Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
In the UK, the Labour administrations that held power between 1997
and 2010 made reforms to the planning system that, on paper at least,
gave regional bodies an important role in managing the spatial impacts
of sectoral policies, and thereby with promoting sustainable develop-
ment.
69
However, these reforms had little opportunity to bed in before
the following Coalition Government abolished the regional tier of plan-
ning in entirety.
70
There are two main reasons why a regional level of government would
be desirable in a system of ecological governance. The
rst is, as noted at
Section 4.4.3
, that there are severe limits on the ability of local bodies
with authority over comparatively small areas to achieve meaningful
change in socioeconomic systems that operate at broader spatial scales.
This is a dif
culty which the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution recognised in its report on environmental planning.
71
It concluded
that areas for a system of planning which is capable of devising solutions
to society
'
s environmental problems would need to be
'
suf
ciently large
and self-contained
interactions between environmental, eco-
nomic and social factors within their boundaries
'
to encompass
'
,
72
and, consequently, that
spatial planning should be conducted at the regional level because the areas
covered by local planning authorities
'
ciently large or self-
contained to provide a satisfactory basis for strategic planning
'
are not suf
.
73
'
culty, local authorities would need, if
they are to contribute to realising national objectives, to work with a
coordinating body on the production of plans that, whilst they re
To overcome this spatial dif
ect
local conditions (and therefore maintain the important link with public
participation in the plan-making process) would also cover a suf
cient
scale to present strategic responses to problems that cross jurisdictional
boundaries. Regional institutions would be well placed to provide this
69
M. Tewdwr-Jones and P. Allmendinger,
'
Regional Institutions, Governance and the
Planning System
in H. Dimitriou and R. Thompson (eds) Strategic Planning for Regional
Development in the UK: A Review of Principles and Practices (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007),
pp. 34
'
An Anatomy of Spatial Planning:
Coming to Terms with the Spatial Element in UK Planning
-
6; M. Tewdwr-Jones, N. Gallent, and J. Morphet,
'
'
(2010) 18 European Planning
Studies,247
-
50.
70
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government,
'
Revoking Regional
Strategies
, Ministerial Statement, 6 July
2010
,
http://www.communities.gov.uk/state
ments/newsroom/regionalstrategies
. Baker and Wong,
'
'
The Delusion of Strategic
, 91.
71
RoyalCommissiononEnvironmental Pollution,
Spatial Planning
'
'
Environmental Planning
'
,23rd
Report, CM 5459, March
2002
.
72
73
Ibid
., p. 147, para. 10.23.
Ibid
., p. 159, para. 10.75.
