UK Planning Policy and Politics

This assignment delves into the complex interplay of planning policy and politics in the United Kingdom. It explores how government policies shape land use and development, analyzes the role of various stakeholders like interest groups and political parties, and examines public engagement mechanisms within the planning process. The legal framework governing UK planning is also discussed, alongside real-world case studies illustrating key concepts.

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Introduction
Planning refers to the process whereby certain plans are made for a particularly thing or
for a particular aspect. When it comes to the planning for the public, the authorities of the
government take the requisite decisions and steps, and as a result of this planning, different
policies are drawn which are applicable on different basis, which can include jurisdiction or
particular class of people (Allmendinger, 2009). However, in general, the planning by the
government is carried in the public interest. Even though this sounds an easy task, but it is a
very complex process, as a number of factors have to be taken into consideration, before any
policy is brought forward (Politics & Ideas, 2017).
Not only the interests of the people affected by the policy has to be considered, but so
has to be done for the ones who may be, in some or other way, get impacted due to such policy
(Chandler, 2009). And these very issues often raise question about the role of politics in the
planning process. A question is raised on the extent to which such influence of politics is
desirable or possible in the planning process. In the following parts, this very issue has been
analysed, with a specific reference to the planning process undertaken in the United Kingdom.
Government Structure: UK
In United Kingdom, there is a central government which is led by the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister, along with the other senior ministers belongs to the supreme decision
making committee, which is referred to as the Cabinet. All of the ministers sit in the Parliament,

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which is divided in House of Commons, where there are 569 Member of Parliament and House
of Lords, where there are 700 Member of Parliament (Hilmy, 2010). The government depends
on the Parliament for making the primary legislations and the voting are held in every five year
period for electing the House of Commons. This does not happen where there is a successful
vote of no confidence in government or 2/3rd vote for snap elections. Once the election is
conducted, the Monarch, which at present is the Queen Elizabeth II, selects the Prime Minister,
which is a person who possesses the majority of Member of Parliaments (Sheppard et al 2017).
(Source: Hilmy, 2010)
The House of Lords is the upper house and has the power of voting on amendments of
the law which has been proposed, but the House of Commons can vote for overruling of such
amendments (Leyland, 2016). The bills are introduced by the House of Lords and the important

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laws are introduced in the House of Commons. This introduction is usually done by the
government, where the vast majority of parliamentary time is scheduled in the Commons. The
legislations of UK are deemed as the act of Parliament, which is passed after being introduced
in both the houses, after the same is read and after detailed consideration in the Committee
(Wilson & Game, 2011).
Interplay of Politics and Planning
The process of policy making is present in a highly volatile and changing context. It is
deemed as a complex process where a range of players intervene, and each one has their own
set of motivations and interests. Due to the complexity of this process, it is usually marked with
limited resources for influencing and designing the policy influence can act as a good guide for
action, along with helping in focusing and prioritizing the manner in which time, resources and
knowledge is invested. Depending upon the kind of organization which is undertaking the
planning, it will vary, along with the decision making culture. Hence, the key challenge relates
to the creation of process which allows the organization in being more effective with regards to
influencing the decision makers, making the evidence being obtained in time and in the most
suitable manner for informing the public policies (Moore, 2010).
Planning is no different than the great religious movements, which are created through
inspired individuals, who had no religious formal training. Their religions become
institutionalized and then they become bureaucratized through priesthood, which then
transforms into self serving and more self-righteous in comparison to the duty of carrying on

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the preaching of the founders. The planning programs are created with inspired citizen
legislators, who are not actually the trained professional planner. But for carrying out the
progressive public policy initiatives, a bureaucratic priesthood of planners was born. Planners
are successful in carrying out the programs which are created by others. Though, the majority
lack the inspired vision and the political skills for making such vision transform in a reality. This
is the reason why the majority of planning pioneers come from different professions. In the list
of the "most significant planning pioneers" announced by American Planning Association in
Planning Magazine, there were people from field of law, architecture, landscape and
journalism, but no planner. Even when these individuals belonged to different fields, they had
one single common factor, i.e., they were politically smart (Carson, 2002).
One of the problems is that the majority planners despise the play of politics and usually
are bad at it. However, the art of planning relates to policy making, power and more
importantly politics. And the public would never want the politician to play a political hardball.
In order for bringing any change, there is a need to understand the ground or local rules.
Instead, politics makes a bad habit of highlighting the flaws in statutory gaols and making the
process tedious, overly complex, and onerous through the administrative process of rule
making. The term “political” is used by most planners as a pejorative term. This particularly
happens when it refers to the elected officials who hamper in the manner in which the job is to
be undertaken. This is carried on in the land use plans and the development codes which have
been created by the previous elected officials (Carson, 2002).

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In order to use politics as a strategy or a tactics for compelling the elected officials,
special interest groups and voters towards the objectives which have been set by the policy
makers, there is a need to learn the art of negotiating and lobbying behind the scene. There is a
need to create a dialogue and collaboration with the general public, so as to know the needs
and requirements of the public and inculcate them in the drawn policies. Just because a person
works behind the scenes, which does not mean that the facts are represented or lied about.
There is also a need to determine what the decision maker is passionate about and the manner
in which they want the same to be attained (Carson, 2002).
Impact
Planning is majorly impacted by politics. This is because the politicians are the ones who
actually form the planning making body. This is with particular reference to the government
structure of UK, where the legislation making body is elected by the general public. In order to
be elected, the politicians make a number of promises. In order to get the people to vote for
them, there are different promises made, based on the particular topic of choice of the voter.
For instance, in UK the Conservatives party is deemed as a demand focused party and
propagates the issues of home ownership, anti-wind turbine, a promise of 0.7% spending on
foreign aid, or the GDP and a cap on energy prices (RTPI, 2015; Smith & Bloom, 2017). Similarly,
the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party have their own contentions.
As a result of the promises which are made by the parties, they get elected. And at
times, the promises are kept and at other instances, they are simply ignored or deemed as not-
viable. Where the promises are kept, they often require new policies to be drawn out and this is

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where the politics influences the planning (Inglehart, 2015). When, in order to uphold the
election promises, new policies are drawn, they are not based on the general public need, but
for getting the office. In other words, this may not have the interest of the general public at its
centre, but instead it would have the interest of the politicians at the centre. This personal
interest of politicians is still a good thing, so long as it is focused on the interests of the general
public. Where the shift is towards the personal interests and where the interests of the general
public are ignored or kept at the sharp edge of the knife that is the point where the impact of
politics over the planning process becomes negative (Berry, 2015).
A leading example of the misuse of political position was the scandal known as
Donnygate which ended in jail term. This was deemed as the worst case of local government
corruption since the 1970s Poulson scandal. This was a case where a four year sentence was
awarded to Peter Birks, who was the former chairman of planning in Doncaster, where two of
the former mayors and council leaders had been convicted for fraud amongst the 21
councillors. The case of Donnygate is just one of the stories of fraudulent expenses which could
not be held for a long time. This was deemed as a betrayal of the trust of the public and was
deemed as the worst kind of corruption by Justice Hunt, which undermined the honest and
hardworking elected representatives. This is because of the fact that the public life requires a
standard of its own. When the government is corrupted, the ones who elected by the public,
questions the very integrity of it and questions the policies formed by the government,
resulting in the roots of democracy of the nation being shaken (Wainwright, 2002).

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The use of land is deemed as a process of planning and included in it are power and
control. The changes to the planning system were brought forward when the Conservative led
government came into power, in May 2010 (Hampshire & Bale, 2015). The planning of land use
is deemed as a technocratic, democratic, political, and professional activity. This is the reason
why the land laws reflect the present views with regards to the relations between the state and
the market, along with the structures which are derived from it. The impact of politics in the UK
can be tracked to the political economies; for instance, from 1945-1979, there was a social
democratic political economy; from 1979-1997, there was a neo-liberal political economy, from
1997-2010, there was a third way political economy and from 2010 to the present day, there is
a big society political economy (Giddens, 2013).
This is due to the fact that each government had certain values and assumptions, and
views of public interest when they ruled. So, for instance, during the social democratic, the key
planning acts were the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 followed by that of 1968, due to
the public sector regulation and intervention, market failures, assumptions and the view of
public being public participation (Wannop, 2014). The present time’s big society economy is
deemed as a short lived one, which is due to the changed perception of running the
government between Theresa May’s government and that of Cameron’s government (Barber,
2017). This is due to the changed focus towards the purpose of planning of the current
government.

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Conclusion
Thus, from the above carried discussion, it becomes very clear that politics plays a key
role in the process of planning. The perceptions and the views of the politicians are displayed in
the adopted policies, which are at times motivated by personal interests and at other times, by
the promises made during the election period. The people responsible for planning are not
experts in planning, but of the other fields, who are politically astute. There have been
instances where the political position has been misused, which questions the authenticity of
the past policies being actually motivated by general public interest, instead of the person
interest; but this does not undermine the broad trend which can be seen in the policies which
are drawn during a particular political regime, to the interests and views of that particular time.
Hence, even though politics plays a key role in the planning process, it is generally carried out in
order to bring the best out of the panning process, by creating proper policies, which are
successful in their drawn purposes.

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References
Allmendinger, P. (2009). Planning Theory (2nd ed.). Houndmills, Basingstoke: Plagrave
Macmillan.
Barber, L. (2017). Theresa May's ditching Cameron's "big society" for the "shared society".
Retrieved from: http://www.cityam.com/256559/theresa-mays-ditching-camerons-big-
society-shared-society
Berry, J. M. (2015). Lobbying for the people: The political behavior of public interest groups.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Carson, R.H. (2002). The Art of Planning and Politics. Retrieved from:
https://www.planetizen.com/node/67
Chandler, J.A. (2009). Local government today (4th ed.). Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
Giddens, A. (2013). The third way: The renewal of social democracy. West Sussex: John Wiley &
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Hampshire, J., & Bale, T. (2015). New administration, new immigration regime: Do parties
matter after all? A UK case study. West European Politics, 38(1), 145-166.
Hilmy, H.A. (2010). United Kingdom Political System Overview. Retrieved from:
http://hasanhilmy.com/?p=477

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Inglehart, R. (2015). The silent revolution: Changing values and political styles among Western
publics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Leyland, P. (2016). The constitution of the United Kingdom: A contextual analysis. New York:
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Politics & Ideas. (2017). Policy influence planning. Retrieved from:
http://www.politicsandideas.org/?page_id=2248
RTPI. (2015). Politics in Planning. Retrieved from:
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Labour, the Tories, Lib Dems and Ukip say they'll do. Retrieved from:
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Wainwright, M. (2002). Donnygate scandal ends in jail terms. Retrieved from:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/mar/13/uknews

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Wannop, U. A. (2014). The regional imperative: Regional planning and governance in Britain,
Europe and the United States. Oxon: Routledge.
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