Strategy will need space to breathe

FOLLOWING the Government’s Putting People First reform package, three regional assembly areas are expected to be announced shortly. However, they risk being ineffective without the context of a new National Spatial Strategy (NSS) to guide regional development.

There is concern that the structure and make-up of the regional assemblies may have been decided in the absence of a national spatial plan or structure and without any sound, evidence-based assessment.

The new assemblies — which are to include one in the South; one in the West and North; and an Eastern/Midlands Regional Assembly — will take on the important roles of deciding on regional, spatial, and economic strategies for their regions; relevant functions in relation to EU funding programmes; oversight of local authority performance; and national policy implementation.

Regional boundaries can be determined on multiple grounds (we have an array of ‘regions’ for different purposes) and there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but they must be established on an evidence-based logic. Localism and ad hocism has no place in creating and delivering a sustainable, competitive region into the long term.

The preparation of a statutory successor to the current, outdated, NSS must be urgently prioritised. Spatial planning at the regional level must work within an overall national approach to balanced regional development.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to understand how those regions can function without first of all preparing such a ‘big picture’ framework.

The existing NSS was intended to guide the period 2002-20 but was subsequently undermined on a number of fronts. It needs extensive revision to reflect what we as a society have learned are the substantial social, economic, and financial consequences of lax planning, and to deal with the contemporary challenges facing the country.

Spatial planning at national level offers a means of reintroducing the significance of place or geography to public policy and effectively reflect how policies do not play out evenly or uniformly across the country. The uneven geography of our tentative economic recovery reinforces this.

While there is no single initiative that will meet the needs of all of the people of Ireland, spatial plans can anticipate where certain policies will or will not be effective, or where they may take on a particular form in implementation.

So without an up-to-date understanding of place and national policy distribution, how can the spatial makeup of regions be decided and how can balanced regional competitiveness be facilitated?

Implementing new regions before we have the direction and prioritised settlements of a new long-term successor to the NSS is of concern. If Ireland needed a strategic plan to make the most of limited resources in order to facilitate inward investment, stimulate and support indigenous growth, and produce sustainable development, it is now.

Implementation of the NSS requires a resourcing stream. One would logically assume a new National Development Plan and Infrastructure Investment Priorities Plan in 2016 will be underpinned by the NSS. This will have implications for the regions, but can balanced regional competitiveness really occur in this instance when there is already a pre-determined regional structure in place?

There is a strong body of research from urban theorists such as Geoffrey West, Bruce Katz, and Richard Florida that says city scale and size really matter. The bigger and richer a city, the more attractive it becomes to people and companies, thus becoming more influential itself.

Strong urban economies are synonymous with strong national economies and the Irish economy needs stronger cities — but how many can it support? Surely Ireland’s ‘strong cities’ must be determined in the first instance through spatial planning and national policy.

Can one regional assembly really support more than one ‘strong city’? Multiple strong cities in a region will simply lead to competition and a dilution of impacts.

At different scales, the purpose of planning is to reconcile the competing needs of environmental protection, social justice, and economic development in the interests of the common good. For the 21st century, in the face of climate change, demographic change, economic change, shifting power relationships, and globalisation, these relationships can have significant impacts in the places where people live and earn their livelihoods. We now have an opportunity to plan holistically for the long term and give planners the tools to build strong, successful, diverse regions.

Effective planning strategies are needed at regional level to provide the link between the necessary national strategy and local planning frameworks. We also need directly elected regional assemblies, as recommended in the Mahon tribunal report, to ensure greater accountability and public ownership of regional plans and strategies.

But before any of this happens we urgently need a statutory successor to the current outdated National Spatial Strategy.

Mary Hughes is president of the Irish Planning Institute