Yet another planning consultation has just been published by the Government. This time the focus is on reforming the regional strategy documents with the intention of creating one single integrated plan.
Regional Spatial Strategies and Regional Economic Strategies will jointly become the regional strategy for each area once the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill passes into legislation (this is expected to be sometime in autumn 2009). They will then be revised, combined and replaced by the new single strategy. The new regional strategies will be decided by local authorities through their 'Leader Boards' in partnership with the Regional Development Agency.
There are still some concerns about how effectively the Leader Boards are going to operate in practice, as they are supposed to be streamlined, yet at the same time representative of all the councils within the region. How is it going to be possible in the South East for example, where there are around 80 local authorities, to have a representative of each council on the Board without creating a giant board and slowing down the decision making process? The Government has not prescribed how the Leader Boards will be made up and run within the regions, so this is something the councils will be left to work out on their own.
There have also been comments that the new strategies are going to focus more on economic development and helping the regions recover from the recession than on planning. What do you think?
I attach a link to the consultation here
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