The Northern Echo

November 24, 2010 Wednesday

'Durham, be proud'

SECTION: Pg. 11

LENGTH: 204 words
HIGH-quality developments must be approved to ensure residents can remain proud of Durham for decades to come, a national planning chief has said.
Ann Skippers, president of the Royal Town Planning Institute, was speaking during a visit to Durham yesterday.
She said: "Durham's got a city centre which is unique, and World Heritage Site status, so design is critical. Often during a recession, design gets missed off, but it goes into people's quality of life.
"The quality of what we're doing now and what's getting planning permission must be of the highest quality, so in 50 years' time we can still look back with as much pride as wehave about Durham now."
Ms Skippers praised the new unitary Durham County Council. "I've been learning how the planning service is coming together, working with local communities to ensure the planning framework is in place, so Durham is an incredibly strong contender for new jobs and has a very high standard of environmental quality.
"Because it's such a new authority, we've got all the new people working together;
and bringing together is something I'm finding fascinating.
"What they're producing here is a very high quality service for local residents. I'm impressed with what I've seen."

At the annual NAPE conference today.

Well attended by planners, enforcement officers and lawyers we have just heard from Bob Neill about some of the things in the pipeline for enforcement. But Bob started by calling enforcement officers the unsung heros of planning.
It is clear that the Government are emphasising that abuses of the system will not be tolerated. Local Enforcement Plans will be introduced...by talking to communities these plans will allow a focused approach to help direct resources giving a structure to action and clarity about the importance of activity.
Questions from the audience were wide ranging from queries about full cost recovery, sharing services between authorities, the Proceeds of Crime Act, stop notices and injunctions, whether there will be a new planning act (answer no!), fixed penalty notices and so on.
He confirmed that the Bill would be out later this month but rightly wouldn't be drawn on the details.
Greg Clark will later today be making a speech on planning reform.

A question from Brussels

When is sustainable development not enough? I'm in Brussels today for the ECTP Awards and celebration of 25th anniversary of the founding of ECTP - CEU, european of spatial planners....one project with special recognition representatives Ashok Bhalotra from the Netherlands city of the sun project urged the audience to think beyond sustainable development, likening the concept to a marriage! Would sustainable be enough for a marriage? So what's the vision? What's beyond sustainable development?