National planning - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 286

A second Framework document, due for publication in 2008 and covering the
period to 2030, is undergoing an extensive programme of stakeholder involvement.
17.8 Sub-national planning: an overview
In this final section we give an overview of planning arrangements below national level
throughout Britain to provide the context for consideration of the individual elements
in the following chapters.
Although the nomenclature is confusing there is in fact a great deal of similarity in
the current arrangements for sub-national planning in its four main constituent areas,
viz:
• England (outside London)
• London
• Wales
• Scotland.
The key to understanding this is to recognise that the same types of planning activity
are undertaken at different administrative levels. This is illustrated in Figure 17.4. The
shaded cells highlight the levels at which the strategic relationship between transport
and land use is considered and major transport projects are assessed. In Scotland and
Wales this is at national level, in England it is at regional level (London in this context
being classed as a region).
The precise form this strategic relationship takes in planning terms is slightly different.
In the English regions outside London there is a separately identifiable Regional Transport
Strategy, but it is embedded within a single Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) document.
In Wales and Scotland there are separate planning processes for transport and land
use but there is a hierarchical relationship between them with the transport strategy
delivering the major elements needed to fulfil the Spatial Plan/ National Planning
Framework which in turn seek to deliver the strategic aims of the Assembly/Parliament.
A similar situation exists in London where the Transport Strategy and the Sustainable
Development Strategy (SDS) are separate entities and formally are two of several topics
for which strategic policies are prepared. In practice however the Mayor has chosen to
give the SDS primacy (and has titled it the 'London Plan' accordingly) such that the
Transport Strategy takes on the character of a delivery mechanism.
Beneath this strategic level (i.e. below the shaded cells in Figure 17.4) there are two
further levels of planning in most parts of Britain. In England this does not appear to
be the case because the higher level is incorporated in the strategic document - sub-
regional insets in the case of RSS and sub-regional frameworks (sectors) in the case of
London's SDS. In Scotland and Wales the equivalent plans are freestanding.
Except for the four Scottish city regions a single tier of sub-national development
planning operates at (unitary) local council level in Scotland and Wales. In these
mostly rural areas there is insufficient spatial change to warrant an intermediate level
of statutory planning between the national and local development plans.
In Wales there is also a single tier of sub-national transport planning. The former
local transport plans of individual local authorities are being replaced by regional
transport plans prepared by these authorities acting jointly through four consortia.
Within London a unique situation exists in which the body responsible for its
strategic planning (the London Mayor) also has significant executive powers in the