Giving planners a voice in the great UK eco-towns debate

Planning, 22 August 2008

The summer news vacuum, better known as the silly season, has been largely filled by speculation over the future of Gordon Brown's premiership. But one of his key policies - the promotion of eco-towns - has also come under close scrutiny.

The debate over eco-towns has plenty of the elements that make up an enduring news story, including localism, a diverse array of strongly held and contrary opinions and a dash of celebrity. The prominence of the eco-town debate has given the RTPI plenty of opportunities to raise the public profile of planners and promote the need for sound planning policy to underpin the government's housing ambitions.

Planning's voice has not always been the loudest in the cacophony of debate on this issue but it has gained growing prominence in recent weeks. In late July, RTPI policy director Rynd Smith appeared in the lead story on Newsnight, explaining the difficulties of bringing forward major new schemes in a stagnating economy to an audience of more than one million.

The Newsnight appearance was followed shortly by a column in The Guardian in which Smith called for the government's freshly tightened environmental standards for eco-towns to be made even tougher. In the article, Smith also argued that many of the new eco-town targets should be applied to all new housing development, including urban expansion and regeneration, and that more should be done to promote live-work quarters. With the opposition sniffing some electoral mileage in criticising the government over eco-towns, this issue is expected to run well into the autumn and beyond.

The RTPI has also enjoyed a heightened profile on other issues. Smith appeared on Radio 4's You and Yours programme talking about the retail needs test. And a few weeks ago, the chairman of the RTPI's international committee Vincent Goodstadt spent almost an hour on the BBC World Service's The World Today discussing urbanisation and the role planners can play in mitigating its negative effects.

The Planning Convention generated a lot of media interest as well, a result of communities secretary Hazel Blears using her keynote speech to announce that she would introduce planning measures designed to protect retailers in town centres. The story appeared in The Independent and The Daily Telegraph as well as the wider trade press.

- Dale Atkinson is communications manager at the RTPI.