Concern has been raised that a fresh drive to reduce planning guidance could isolate council officers working in planning and technical services departments.
Lord Taylor's review of planning practise guidance, published by the DCLG on December 21, called for advice to be streamlined and made simpler. The Liberal Democrat peer’s call follows recent reforms made to the national planning policy framework, which was reduced from more than 1,000 pages to just 52.
Documents aligned for the chop in the Taylor Review include:
- Good practice guidelines: delivering travel plans through the planning process (2009) and Guidance on transport assessments (2007), which the peer said should be scrapped and replaced with new 'streamlined' guidance.
- DfT circular 02/2007 – planning and the strategic road network, which was dubbed out of date and should be cancelled.
- Manual for streets (2007), which was described as 'some good advice but no needed in this format'. Lord Taylor suggested this document should be reviewed and broken down into planning advice and other guidance.
The Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) has warned ministers they must ensure all new guidance continues to provide integration across different sectors – notably planning and engineering.
Acknowledging the need for 'simpler, more accessible' guidance, CIHT chief executive Sue Percy raised concerns about some advice, which could be lost.
She told Surveyor: 'There are concerns on the impact of reducing such a wide range of guidance into a few core documents. Questions remain regarding what will happen to many of the legacy documents that do provide integration across the sector.
'The appendix outlines the potential redrafting of manual for streets. CIHT believes that manual for streets 1 and 2 are documents that provide guidance for planners, engineers and other professionals from across the built environment and any redrafting must continue to provide this cross sector support.
'CIHT believes that it is essential that the links between important elements of the PPGs [planning practise guidance] are picked up in the new guidance and that the integration of planning and transport is covered. CIHT believe that we must ensure that we do not revert back to planning for cars in the way we did in the 20th century.
