{"id":255,"date":"2019-11-13T10:41:26","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T10:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/?p=255"},"modified":"2019-11-13T10:41:29","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T10:41:29","slug":"a-smarter-approach-to-infrastructure-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/a-smarter-approach-to-infrastructure-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"A Smarter Approach to Infrastructure Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

….by Hannah Hickman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2018, Stephen Hall, Nick Croft and I were\nsuccessful in winning a tender for some exciting work on infrastructure\nplanning and governance. Commissioned by the Royal Town Planning Institute\n(RTPI), this was to be carried out in partnership with Peter Brett Associates\n(PBA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were set some challenging tasks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. To assist in understanding better the practical\nbarriers to the co-ordination of infrastructure and growth, and how approaches\nto infrastructure planning vary under different governance arrangements;<\/li>
  2. To test the effectiveness of current approaches\nand explore how they might be improved to achieved greater integration; <\/li>
  3. To create visual tools to demonstrate the range of\nplayers involved in the governance and delivery of infrastructure; and<\/li>
  4. To provide a framework for discussing and\naddressing the issues that emerged. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    We quickly found ourselves buried in local plans,\ninfrastructure delivery frameworks and infrastructure provider investment\nframeworks, scratching our heads trying to fathom the inter-relationships\nbetween the myriad of players involved in the governance, delivery and funding\nof infrastructure, but as with all research, this material came alive, on\ntalking to those on the ground. This we did by interviewing over 40 planning\nprofessionals and infrastructure providers in three in-depth case studies of\nStaffordshire County Council, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined\nAuthority and Glasgow City Council, chosen to reflect highly divergent\ngovernance contexts. This material was then supplemented by a national survey\nof all local planning authorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In some respects, readers of the report might feel rather\ndispirited by the findings. We identified five principles of good\ninfrastructure planning: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. A shared vision of place, with clear objectives<\/li>
    2. Specific infrastructure priorities identified to\nachieve that vision, aligned to funding sources<\/li>
    3. Effective and early engagement to align planning\nand delivery<\/li>
    4. Capacity, knowledge and resources <\/li>
    5. Continuous learning and dissemination. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Yet we found relatively little evidence of these principles\nbeing realised in practice. Effective infrastructure planning is undoubtedly being\nhindered by complex multi-level governance arrangements, the demise of\nstrategic planning, the lack of a stable funding environment for local\nauthorities and an over-emphasis on competitive bidding, the absence of place\nnarrative from regulatory frameworks, and lack of alignment between both the\nfunding cycles and geographies of providers, with those used for local authority\ngrowth plans. In response to our findings, the RTPI has warned: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \u201cthat a failure to adopt a more joined-up approach to planning the\nUK\u2019s towns and cities will make it impossible to meet the challenges of climate\nchange, population growth and environmental risks over the coming decades\u201d\n(RTPI 2019).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      However, we did find pockets of innovation and good practice\n(driven largely by enthusiastic individuals and partnership built over long periods\nof time) and, importantly, a real commitment from both providers and planners\nto seek to work more closely together to drive improvements in practice.\nStriking, nevertheless, was the overwhelming desire from all players to see\ngreater leadership from Central Government on infrastructure planning, both in\nterms of setting a strategic direction for infrastructure, tasking their own\ndepartments (health, education and transport in particular) to engage in a\nplace based approach, and in addressing the negative impacts of a \u2018deal\u2019 based\napproach to infrastructure planning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Striking also was the perception of infrastructure planning\nas a sub-set niche planning activity, involving the hidden world of undergound\npipes and wires (did you know that \u2018infra\u2019 derives from the Latin word meaning\n\u2018under\u2019?), but as a research team we concluded the project by unanimously\nbelieving that infrastructure planning should be seen as a core-planning\nactivity, deserved of more attention, and critical to the effective functioning\nof our society and effective place making. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      If you want to read more about our recommendations for\nimproving practice, then do read our report (or at least the summary!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      https:\/\/www.rtpi.org.uk\/knowledge\/better-planning\/better-planning-smart-city-regions\/a-smarter-approach-to-infrastructure-planning\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      ….by Hannah Hickman In December 2018, Stephen Hall, Nick Croft and I were successful in winning a tender for some exciting work on infrastructure planning and governance. Commissioned by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), this was to be carried out in partnership with Peter Brett Associates (PBA). We were set some challenging tasks: To … Continue reading “A Smarter Approach to Infrastructure Planning”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}