Land Use Planning

Abstract

This chapter sets out the procedures and policies of the comprehensive system of land use planning which is at the core of the planning system. Many aspects of environmental, countryside and regeneration policy are dependent on the powers contained within the land use planning system. Land use planning has remained remarkably resilient, enduring in largely the same form since the founding 1947 legislation. Change has occurred but in an incremental form. Even the attempt to create a more market-led planning system under the Thatcher government did not remove the preexisting planning system but rather modified it and created additional experimental regimes. Just before it left office, the Conservative government had issued a consultation paper on ‘tidying up’ the land use planning system, proposing some streamlining; the incoming Labour government has promised a more thorough-going review of planning looking at current efficiency levels and the case for more decentralisation. Four issues are flagged up for consideration: the speed of preparing development plans; the treatment of national projects; regional planning; and planning at the local level. In addition, an expenditure review of the DETR is to be conducted. However a really radical overhaul is unlikely. The two central elements of land use planning are, and are likely to remain, the provision of indicative guidance through development plans and the control of development proposals on a case-by-case basis through development control.