The next meeting of The Liaison With Local Government Group will be on Tuesday 19th February 2008 at 7pm at The George in Trafalgar Rd near St Peter's Church. New members are welcome to attend.
Notes from Liaison Group's Meeting on 22 January 2008
1. Matters Arising
2. Knowledge – areas where we need to gain more knowledge to carry out our role. Input from Sustainability Team/officers.
(i) The Sustainable Communities Act
(ii) Case Officer’s presentation on how policies on Sustainability (e.g. Chapter 2 of Local Plan, relevant SPDs, sustainability appraisals) are applied when recommending to grant or refuse planning applications – for example, two case studies.
3. Briefing others in Transition Brighton & Hove about the Council
4. The functioning of the Sustainability Commission
5. Feedback on The New Economics Foundation workshop
Those present were Joyce, Maureen, Ted and Vicky. Apologies from Jacqui & Mita.
1. Matters arising from last meeting of 7th January - Mission Statement
The need to formalize our working protocol.
ACTION POINT 1: Ted agreed to tidy up and circulate the draft recorded in the notes of our last meeting. After feedback from Group members, the mission statement will be finalized.
2. Knowledge -input
Familiarity with the Sustainability Communities Act will help us to understand how International/National Policy links with community action/empowerment.
ACTION POINT 2: We all agreed to Google the Sustainability Communities Act.
Joyce suggested that in doing this preliminary research we could bullet a number of points relevant to our purpose to put to a member of The Council’s Sustainability Team (e.g. Mita Patel). Broadly, we will want to know how Brighton and Hove City Council enforces the Sustainability Communities Act.
Local Authorities will be required to establish a panel of representatives from the community. This could be a separate panel from the members of the Sustainability Commission or a replacement for it. The action for all Liaison Group Members is to identify issues to take further.
The Council’s Sustainability Team does not report on individual planning applications. Although the Case Officer will collect departmental reports from The Traffic Manager (i.e. Transport Planning), Conservation and Design, The Council Ecologist, Environmental Health, each planning application carries its own Sustainability Statement using The Council’s Sustainability Checklist (under The Local Plan) or having its own Sustainability Assessment (under the Local Development Framework which will soon take the place of The Local Plan). It is the Case Officer’s job (though she has access to experts if he/she needs to consult them) to assess whether a planning application’s Sustainability Statement is an honest one and meets the Council’s planning policies. It was suggested that we could invite a Case Officer to present a couple of case studies (i.e. real planning applications – perhaps some which offer “greenwash” without really meeting the Council’s sustainability requirements) to demonstrate how the policies are applied in practice.
Concern was expressed over planning applications where it is not made clear by the Council that a proposed development site involves “greenfield development”. Since policy requirements (e.g. Sustainable Building Requirements) are tighter in the context of greenfield development, there could not be a fair planning process if the latter is concealed both by the applicant and the Council.
The group recognised that the Council is under conflicting pressures (e.g. meeting housing targets, maintaining employment). One commonly debated issue is whether to concentrate development in the city (limited in space since it is wedged between The South Downs and the sea) or to allow development to spill out onto The Downs. Reference was made, however, to the need for access to open spaces within the immediate urban environment (e.g. for people who do not have cars and cannot get to the Downs except by Sunday bus services), and the need to protect greenfield sites e.g. for permaculture / local food production in the future.
For organisations such as The Campaign To Protect Rural England, protection of The South Downs would be the political priority. However, the Government’s Planning Policy Guidance PPG17 Planning for Open Space, Sport and Recreation emphasizes the amenity-value of open spaces to the health and well-being of urban communities. Their PPG 17 Companion Guide - Assessing Needs and Opportunities to assist Local Authorities with community planning, insists that open space needs are locally-derived and that open space assessments should be NEIGHBOURHOOD-SPECIFIC. Many elderly and disabled people, who rarely travel to the South Downs, depend for their amenity on open spaces in their neighbourhoods. The less mobile are not responsible for so many car journeys - a factor which needs to be considered in planning for sustainability.
In terms of what we should be doing as a TB&H LIAISON WITH LOCAL GOVERNMENT GROUP, we agreed that we could inform (e.g. via web pages) Interest of Neighbourhood Groups on how to use the planning process e.g. the Council’s online register to monitor and comment on planning applications.
3. Briefing others in Transition Brighton & Hove about the Council
The main challenge we faced was the reticence among some of the participants in Transition Brighton & Hove to be involved with “things to do with government and local government”. Some participants prefer to focus on “things which groups and individuals can do on their own”. Others are more willing to involve themselves with the Council. It was observed that there was good knowledge of Council policies among TB&H’s Buildings & Construction Group – they have already been involved with consultation on the draft SPD for Sustainable Building Design.
Key questions for our Liaison with Local Government Group are:
What have we got to offer, and who are we offering it to?
We agreed that “in your face presentation” would be counterproductive. We have got to work with the TB&H Interest and Neighbourhood Groups.
Some presentation is needed to show what we’ve got to offer. We agreed that clearly laid out web pages where people could find the information they need to complement their Interest/Neighbourhood Group’s Agendas might prove productive. If our presentation is relevant to the Interest/Neighbourhood Groups’ objectives, and if we can show ourselves to be well informed, then we could achieve our role as facilitators. We would obviously be willing to give briefings if approached or to refer members of Interest/Neighbourhood Groups to contacts we have made within The Council, if they would appreciate our help.
ACTION POINT 3: Ongoing = production of coherent web pages linking to notes from our meetings where useful. Ted can upload. All can submit, monitor and suggest improvements.
4. The functioning of the Sustainability Commission
It was reported that in spite of the attempt to delay it by some Councillors at the meeting of The Sustainability Commission on 9th January, the Council’s Policy & Resources Committee had since met and decided that the proposal for the wind turbines near The Sea Front outside Kings House can be submitted as a planning application.
In reflecting on how the new political balance in the city was affecting the functioning of The Sustainability Commission, it was also recognised that there was going to be a massive reorganisation of The Council in May, when an executive will be put in place.
A leader will be chosen, who will in turn be able to choose their own cabinet. The cabinet members do not have to reflect the political balance of Councillors within the city. They can be Councillors whom the leader wants to work with. However, there will be a Scrutiny Committee, and the latter will reflect the political balance (i.e. there will be Labour, Green and Liberal as well as Conservative representation). It is said too the scrutiny will be made stronger. This is a Government-imposed system of running the Council. The May 2007 Local Election results have put the Conservatives in a dominant position, though they do not have an overall majority in terms of their electoral success.
ACTION POINT 4: Vicky to help. All to do.
Find out about the new Executive system of Local Government. Will there still be a Sustainability Commission or a Sustainability Team? How is power within the Council and its departments going to be affected? Pete West is apparently involved in a Green Party Campaign relating to these imminent changes.
5. Feedback on The New Economics Foundation workshop
Four members of our Group attended this. We agreed that the input was rather disappointing, but we appreciated that The New Economics Foundation’s brief was to set the workshop within a NEIGHBOURHOOD context. This was not really pitched at economists. It was not the occasion for an update on the reactions to market-led economics by thinkers such as E.J. Mishan (The Costs of Economic Growth – Pelican 1969), E. F. Schumacher (Small is Beautiful – a study of economics as if people mattered – Blond & Briggs 1973) and J.K. Galbreith (Almost Everyone’s Guide To Economics – Andre Deutsch 1979).
It was felt that the task-based “post-it” sessions could have worked if the tasks had been more clearly defined and if all participants had taken them seriously. Some of the “post-its” were rather frivolous ideas. The organisers diplomatically played along with them, but some of the priorities we should have been considering lost out to unnecessary distractions.
Two useful specifications for organisers of future workshops were suggested:
1. Have a clear knowledge of who you are talking to
2. Know what is wanted.
A recognition that the participants at this workshop were submerged with existing pledges and commitments, may have warned the organisers that asking for more was not really going to go down well as the highlight of the workshop – not without more focus or clarity. This was a case where “think small” was needed rather than “go out and change the world”.
It was worth making contact with The New Economics Foundation. There are some very useful resources (downloadable in PDF form) on their web site at http://www.pluggingtheleaks.org/
These include two reports of circa 100 pages long:
1) Plugging the leaks
Plugging The Leaks
2) The Money Trail
The Money Trail
Given the limited space we have in Brighton and Hove, land-use is likely to play an important part in Transition Brighton and Hove's Energy Descent Plan. A golden read and another article which calls for "new economics" is Think about Land - a talk given by Dr. E. F. Schumacher, originally published by a Housing Aid charity.
Liaison With Local Government Group meeting on Tuesday 19th February 2008 at 7pm at The George
