Local development frameworks, community strategies and area agreements - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 309

limits the amount or type of activity which an occupant can engage in. (For example
a house cannot be converted into flats or offices without planning permission.)
This potentially has a highly constraining effect and is therefore subject to legal
safeguards. By contrast local transport authorities do not exercise any equivalent
general constraint on the amount or type of travel which households or businesses
may undertake. (Occupants do not have to seek permission to own an additional
vehicle or to travel more than their predecessors in the way they do if they wish to
increase their land use activity.)
Development control applies universally whereas constraints on travel only
apply indirectly and in particular situations (e.g. controlled parking zones where
- in similar fashion - formal provision is made for the hearing of objections).
Interestingly the prospect of road user charging has brought a new dimension to
the potentially constraining effects of local transport policies. This is reflected in
the contested debate which has surrounded the legal procedures under which it
might be introduced (23.3).
Division of local authority responsibilities
In non-metropolitan areas where a two-tier system of local government prevails,
development planning is undertaken by the lower-tier district councils whereas
transport planning is undertaken by the upper-tier county councils. In these areas
therefore the two functions (which ideally would be integrated) are exercised by
authorities which have different combinations of responsibilities for different areas
with different electorates and different political administrations. The perspectives
they bring to development and transport and their inter-relationship will therefore
be different - often quite markedly so. Broadly speaking, planning authorities will be
less concerned with the operation of the transport system as such in their areas but
more with the opportunities and constraints it places on other types of activity and
development and with its impact on environmental conditions. By contrast transport
authorities will view the development policies for an area primarily in terms of resulting
patterns of travel demand and their implications for the functioning of the transport
system.
As far as planning in England is concerned the following sections are written in
terms of the 'new' development planning system which came into effect from 2007,
consequent on the changes arising from the Planning and Compulsory Purchase
Act 2004. (In practice many of the policies in previous plans, where they have been
explicitly 'saved', will continue to apply for an interim period.) The terminology used
in the new system is somewhat confusing and for convenience we will often refer to
them here simply as 'plans'. However a particular feature to note is that the term
'development plan' is not a single planning document at all but is reserved for the
collection of documents applicable to an area which have development plan status and
thus have statutory significance in development control decisions.
19.3 The role of local development plans
Historically 'town and country planning' has been concerned with regulating the
use and development of land in the interests of improving the functioning and
environmental quality of built-up areas and with protecting the countryside. This
traditional role is reiterated in current Government policy: