Project Nutcracker: Introduction to our Prayer for Serenity articles – unvarnished critiques of ideas for planning reform

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference" Prayer for Serenity by Reinhold Niebuhr

There have been so many commissions, think-tanks, campaigns and political parties coming out with ideas for planning reforms recently. The ideas put forward are remarkably similar, and superficially attractive. But in a series of articles over the next few months I will take them one-by-one and explain why they are generally either impossible to implement, won't make any difference, or will make things worse.

If that sounds depressing, it shouldn't. Only by facing reality can we tackle this difficult problem effectively.

The purpose of my critiques is encapsulated in the famous "Prayer for Serenity" (above). The key for any Government is to have the courage to change the things that can be changed, and to accept the things that cannot. These articles will try to give readers the "wisdom to know the difference", in the hope that poor ideas stop being pumped out and we can all narrow our focus to what can and must be achieved.

Despite all that's been written on planning reform, what is lacking is rigorous analysis of the factors (legal, political, human, common sense…) that put those ideas somewhere along the twin spectrums of (1) quite possible to utterly impossible; and (2) highly effective to totally ineffective.

With all the powers that Government has to legislate, publish guidance and fund better resourcing, there are still fundamental limitations to its ability to tackle many of the things that slow down our planning system. I list some of these in the box at the end of this article ("Facts and Axioms Under-Pinning Our Analysis"). Anyone serious about reform has to recognise and understand them.

As I take each reform idea in turn, I will refer back to these principles to explain cases where we must reluctantly accept the status quo, and look elsewhere for ways to speed up planning. We are all frustrated with the planning system, but too often the big ideas which sound so sensible fall apart under analysis.

To be clear, we are assuming the objective of reform is to speed up planning and make it less labour-intensive, while still procedurally fair. Government seemed to start off with speeding up as its objective ("Project Speed" being the Government's name for its original reform consultation). However, recent consultations often seem more focused on process standardisation and other "improvements" not necessarily to be measured by improvements in speed, time or cost efficiency for developers. This drift in purpose by Government is itself a worry.

I expect politicians reading this may be incredulous at the idea that for all the groups that have been tackling planning reform there could be so many holes in what's been put forward. On one level it amazes me too. But I think it arises from the fact that planning reform is being addressed by two sets of people: (i) bright and eminent people who are not planning or public law lawyers and are therefore unaware of irritating legal difficulties hidden in the weeds, and (ii) planning lawyers and other planning professionals who are so steeped in how things are done currently that their ideas tend towards accepting and doubling down on existing processes.

What we are seeing is therefore a mixture of ideas that are either too radical to be implementable, or too trivial to make any (positive) difference.

What we need is a smarter, deeper, more forensic legal analysis of the problems and how to solve them. We need legal brain-surgery, not sledge-hammers or cosmetic surgery.

This series of articles is intended as constructive criticism because I and my team are passionate about using what we know about how planning works to help find real solutions to improving the system. No one likes to be a kill-joy - but the trouble is that is part of the reason we're not making any headway with Planning reform: it is hard to be part of working groups on reform and be the voice of reality pouring cold water on enthusiasm, but that is what is missing in my view.

I hope you enjoy what I intend to be simultaneously an academic and practical look at the problems of planning reform. The focus will be largely on energy and infrastructure, but we may touch on ideas such as bringing housing within the "nationally significant infrastructure" regime too.

You may see shades of my pre-law degree in Psychology and Philosophy showing through at times, but that's no bad thing. The challenges we face are psychological and philosophical as well as legal.

The facts and axioms under-pinning our critiques

We may come back and refine the facts and axioms below as we apply them to specific reform ideas in our articles, but sketching them out below feels like a useful start. The idea is that the opinions we express in our articles will be (in as far as possible) logical deductions from the below: