system is heading towards a disintegration of planning policies
with Defra producing their own policy suite under the Natural Environment White Paper
while the Communities and Local Government department under their pending National
Planning Policy Framework,” said Professor Scott.
“This separation of policy is disintegrating opportunities for joined up planning which is
key to future economic prosperity.”
Professor Scott, from Birmingham School of the Built Environment at Birmingham City
University, also challenges any simplistic, one-dimensional view of planning policy.
On the one hand the idea advanced by some that the countryside should be protected
for its own sake is misplaced.
“We need a multifunctional countryside with a diversified economy moving beyond
1940s ideas that the countryside economy should be built on agriculture and forestry
with development confined to our towns.
“There can be no one size fits all solutions - rather policies should be tailored to local
situations. On the other hand the idea that environmental protection and planning policy
should be relaxed in the name of economic growth is equally damaging.
“The Treasury view that planning and the environment are the enemy of growth is
fundamentally wrong. Indeed many of our protected environments secure important

2. outcomes for our countryside in terms of climate change mitigation, good water quality
and health.
“Many planners work on the principle of attracting good quality development into places
despite politicians changing the planning system at every turn. The enemy of growth is
uncertainty and the disintegration of planning policy.
“The loss of strategic planning is a bitter blow to joined-up planning which the Local
Enterprise Partnerships are ill suited to address given their one dimensional remit.”
Professor Scott will share his views as keynote speaker at the Institute of Ecology and
Environmental Management’s annual conference, to be held in Birmingham on
Wednesday, March 21.
• Alister Scott BA PhD MRTPI, is Professor of Spatial Planning and Governance at the
Birmingham School of the Built Environment, Birmingham City University.
ENDS
Notes to Editor
• Professor Scott and colleagues have been supported by a grant under the UK
Research Councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (Relu) as part of the
environmental change agenda addressing the need for improved management of the
rural-urban fringe. Professor Scott was awarded £145,000 to lead interdisciplinary
research to inform future policy and practice within the rural-urban fringe. The work
was based in the University’s Centre for Environment and Society Research.
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