02 September 2010
Mark Pennington responds to the Barker Review
The publication of the Final Report of the Barker Review of Land Use Planning has reignited the debate over the future of spatial planning in England.
IEA author Dr Mark Pennington comments:
"The Barker Review is right to identify the excessively restrictive planning regime as a cause of house price inflation and as a brake on economic growth and competition. It is, however, wrong to propose a centralised solution to this problem, which involves taking powers away from local planning authorities, who have better knowledge of local conditions. A better approach would be to allow local councils to retain planning powers, but to give them incentives to respond to their own knowledge of local conditions and to make appropriate trade-offs between environmental protection and economic development."
"At present local authorities have few incentives to allow development because they receive all the political flak (from 'NIMBYs') but receive none of the benefits if the development goes ahead. If local councils had to fund public services from their own tax base rather than rely on central government grants paid for by national taxpayers then they (and their electorates) would have better incentives to consider the cost - in terms of lost revenues - of saying no. Such a system would not produce a free-for-all, but would encourage local authorities to make a more balanced consideration of the costs and benefits from housing or other development proposals, such as airports. If they said no too many times they would lose potential tax revenue. Equally, if they said yes too often and overdeveloped, they would lose revenue as people moved to more attractive climes."
Dr Pennington examines alternative policy options in Liberating the Land: The Case for Private Land-Use Planning. This award-winning study argues that planning is more efficient when left to private actors making voluntary agreements. Arrangements such as proprietary communities and restricted covenants could replace control by centralised state bureaucracies.
Another perspective on planning policy is provided by John Corkindale in The Land Use Planning System. The author discusses the possibility of voluntary trading and the privatisation of development decisions. The deployment of market-based instruments, such as tradable development rights, could achieve a greater degree of allocative efficiency whilst reducing the level of political controversy surrounding planning decisions.
Liberating the Land: The Case for Private Land-Use Planning can be purchased for £10.00 and is available as a free download.
The Land Use Planning System can be purchased at the special price of £4.00 and can also be downloaded free of charge.
Institute of Economic Affairs, 2 Lord North Street, Westminster, London, SW1P 3LB | tel: 020 7799 8900 | fax: 020 7799 2137 | email: iea@iea.org.uk
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