Presentation by Stephen Hill, Director, C2O Futureplanners October 2010

1. The New (old) Planning for the Big Society
Co-producing a believable policy story
Future of London October 2010
Stephen Hill, Director, C2O futureplanners
& RICS Planning and Development Professional Group Board

2. Key planning and
housing policies for
the Localism Bill
Community Rights
to:
• Buy… public first, then
maybe private assets
• Plan…Neighbourhood
Plans
• Build… rural first, and
extend to urban
• Bid… for public sector
functions

3. Community Right to Buy
• Designation of land or buildings with
‘community value’… by owners and/or
community
• Application to take on assets, and
accreditation of applicants…by whom?
• Listing process.. through plan making
Call for designations or spot listing?
• Plan/wellbeing criteria… of LPA or
community?
• Testing and challenge process… through
LDF process and EiP, or local decision?
• Public and Private assets?
• Duty to cooperate…asset registers,
fulfilment of listing criteria, and money?
• Capacity of current or future owners to
act proactively to meet LDF, LAA, LIP
objectives?
• Money for organisational and project
development?

4. Neighbourhood Plans…Right to Plan
• Universal or selective geographical
coverage of Neighbourhood Plans
• Designation of areas by LPA and/or
community?
• Recognition and accreditation of
applicants …by whom?
• Plan/wellbeing criteria… of LPA and/or
community?
• Testing and challenge process through
LDF process and EiP, or local
decision?
• Duty to cooperate on LPA and LSP
partners?
• Capacity to integrate community
objectives proactively into LDF, LAA,
LIP?
• Money and support for organisational
and project development?

5. Permissive
Decentralised
Planning
• Neighbourhood
Development Orders
Modified LDOs for new
ideas about ‘permitted
development’, approved
locally
• Sustainable
Communities Act 2007
local spending orders,
locally distinctive
initiatives, and local
accountability

6. Right to Build…The Minister’s Story…
“We will become a nation of homebuilders”
• A rural housing revolution…
Local Housing Trusts will give
people the power to expand their
villages up to 10% over 10 years.
- Accommodation for the old
- Affordable homes for the young
- Shops, schools, GP surgeries
• People at last really shaping their
own communities
• Power to bypass planning
committees
• But I don’t want the principles of
Local Housing Trusts just to be a
countryside thing. Our towns and
inner-cities must benefit too.

7. “We’ve been through the highs and lows
together” Charlie Hibbert, CLT Member
“I am really impressed by the foresight
and tenacity of local people in driving this
scheme forward. Seeing these houses
here, built to high standards by the
owners, with the support of professionals
is most impressive.”
Grant Shapps, Shadow Minister 2008

8. The model for
Local Housing Trusts…
Cornwall CLT Programme 2007
17 villages – 120+ homes
Unique partnerships…
enabling district councils, their
communities, Carnegie UK Trust,
and an RSL
Blisland CLT
on Bodmin Moor

9. St. Minver CLT
Average house price £650,000
Market value £350,000
Cost including land £120,000
12 houses 12 months
On time – On budget
Charlie’s Story…
Living Ricardo’s
Law of Economic Rent
A social movement
or more effective
PPS 3 compliance
for affordability in
perpetuity ???

10. Community Right to Build
Community Organisation
•Existing/Established
•Proposal
Community Organisation
•Works up proposal
•Involves local people
Community Organisation
•Public/Private Funding
•Delivery partner
Local Planning Authority
•EU compliance checks
Community Organisation
•Finalises proposal
•Formal notification to LPA
Non-compliance or
NO VOTE… <80%?
•Community Organisation
applies for planning
permission
YES VOTE… >80%?
•LPA grants planning
permission
•Community Organisation
does development
Local Planning Authority
•Compliance checks…
- proposal
- organisation (criteria?)
•Referendum publicity
•Vote
Parish-Town Council/CLT/Coop/Cohousing/RSL
•Affordable
•Market
•Non-housing
Set up
funding
???

11. Models for bottom up housing
and open source planning
“At last, it’s not Vauban”

12. Spatial Planning
&Placeshaping
Outcomes
• Community membership
and ownership
• All incomes and tenures
• Medium and high density
• Value for money
• Long term stewardship
• Life in the space between
the buildings
• Social Capital for the care of
the place and people
• Resident satisfaction and
wellbeing
• Sustainable living and
resilience through social
organisation
…social cohesion???

13. • If you don’t know how
you are going to
manage and govern
the Place…
how can you possibly
design it?
• All you need to know…
Urban Design Compendium 2
Chapter 5 www.urbandesign
compendium.co.uk/
managing
Back-to-front
planning and
design

14. Ye Olde Placeshapynge and
Spatial Plannyng…
“The exceptional urban
and environmental
qualities we esteem in
many of our older cities
were achieved with a
very modest input of
resources, and by a
careful and evolving
response to the needs
of their inhabitants.”
Ralph Erskine,
Architect

15. The Self-Organisers…
Community Land Trusts, Co-Housing,
Co-ops, self-build, self-commissioned
“Time for a citizens’
housing revolution
…creating
democratic places”
http://www.cabe.org.uk/
publications/who-should-build-our-homes
More than… a rural revolution

16. CABE Community Housing Support Unit
Community led housing design programme to 31/3/11:
• CABE and CLG Housing Supply, collaborating to support
this increasingly important sector and what it can
contribute to placeshaping.
• CABE is working with existing groups and networks to
provide direct support to a small (4) number of schemes.
• CABE is focussing on client support, agreeing a vision,
briefing, appointing consultants, evaluating proposals and
procurement strategies.
• CABE is working with existing networks to share the
learning and best practice emerging from these schemes
Sam McCauley and Dominic O’Neill - Housing Advisors
SMccauley@cabe.org.uk and doneill@cabe.org.uk

17. The ‘Coops and Mutuals’
demand-side self-organising
housing sector body
• Commission for Cooperative and
Mutual Housing
• National Community Land Trust
Board
(CLG Community Empowerment
Fund - Carnegie UK Trust and
National Housing Federation)
• Confederation of Cooperative
Housing
• UK Cohousing Network
• National Self Build Association
• Development Trusts Association
• Cooperatives UK
• Community Gateway Associations

18. The Coops’ and Mutuals’
self-organising story
The Actions:
• Feeding into CLG policy development on Community Right-
to-Buy and Build
• Working with CLG Housing Construction Roundtable on
supply side measures, coordinated by RICS
• Co-producing with the HCA on its community housing advice
initiative
• Developing proposals for Communities Direct and a national
action learning network with NESTA and CLG
The Offer:
• Wellbeing outcomes that will be a material consideration
• Social organisation as a tool for the adoption of sustainable
life choices, particularly mutual support in old age
• Co-operative partners and a role with LSPs and HCA as local
placeshapers

19. The Royal Charter 1881
Objects
To maintain and promote the
usefulness of the profession
for the public advantage in the
United Kingdom and in any
other part of the world
…securing the optimal use of
and and its associated
resources to meet social and
economic needs
The RICS’ story
Advice
• Spatial Planning & Delivery (2009)
Valuation Guidance
• Land for Affordable Housing (6/10)
• Council Assets Less than best
(2/11)
• Development Land (2011?)
Research
• Land Value Taxation (12/10)
Policy
• Champion for sector in CLG
Housing Construction Roundtable
and Housing Sounding Board
• Taylor Report on Rural Housing and
access to land
• Thinkpieces to CLG Ministers and
officers
• Commission on Community Assets

20. The Wise Words
of Sir Bob…
• “Put simply, we want to
make the programmes fit
the place, rather than
adapting places to fit
programmes.”
• “We’re seeking to instigate
a holistic approach to
placemaking that embeds
design, sustainability and
community engagement in
the process of setting
investment priorities and
ambitions.”
Rudi.net online interview 23/2/10 Juliana O’Rourke

21. Access to land
• Deliver pre-election
Cabinet Office
requirement for small
sites [<50 homes] for
coops and mutuals in
HCA Public Land
Initiative
• Extend to all public land,
and include schemes
<50 homes in larger
public sites
• Extend to all land
through site or locality
specific outcome driven
spatial planning policies
‘Garden grabbing’ SPAN Housing
Corner Green, Blackheath 1956

22. • Skills and
Competence
• Control and
Accountability
• Scale
• Self-help
• Commercial
• Social Enterprise
• Mixed economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjrIVjSK6oA
New ideas about…

23. “Cities have the capability
of providing something for
everybody, only because
and only when, they are
created by EVERYBODY.”
How well do you know:
Just Spaces http://justspace2010.wordpress.com …
London Citizens www.londoncitizens.org.uk …???
‘The Death and Life of Great American
Cities’
Jane Jacobs

24. futureplanners
Our principles of public interest practice:
• Share a commitment to help create sustainable
and democratic places
• Come from the traditional professional
institutions and none
• Believe in value driven work for sustainable
development
• Promote ourselves to work with value driven
clients, and
• Share learning and innovation with others
stephenhill@futureplanners.net