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The findings of survey of planners’ views on the Local Development Framework (LDF) system, by Cushman & Wakefield and the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) are being launched at the Conservative Party conference today.
John Watson, a Partner with Cushman & Wakefield, has written an article on the LDF survey to be pushed in the October issue of the TCPA’s journal Town & Country Planning, said:
“When the LDF system was introduced in September 2004, the Government anticipated that all local planning authorities would have a Core Strategy in place by 2007, but five years on, fewer than 20% of local planning authorities have yet completed their Core Strategy.”
“Among the comments to the LDF survey, respondents referred to the resource-hungry ‘LDF beast’, with the leading reason for delay sited as a lack of resources (68%), followed by changes in Government policy/guidance (56%), synchronising with regional policy (38%), and acting on Government Office advice (34%). It is striking that a whopping 97% said that the LDF system did not result in a quicker process for plan-making.”
The national email survey of planners was carried out in July and August 2009. The 122 respondents were fairly evenly split between the public and private sectors (55-45).
TCPA Chief Executive, Gideon Amos OBE, said:
“Recurring themes included the complexity of the system, consultation fatigue, a confusing range of documents in a system too often alien to the public with huge requirements for supporting material. However, set against this there is the conundrum that a number of local authorities have made the system work – or at least have got Core Strategies adopted”.
“A tidal wave of Core Strategies is due to come through the system in 2010, but there must be big question marks over how many will be adopted and when; especially when the Conservatives have promised that national and regional targets affecting LDFs will be abolished should they be elected.”
“The challenge therefore for all politicians is to learn from the best authorities about what can be done to make the process better, more intelligible to the public and more likely to deliver the development the country will need as sustainably as possible.”
