GREEN PLANNING
papers
presented in
david jarman
paul mcternan
nick brown
michael thornley
gordon cox
drew mackie
howard liddell
ian crawley
tim birley
introduced by roger kelly
with a contribution by colin ward
SCOTTISH ECOLOGICAL DESIGN ASSOCIATION The Planning
Exchange
GREEN PLANNING
papers presented in
contents
INTRODUCTION
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT-THEORY TO PRACTICE
- a personal view from
david jarman
HOUSING IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
- putting Moray’s policies into place
paul mcternan
-Moray’s design
approach
nick brown
GREEN SCHEMES
-
Whinhill and
Kinlochleven
michael thornley
GREEN BUSINESS
-
gordon cox
ENERGY CONSERVATION AND PLANNING
drew mackie and howard liddell
AGENDA 21 AND LOCAL EMPOWERMENT
ian crawley
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
- A positive agenda for
planners
tim birley
NOTES ON THE GREEN PLANNING SPEAKERS
GETTING
CLOSER TO LONG LIFE, LOOSE FIT AND
LOW ENERGY (SEDA AGM 1995)
colin ward
ENERGY CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
IN A SCOTTISH CONTEXT
(Battleby Conference1994)
USEFUL
GREEN PLANNING papers presented in
On
So the proceedings begin
with David Jarman’s sharp reminder that meeting local needs locally
depends on more than the simple disposition of land uses. His personal view of Sustainable
development from theory to practice exposes the difficulties of transposing
city-centric and rural ideas of sustainability to in-between areas like
David Jarman
says that deflecting this inherited momentum of personal preference will take
more than the little we can do under existing powers to rearrange development
locations or transport infrastructure.
It is, he argues, more a matter of education in community benefits, and
going with the grain of awareness, acceptance and self-interest. And he suspects that society will only adapt
to threats to its existing lifestyle when it meets them nose-to-window. He elaborates on the distinction between
hard and soft sustainability. He
suggests some hard new powers for government to consider. Planning authorities, he reckons, will be
left to juggle with softer issues which are difficult to be definite
about. They may be able to justify decisions
in sustainability terms only on rare occasions where site-specific reasons can
be found.
Picking up the issues raised
in his paper, from lowland crofting to central
Five years ago, Moray District found itself up against
a threat to its local environment; massive numbers of applications for new
houses in the countryside, with no consistent policy basis on which to
determine them. The story of how this
was turned round is the subject of Paul McTernan and
Nick Brown‘s presentations on putting
green planning policy in place.
Paul McTernan’s paper gives us a
fascinating insight into the difference that clear planning and design policies
can make. Slow decisionmaking,
inconsistent decisions and a rash of unsympathetic housing development across
the district -these
were Moray’s lot in 1990. The Chief
Reporter wrote of “near Delphic policies
for rural development control which have given rise to an increased number of
appeals from aggrieved applicants... ...policies invite the suspicion that
rural applications are determined by prejudice, favour or caprice.” The planning response was to put in place a
new strategy strongly focused on the community’s stated aim of regeneration and
protection of the natural environment.
This would give development controllers a proper set of tools to work
with. As Paul McTernan
says: ”we felt we had to raise expectation levels,
embrace new advancements in building technology and ecological design and move
the entire debate into the realm of the 21st century”. The planning response made full use of local
expertise. Summers were spent in
village halls and community centres exploring what policy would work to
safeguard local welfare and environment.
Councillors, community councils and associations helped to identify
boundaries, development opportunities and amenity areas for the 73 rural
communities and gave local advice on practical points of ground conditions and
drainage. Consultation was also sought
with every agent and architect in the District. The strategy has been clearly explained and
illustrated, with applicants encouraged to recycle derelict sites and reuse
existing infrastructure. Paul McTernan’s paper describes results that speak for
themselves. More is now approved, and
more quickly, because the standard of applications has been transformed.
Moray’s approach emphasises
rural communities and the reuse of derelict sites and buildings. But new housing in the open countryside is
not prohibited, and Nick Brown’s
paper takes us inside the design philosophy which informs the policies and
illustrations of the Moray plan. “A
designer, like a cook, has to establish his ingredients and recipe.” Nick Brown wants us to focus on qualities, not on the minute detail of
solitary elements. He describes the
major issues for Moray and explores the inner meaning of vernacular
architecture. What he seeks is a mindshift, a radical change in housing design practice
where the priorities are regard, respect and integration, not “decorative bedroom
balcony with panoramic views”, or ”arched entranceway with optional bullnosed reconstituted stone panels.” When, he asks, will a main elevation again
openly greet the visitor, with a front door which says “do come in” as opposed
to “welcome to my double garage”?
One of the most notable
results of the Moray design initiative has been the effect on designs
submitted, and Paul McTernan and Nick Brown showed
plenty of examples of these. The next
paper presented in
Michael Thornley is an architect who
attended the 1994 Battleby conference on Energy conservation and sustainability issues in
a Scottish context organised by RIAS, EDAS and SEDA (see notes on page
71). His presentation on Green
Schemes: projects at Whinhill and Kinlochleven
concludes that green initiatives are unlikely to succeed without the full
participation of the users in the planning process, and that emotional and
spiritual issues should not be ignored in the drive towards the functional and
economic justifications for green planning.
Michael Thornley describes the thinking behind
his approach to these projects. Both
projects are at the initial, concept stages and may or may not be implemented.
At the start of the Green Planning afternoon session, the twin concepts of ecology and
economics are brought together by Gordon
Cox of Tweed Horizons in his
paper on Sustainable business.
As business manager of this centre for sustainable technology promoted
by Scottish Borders
Howard Liddell and Drew Mackie of Gaia
Planning present the next paper: Energy conservation and planning which
parallels their approach to a recent study commissioned by The Scottish
Office. Although individual planners
and local authorities may be aware of a responsibility to encourage energy
conservation, the speakers find no commonly accepted way forward. Their presentation covers some of the key
themes they identify as most important, and offers a matrix of planning levels
and topics where action through the planning system could be valuable. Liddell and Mackie describe promising
possible actions under a number of heads: the form of development (Landscape,
landform, layout and built form); transport, mixed use; optimising compactness
(without overlooking the inevitable complications); regeneration and reuse;
agency coordination; energy partnerships; local energy management; education
and auditing. They point out that much of the work on the
relation of urban form and energy use centres on transport issues, and warn
that planners will need to take a broader view if energy conservation is to
become a fully effective concept in day-to-day work. Planners will also need to find ways of
talking about sustainability that are accessible to the general public who must
start to own these ideas if they are to be effective - simple rules of thumb that allow local people
to judge projects “in terms of how they improve or damage local
sustainability.” Starting with
professional education, they argue, energy conservation must become a normal
part of planning not the special preserve of experts. And they see Local Agenda 21 as giving a new
framework that can be used as a base for actions and initiatives.
The next paper is from
Islington’s Ian Crawley, who had
addressed RTPI’s Training Conference on Are You
Delivering Quality? at the
Tim Birley, Director of the Centre for Human Ecology at the
University of Edinburgh, presents the final paper Sustainable development: a
positive agenda for planners. With
a long record of interest in sustainable development, both in academic work and
government service, Tim Birley is emphatically
positive without underestimating the difficulties. Like Gordon Cox, he argues that sustainable
development is mainstream and increasingly part of our day to day business. Like Patrick Geddes,
he wants us to keep our sights on the bigger picture, while taking all the
small, practical steps we can to make a difference. Sustainable development means widening the
scope of consideration in any decision.
It means thinking about a long timespan. This is what planning is all about,
too. Planning can’t claim
responsibility for all of the sustainable development agenda. But it is in a special position, says Tim Birley, because of its statutory basis within the
democratic process. And the kind of
policies which have been at the heart of our planning system in
Illustrations which informed
some of the presentations on the day cannot be printed here, but Colin Ward’s address to the SEDA AGM is
intended to more than compensate.
Thanks to the participation of the Planning
Exchange and the efficiency of their organiser for the event, Jacqueline Balloch, it was a pleasure for me to set up and chair this
Green Planning conference on behalf of SEDA.
With a bow to Patrick Geddes and Rocco Forte,
we can all thank participants and speakers for making the day so
worthwhile. Read the papers and see
what you think.
·
Roger Kelly is a
principal planner with The Scottish Office Development Department.
GREEN PLANNING papers presented in
david jarman
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - THEORY
TO PRACTICE
A personal view from
Scotland’s Central Belt
There are no original ideas
and sustainable development is a new label on an old bottle. In 1972 for example, the President of the
RIBA, Alex Gordon, launched a seminal campaign under the banner Long Life, Low Energy, Loose
Fit. This still encapsulates what
sustainable building and design should be about. As a green student in
Only slightly daunted by
this little object lesson, I have been trying to put green planning principles into practice in a typical non-city slice
of
Of course, there is a very
good justification for this state of affairs, and its name is economic
development. When a traditional mining
and manufacturing area is hit by deindustrialisation, the lame ducks have their
necks wrung, and unemployment touches second worst in lowland
Now the wheel has turned
again, the phrase “sustainable development” has reached us, our unemployment is
happily back down to the national average, and we have
less excuse not to take that longer view.
But what do we make of it?
First, a criticism deflector : I am consciously not going to try and define “sustainable development”, nor give its pedigree in planning history or
official guidance. Practising planners
are far too busy to research these things; they assimilate the concept from odd
journals and seminars, and get on with using it as another convenient piece of
jargon in their daily wars of words.
In fact and slightly to my
surprise, my colleagues do not make an awful lot of it. They are all aware of it, and feel it has
vaguely positive, unthreatening connotations, a good thing to be associated
with. But they do not see it as
directly relevant to the actual planning tasks they are engaged in. It is rather difficult to incorporate in 98%
of our development control
decisions, whether as a condition, a reason for refusal, or even a planning
gain. Or in
negotiations with Local Enterprise Companies over environmental improvement schemes. Or even in the legally-scrutinised text of
most policies in our local plans, in
any way that has real meaning and added value.
We are swimming along with sustainable development as if it were a warm
bath - very comforting, but doesn’t get you very far.
My own acquaintance with
sustainable development was at this slender feel-good level until a year ago,
when by chance John Thomson at Scottish Natural Heritage invited me to be “the district
planner” at a think-in on the subject.
This panicked me into a private brainstormer
to dredge up some thoughts to contribute : and very
much to my surprise they were all of the Emperor’s new clothes variety. In mulled-over form, here they are. As a deliberate provocation to debate and an
antidote to conventional wisdom, I stand by them :
please do not take this to mean that I am opposed to the underlying
aspirations. My argument is over the role of planners and the planning
system, with the means at our disposal.
Key
thought: Planning for sustainable
development is essentially a city-focused or city-centric concept; or it is a
concept for remote areas and isolated communities. It is much harder to apply to the in-between
areas, where the growth is nearly all happening. Discuss.
PLANNING SUSTAINABLE LOCATIONS FOR
EMPLOYMENT
Time was when business and
industry were intimately mixed with where people lived, because most people had
to walk to work. One of planning’s
great achievements was to unravel all this. Thus in West Lothian we have Livingston new town with large
industrial estates dispersed around its periphery as far removed from housing
as possible, and almost impossible to serve by public transport.
Our recent notable inward
investment successes have featured large high-tech factories on green field
sites close to motorway junctions and not served by regular bus services : Sun near Linlithgow, Digital near Queensferry, Motorola near Bathgate. Each has a vast employee car park. More such sites are being promoted. (Of course, Motorola has a sustainable
long-life building, and employs a lot of people to make a low-material-content
high-value-added reasonably-durable product which might reduce unnecessary
travel, but that is not a planning matter).
Beyond
Of course, many West Lothian
residents enjoy excellent access to Edinburgh city centre by train and bus and
were able to travel sustainably to work at the
Scottish Office - until it moved to Leith (with a vast employee car park and no
Metro).
What can we do? Altering this geographical inheritance of valuable
fixed investment is a practical impossibility so long as workforces are
predominantly organised in offices and factories. The stock of sites for future employment
development in
PLANNING
SUSTAINABLE SETTLEMENT
PATTERNS
People have an astonishingly
elastic propensity to travel - whether to work, or for other purposes. Travel is widely regarded as an acceptable,
even pleasurable activity - especially in your own car with your own comforts,
communications and sound system. It
might even be seen as a
“displacement activity” -
an apparently purposeful way of spending time which postpones actually doing
something more positive. People will
therefore quite happily contemplate travelling an hour or more to work, whether
they are covering 60 miles in that time or sitting in traffic jams for most of
it.
For so long as this attitude
to travel time prevails, and for so long as the right to travel is not rationed
or restrained, it will be quite futile to plan sustainable settlement patterns,
in the hope that balanced residential and employment development will reduce
the total volume of travel to work.
In