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corresponding emphasis on identifying justi
able compromises between
competing concerns, con
icts with its use to promote outcomes, and that
this must be overcome if the system is to have a part in setting an
environmentally desirable course.
98
The reality, however, is that the
lack of a clear statement of the system
'
s purpose in the legal framework
for planning at any stage in its history has allowed successive govern-
ments to use it as a blank canvas on which to paint ideological visions of
how economic and social activities should be conducted.
99
For example,
Haughton and Counsell argue that sustainable development policies, in
combination with the introduction of sustainability assessment as a tool
for shaping regional and local plans, have been used to tie planning
strategies at all scales
'
into a single form of rationality based on Central
Government
'
sownintegratedde
nition of what sustainable develop-
.
100
The current UK Government seeks to promote a pref-
erence for development in local planning, save where its adverse impacts
'
ment means
'
,through
its adoption of a National Planning Policy Framework that equates
sustainability with sustained economic growth.
101
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution questions the
wisdom of maintaining legal structures for planning that are liable to
'
would signi
cantly and demonstrably outweigh the bene
ts
'
oscillate between
the competing
'
ideologies
'
of planning law
...
'
...
.
102
Whilst
'
'
because they are
infused with such a degree of discretion
I agree that the system
exibility hampers its use to impart a
strategic direction that promotes stronger environmental protection, the
fundamental dif
'
svaunted
culty is not with the legal framework itself, but with
long-standing governmental preferences for facilitating a strong econ-
omy and, in line with this, for a weak understanding of sustainability that
presents no challenge to the status quo. The focus on the absence of
statutorily entrenched objectives for planning is misplaced when the
problem stems ultimately from a failure to reconsider what is societally
valuable, and to reform legal frameworks that lay down parameters for
98
Owens and Cowell,
'
Land and Limits
'
, 1st edn, pp. 7
-
8; Bishop,
'
Planning to Save the
9.
99
Cullingworth and Nadin,
Planet?
'
,pp.218
-
'
Town and Country Planning
'
,pp.11
-
12; Stallworthy,
'
Sustainability, Land Use
'
, pp. 102
-
3.
100
Haughton and Counsell,
,p.63.
101
Department for Communities and Local Government,
'
Regions, Spatial Strategies
'
'
National Planning Policy
Framework
'
(HM Government,
2012
), p. 4. Cowell,
'
The Greenest Government
7.
102
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,
ever?
'
,34
-
'
Environmental Planning
'
,p.107,
para 8.28.
