going forward

Just read a lengthy wordy article. Inequality at a dead end. Setting out yet again the case for the damage being done by the growing economic inequality. Then, significantly moving on to assess whether or how the existing institutions could bring about the changes necessary. The conclusion was they could not, we are doomed to stalemate, there is too much invested into the status quo. However it then when on to explore the new ways that people are coming together to tackle one aspect or another of the impact of inequality. Hurrah.

Far from claiming to have any solutions, what my blogs over these years have been grappling with is, seeking out suggestions for alternate ways that we can work together. Smack on trend. Not solutions but indications of where and how. Looking back over my blogs you will see that I have been exploring different ways to raise finance, different ways to benefit and protect our resource, finding a different relationship to big corporation but most of all how we can come together to look after ourselves, locally driven, not imposed by a central authoritarian government.

This exploration in an age where we are all (largely) self-centred, seeking instant gratification and indifferent to the wider social needs. Yet despite this, I do believe, we do have to rediscover a new community connection, relevant to the 21C, where we can come together as a caring community and forge solutions meaningful to us.

To find those new solutions means having the courage to join the debate, exchanging views, sharing experiences. learning from each other and slowly working out answers together. United we can own the world. Silent or as individuals, we are at the buffers, going nowhere. So your view is............

Brush with Democracy - another shade

After losing at two appeals and on the fifth application a local site nearby has finally won approval to form a new vehicular access, and, incidentally create yet a further habitation. Which side of the coin do you see? Persistence rewarded or sheer bloody mindedness, contrary to all local wishes, eventually winning out?

The background. The main road out of the village is narrow, only a car and half width, no verges, with hedges or low walls on either side. This section has a blind corner at either end of a some two hundred yard length of road. Towards the further end the road crosses a stream with stone parapets to either side. All typically Somerset. The local residents find this road difficult to drive and even more dangerous to walk or cycle. No forward visibility and nowhere to go to, or make room to pass. The initial application for two houses to one side of this narrow section of lane had many objectors, eventually it was approved on the basis that no vehicular access should be allowed off this narrow section of lane.

So after a further five applications and two appeals the Planners Officer recommends Approval to the forming of a new access off this same narrow section of lane, just before the bridge. Apparently car speed monitoring demonstrated low risk and visibility splay requirement were achievable. I have a smidgen of sympathy for the Planning Officer. If it was refused again and went to Appeal and if at the Appeal the Applicant could now show compliance with those same reasons used to refuse it last time, the Council could incur considerable costs for being unreasonable. All in all a bad decision and the thugs in our society, prepared to defy all to take what they particularly want, win. The initial decision, no road access of this stretch, was the right one.

Local democracy is a fragile thing. It is hard enough to marshal and focus opinion when freshly engaged to resist a bad application. But to have to return to the same subject time and time and time and time again when you thought you had won first time is beyond the possible. People do have lives and cannot keep going back over the same issues with fervent militancy. The trouble is that Planning decisions are not based on the degree of support or objection to any one proposal by the local residents but rely on the wording of obscure Planning Polices and detached objectives. More on that shortly.

If Planning was only just about what the local residents or even surrounding community thought, there would be no development. It would always be in someone's back garden, therefore to be objected to. You just cannot keep placing all developments, objected to by the vocal organised, near to the weak and ineffectual who are not able to organise a protest. Who would welcome a school, factory, fish and chip shop at the end of their garden? Sure there are bound to be lots of ideas where else they might be located so long as not there at the end of my garden. In the simple early days of Planning there were clear well understood objective principles that guided the application process. Certain areas were decreed suitable for certain type of development so long as specific criteria were met. Residents could object but would have to show that these criteria were breached in some way. A lumpen handed fairness to the community in general but not to the individual.

With time the process has become hugely complicated and complex. The vagaries that follow from this complexity allow a high degree of parochialism, with objective rationale being the loser. What we have now are a series of interrelated Policy Statements. Each Policy Statement being a huge cumbersome document, the result of a prolong and intense period of inspection, challenge, appeal, review and approval. Finally some years down the line, the plan is published and for those few weeks when everyone can remember what it was supposed to enshrine, it remains relevant and the working tool.

The District Council publish their Local Plans for each settlement based on the Structural Plans published by the County Council setting the framework for each of its areas and which in turn it to is based on the government's own published planning strategic objectives for the nation and the regions. From bottom up each is fully referential and compliant with the Policies of the next layer up. So well honed words severally checked for compliance with all relating Policies and stripped of vagueness and ambiguity to the point of course that they become meaningless generalities. Reading any Policy statement from one tier or another, there is no way you can see what is meant and intended when it comes to the specifics of planning in your own patch. Their sweep is too broad and general, stepping well aside from the specifics that might give a clue to the usual conflict of interest arising out of any patch of ground. What is worse we get sweeping aspirational design generalisations that apply totally inappropriately or to some nowhere place. Designs in our patch are to be based on guidelines set up for the Exmoor National Park! Chalk and cheese indeed. Now I like some of the chalk I have seen within the National Park but it is an irrelevance when sorting cheese from cheese in our patch.

Reflecting a view from a contrary stance to that expressed in my Brush with Democracy, we end up in the similar position. An over-blown, bloated planning system no longer responding or recognised by the communities on the ground on one hand. On the other intransigent individuals that are belligerently resist the common good when it compromises their own selfish aspirations find the chinks amongst those generalised words to drive in their wedge. As decisions have to founded on those same words, the Planner is left wrong footed and commonsense flies out of the window. A through spring clean is overdue. Get back to simple objectives with Planners working alongside with the community to help the community understand its planning problems and to achieve it's aspirations. Explaining any National or regional strategic requirments for their local patch and winning support. Not perfect, rough and ready, we may even have to wait before another airport, barrage, power station, motorway can be built. In the end only words can win and keep communities united.

Fair Cop?

For the record I am underwhelmed by this whole Police Commissioner vote thing. The government advertising to whip up public interest really says it all for me. It is the classic 'which slice of the pie' do you want. Stop car vandalism or stop drunk louts or stop house thefts or stop speed abuse or stop drug pushers. The answer is of course all of the above and some more as well. The problem is there just is not enough pie to go round.

What I take exception to is that the government retains tight control of the permitted expenditure and manner and methods to be employed in policing our country. The Police Commissioner is just the 'locally elected' fall guy to take the heat of accountability off from the government decisions which make it impossible to attain the public's policing aspirations. As an aside, 'locally elected' of course equals a political parties nomination with first loyalty to the Party not the electorate.

Just yet another deliberate, cynical tactic by the government to divide to rule. Make someone or organisation 'accountable' at local level to take all the blame complaints and criticisms. Whilst retaining all meaningful control back at central government, preventing them for exercising and employing new innovative and structurally different ways of skinning the impossible cat. They were devised by government so government could escape public blame for failing to adequately source and fund an effective police force.

Corporate Greed

Since the inception of Planning Law in 1947, a central aim, encompassed by Abercrombie in his first London Plan, was to banish squalid slums and give everyone the right to sunlight and open space to enjoy. We pay the price in multi-layers of heavy-handed bureaucracy to ensure we all benefit Pretty basic stuff but constantly being whittled away.

A large site, previously used by a utility company, on privatisation became surplus to need. The new foreign owner of this, our essential service developed over decades out of tax-payers money, was now to be maximised for the profit of their shareholders. I have no doubt that teams of experts were assembled and charged, (you will get more if you make more), with getting the most possible return out of this redundant land. Encouraged indirectly no doubt by our government who saw loads of lucre rolling into the exchequer when they sold off London Dock's, freed from planning constraints as the bait.

Our local Planning Officers do have to be mindful of the possibility of an Appeal against any unfavourable decision they might make. One important plank in their defence is that they are adhering to government guidelines. So when the government, as central policy, decrees that housing densities are to be increased to reduce the demand for green field take, our local Planner's have little option. A well muscled team can use that government directive to achieve whatever goal they have in mind leaving our local officer with no room to argue. What we end up with in our town is a new built 'sink estate'. 

The one location that is doomed to ever spiral down until even the lowest of the low ask not to be sent there. Such is the certain future for this recently built development. Where developer profit, maximising the greatest number of households on the plot, is made regardless of all future consequences.They have no tie to the future of the development, only in the immediate, now, profit return to their 'foreign' investors. What we end up with is an overbuilt estate, gloomy, dank and sunless with mean spaces, dominated by car provisions and waste storage and tiny patios, (for a 'lucky' few), overlooked, cast in shadow, too small to plant and undesirable to sit out in. What left over public spaces there are, are 'greened' with robust unfriendly deterrent plants. The obligatory 'children's play area' reduced to a token with no room to run, to sit in the sun or enjoy some fresh air. Does that sound like the pre-war slums our planning laws were meant to prevent? Does to me.

Not just mean in layout and mean in usable public space, but also mean in materials and lacking in any imaginative design, detail or quality. 

We have got to this point. The old presumptions that local pride and interest will ensure the quality of local development have been overturned. Now national corporations with interests far removed from the pleasure and enjoyment of local residents, now determine the quality of developments within our own patch.

Now for a final turn of the screw. The government rules that ultimately determine what shall or shall not be built are all city centric. Drawn up by civil servants that have no living experience other than London and its suburbs. Their mind sets do not encompass rural county towns but their rules, endorsed by a parliament focussed on timetables and vote catching, do set the limits. Take Taunton a rural county market town. Low rise with every expectation of still sitting out in the sun and enjoying the quiet of the countryside. Why should that expectation be set aside for all future generations just to meet a city orientated need to save space? Why should our town be forever despoiled to meet some other place needs. Ruined not just for now but for generations forward and lowering the bench mark by which future schemes are to be judged by. We need decisions by local people, judged in the context of their local concerns and needs. Not a National Policy applied  regardless. A high rise development is not suited to Taunton. Flats are not the norm for Taunton and should never be. These are city solutions for city problems. Low rise and gardens are the norms for Taunton.

High-rise does not suit Taunton

No matter the quality, it is the wrong answer

  

Good Government

Right, lets have a go at setting out what good government might be about. Certainly this will not be the all definitive, but at least a starting off point.

In the begining. Having clawed your way to the top of the tree, once there, there is every reason to believe you have a unique insight. Otherwise you would not be there, someone else would, who fought better or with more winning ideas. Once there you have the controls to arrange and organise things. Those under you, no doubt still wanting to claw their way up, have to conform to your edicts else there get pushed off the tree. You are surrounded with people who to your face agree with the sagacity of your opinions for fear of displeasing the dispenser of favours. Other than defending your perch from aspiring claimants you rule the roost. Everything conspires to confirm your particular view of the world is the right view, the only view. Having the taste of power, it is a natural consequence to keep and preferably to grow that power. Your decisions are most likely going to be directed to gathering more power to you. The end result is a centralised form of government. Only the top of the tree for this central government has any idea what is necessary. So plans accordingly.

My starting position is that no one in central government has a clue how best to arrange and organise services for my local parish community. Their solutions might be just fine for the grand cosmopolitan capital of our country. I doubt whether they fit as well in Peterborough or Newcastle or Penzance or Inverness. Each region and within each region, each local community has unique demands and challenges that don't fit well with the global, capital city orientated, solutions. Local people have to be involved in running the things that matter within their own communities. Free from the leaden constraints and dictate from some remote out-of-touch Ministry. To connect with their community they have to know that what they says matters, has impact and they will get to directly experience the consequences of their decisions. Involvement matters deeply. It is not just some superficial add-on, for its feel good factor, where the actual reins of authority firmly held off-stage, right or left.

Basically I think the hierarchy, parish to district to county to national is about right. However rather than top down I think it should be bottom up. The money and decisions should rest with the people and the community that need, decide to spend and receive goods or services. They decide at the point closest to the affected community the when, where and how. Calling on District or County facilities as necessary or otherwise sourcing local. Clearly there will be a range of different responses depending on whether your are a London inner borough, a home counties parish, a parish in Somerset or in Assynt. The expectations and standards will rightly differ with regard to any community issues from street lighting, road repairs, parking enforcement, rubbish collection or provision of care and support or whatever.

Obviously not all community requirements are appropriate at such a small community scale. Whilst a primary school might be possible not every community could sustain a secondary school, or drop-out centre or hospital. So here we have the transference upwards of resource allocation from Parish upto District or County. Competing against each other and other adjoining areas to attract the highest uptake for their particular provision, with no doubt, rewards for long term commitment. Each higher level up, operating with the current segregation between operational matters and those of legislative enforcement. The Legislative side disseminating standards to aspire to, checking on standards adopted and challenging where standards are found not to comply. Nothing black and white, the community have the right to adhere to non-conformity (compliance) so long as they can argue their cause.

At District and County levels there are social provisions that are just a factor of scale, not arising out of any particular community want. To get in the line of thought, for example, planning for new routes or distribution of services, providing analytical skills, monitoring of erosion or pollution. Clearly from one community scale to the next one up there are some things that just have to be funded at the next higher level up. So a right to a precept to permit this to happen seems logical. Except it needs accountability and challenge. The lower level in granting the precept renewal is entitled to a report and an account of what was done and is planned to be done and a vote on its continuance. Earning the support of the communities contributing has to be an essential, not a presumptive, right.

All the way up to National Government. The Counties decide what precept to grant the National Government and agree to continuing support for whatever is in the Nations interest, be it Defense, a new Trade Treaty, Secret Services or setting new standards guidelines. Only after receiving a report and account for the previous year. Challenging most certainly, a central government always on its toes having to carry the Nation along with it, seeking agreement and consent, very limiting. But how refreshing, the actual power base, the consent of the people, actually in touch and able to influence what is proposed to be done in their name. Not a distance, hands off electorate putting their mark on a simplified choice presented to them as a done deed by an inner caucus. Instead a vital living democracy is the goal in sight. This is the concept of a Small Society.

Uniformity across the land, in such an interconnected world, has to be the norm. We surely cannot have one set of rules applying in Cornwall and another set in Peterborough in contradiction to the rules applying in the Assynt. We need a strong central government to ensure we are all in conformity, we can travel around the land and be equally at ease and familiar where so ever we land and put down our head to rest. Why? From the top down it is obvious but from the bottom up it is no longer so self-apparent. Uniformity only if it is useful and of benefit to the local community. If they choose to go out on a limb, deny support for many regional or national precepts, play the dangerous game of isolation. Why not, in principle. If they are wrong they will live to regret and the costs will come to haunt them. More likely, as we are at natural heart, conformists only wanting to be in agreement and accord with those around us it is an unlikely scenario. But the option, the scarce remotest possibility, that a community in defiance of conformity, could break away and set up a new role model for the rest of us to learn from is exciting. It is the best way to keep our State fresh and self-renewing. Bring on the small man in his local community striving for a better future.