A two-track approach to developing
Wales’s urban areas
PRESS RELEASE
From the Institute of Welsh Affairs
For publication after 0010 Tuesday November 28th 2006
Wales should establish its own pattern of city regions for planning
and development purposes but combine this approach with the creation
of development domains focusing on integrated groups of towns in more
rural areas.
This is one of the planning recommendations in a report, Time to Deliver,
commissioned by the Institute of Welsh Affairs for a special conference
looking at policy options for the third term of the National Assembly.
The report notes the growing interest in city regions across Europe
as a way of bolstering economic competitiveness and notes that in
Scotland the planning system is being restructured to provide two
different types of process – one for cities and the other for
the remainder of the country. Similarly, in England enthusiasm has
been growing, particularly in the north, for city regionalism.
The report, which will be considered at a conference in Cardiff on
Monday, November 27th, admits that policy-making at a level below
all-Wales already exists – for example Assembly regional committees,
health trusts, police forces and local government - and that city
regions could merely add another layer to the complexity.
Such a development would, however, bring a new way of thinking about
the relationships between urban and rural areas, helping to reduce
public expenditure excesses, and overlapping administrative layers,
while at the same time creating the functional policy units vital
to help shape he places of tomorrow.
As examples of the type of issue that it believes city region planning
could help to alleviate, the panel of academics and other experts
behind the report point to concern that Cardiff will export its lower
cost housing to badly located sites in Rhondda Cynon Taff, with the
prospect of the Llantrisant to Caerphilly corridor becoming overdeveloped,
not only with housing but with retailing and leisure complexes. “Developments
such as the Dragon film studios and new planning opportunities around
Capel Llanilltern may be viewed as between Cardiff and the valleys
in a sort of no-man’s-land, hugging the M4.”
The Wales Spatial Plan has already gone some way to identify the attributes
of the various areas. It should not be too difficult to utilise these
as the basis of the next stage in forging economic and social cohesion
with a reconfiguration of institutions and boundaries. This need not
necessarily lead to a massive amount of institutional restructuring,
involving local government reform or amendment of the boundaries of
health trusts, the report says. Instead it would require agencies
to recognise the functional city-region territory as a delivery and
policy framework.
In rural areas there is also a need to think more creatively about
the countryside, the report says, and about more affordable housing,
community wind farms, rural diversification, and the possibilities
and problems created by massive gentrification. Attention is drawn
to the idea of development domains put forward by two University of
Wales, Bangor regional specialist, Gareth Wyn Jones and Einir Young,
which suggested grouping together towns, such as Bangor Caernarfon
and Beaumaris, to create medium-sized dispersed conurbations for planning
purposes.
The report credits the Welsh Assembly Government with producing in
the Wales Spatial Plan the most significant innovative change that
has occurred since devolution at the all-Wales level, creating a strategic
framework for investment, resource allocation and development decision.
This is a development that causes Wales to be viewed elsewhere as
an exemplar in spatial planning, it says. It warns, however, that
currently the plan is not sufficiently detailed or related to funding
programmes and does not provide confidence to the private sector in
investment decisions.
On local government the report observes that, shortly after the establishment
of the Assembly, friction between central and local government had
become apparent but that the creation of a Partnership Council between
the National Assembly and local government had helped to mitigate
problems.
With the support of the Partnership Council, Welsh local authorities
had moved ahead of the statutory timetable to establish new political
management structures. And with the support of the Welsh Local Government
Association, the Assembly Government has created a single new framework
for standards of conduct embracing all county council, town and community
councils, national parks authorities and fire authorities.
“Despite early suspicion there has been a maturing in the relationship
between the centre and local government in Wales. On the surface therefore
the changes devolution has brought to local government appear to have
created a much stronger relationship and a clear distinction in roles.
Not only has the reality of a separate system of Welsh local government
been formalised but the Assembly Government is allowing local government
to be understood as a maturing and separate tie of governance in its
own right,” it concludes.
One serious issue highlighted, however, is the chronic skill and staff
shortages within local authorities’ planning departments and
high workloads. “Planning at the local level is being squeezed
and is not helped by a misjudged political and economic argument where
planning is seem as an impediment to growth and investment…The
Assembly government needs to give the political signals to the authorities
that plan preparation and adoption is a priority,” it states.
The panel also warns of possible tensions - as well as synergy benefits
- between the requirements to introduce community strategies, drawing
extensively on local wishes, and local authorities’ own development
plans. Both processes will need to be actively managed, if local areas
are to gain the most from the two processes.
“Wales is already ahead of the game in Europe in producing a
spatial plan that attempts to address contemporary broad, inter-related
issues. Wales can continue to be ahead of the game by ensuring that
the vision is turned into a delivery vehicle through the creation
of functional urban-rural policy areas and by enhancing its concern
for community well-being, the panel concludes.
The report, the work of eight Policy Groups made up of 103 experts,
will be discussed at a special conference to be held in Cardiff on
Monday November 27th. For further details on how to obtain copies
of Time to Deliver (price £30 plus £2 p&p), please
call 029 2066 6606 or e-mail wales@iwa.org.uk
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