Regional strategies - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 290

housing provision in urban areas, and support for business development in particular
(Marshall 2004). That said the Government is not averse to riding roughshod over
regional planning exercises where it considers national needs dictate. This applied to
the designation of 'growth areas' as part of the Sustainable Communities programme
(8.8) and is currently threatened with the Transport Innovation Fund (23.4) and the
Infrastructure Planning Commission (22.5). These reflect the absence of a national
spatial strategy noted in the previous chapter.
In theory at least, Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) occupy a pivotal position
in planning within the English regions outside London. They are the first level at
which national development and transport policies are translated into spatial effect
and hence where attention to physical and functional integration begins to assume
prominence. As a single document they then provide the spatial policy framework
for the preparation of more local plans, especially via sub-regional insets for the more
urbanised areas.
Regional strategies are also the level at which the case for or against the major
proposals of individual local authorities has to be argued. Because there are no
directly elected regional councils, the work of the Regional Assemblies provides a
forum in which the individual and collective aspirations of local authorities and other
stakeholders within the region can be debated and articulated to central government
via its Regional Office. Equally it provides a medium though which central government
can seek to engage these bodies collectively within a region in advancing its own
policy agenda (although Regional Office staff also maintain a dialogue with individual
authorities).
RSS also provides the strategic spatial context for the work of the Regional
Development Agencies (RDAs) and other delivery agencies such as the Highways
Agency and the Homes and Communities Agency (the successor to English
Partnerships and the Housing Corporation concerned with delivering social housing).
Figure 18.1 shows the relationship of RSS to these other plans and agencies at the
regional level as well as to the planning processes of local authorities. As can be seen,
the overall pattern is complex. The fact that it is not always clear where a particular
process begins or ends or which parts follow or are conditional upon others is not a
fault of the diagram!
However the nominally central position occupied by regional strategies somewhat
misrepresents their significance within the totality of planning activity within a region
- for two main reasons:

1 The regional assemblies which have prime responsibility for preparing RSS/RTS

are relatively weak bodies. They have no independent political mandate and
their ability to exert a distinctive policy influence is dependent on the degree to
which it is possible to secure a degree of consensus amongst their constituent local
authorities. They also have very limited resources and executive powers of their
own. They are therefore heavily dependent on other agencies for contributing
information and 'intelligence'. These include local highway authorities and other
transport providers for operational data and for the generation and working up
of proposals - a role which in practice gives these 'lower' bodies considerable
leverage. In fact, because regional assemblies are not directly elected, special
provision is made for the principal local authorities to formally initiate strategic
proposals for their areas - i.e. a 'bottom-up' process.