Tuesday 12 March 2013

The Limits of Localism - and how to define them

The good Raedwald and I have a long-running disagreement over 'localism'.  To caricature our positions for the sake of brevity: he is a strong supporter of decisions being made at at the ultra-local level, with control over resources being correspondingly devolved.  I am deeply skeptical, having (in a long career in local government) seen things happen that range from inspirational, through undesirable, all the way to dreadful when control, de facto or de jure, is exercised at this level.  At the worst extreme there is outright warlord-ism; and don't let anyone tell you this doesn't happen, or that it is easy to put right.

I wonder where on the spectrum Raedwald assesses this rather fraught situation ?

Summarising: in a particular London district, a specific community wants to take charge of planning decisions - using the government's 'localism' policy for devolving powers - with (as we read) the intent of allowing a considerable quantity of house-extensions to be built, in order to facilitate the doubling of their numbers they anticipate in the next several years. One of their leading lights,
"a father of nine and secretary of the bid for a planning forum who was jailed for ballot fraud in 2001, estimated the average family size in his community was eight children and said he sees "constant conflict" over extensions. He believes the opposition to extensions is part of a more sinister threat aimed at encouraging the fast-growing community to find other places to live."
All very interesting and, to me, a very good illustration of how things can get well out of kilter when you push decisions down to 'community' level.  If this attempt at taking formal planning control succeeds, I am sure we can all extrapolate to other potential developments that might follow.  (If you were to give planning decisions over to my local residents' association, for example, you'd get a rather different outcome as regards house extensions.)

But perhaps others see it as just part of life's rich tapestry.  Where are the lines to be drawn ?

How would readers legislate ?

ND

10 comments:

Diogenes Sinope said...

Sorry to say it's not up to the readers to legislate. There are 650 well-paid bods doing it now.

If they have been lazy in drafting provisions, it's up to the Judiciary to rule on the implications of their stupidity.

The law is not an ass - it's the legislators - which you well know.

Blue Eyes said...

It's a toughie. However centralised prescriptions aren't necessarily good in themselves. Good for infrastructure planning but look what happened when grand schemes were foisted on Elephant & Castle and nearly Covent Garden and Blackheath.

London's re-urbanisation has largely been because the planners were stopped in their tracks by the voters.

I haven't read the article about this particular case, but if people in an area want to relax the restrictions in that area, why does it concern the residents of another area?

CityUnslicker said...

I've never bought the localism answer either, too many incompetent but noisy types stand for parish and local councils - the only qualification is that you can be bothered to post a few letters on behalf of a political party.

I am all in favour of the way the Government has changed the planning laws of late - I think they provide a good framework without devlolving too much power to those to have too much to gain in a local area.

Bill Quango MP said...

Lot of poor stuff in the localism too.
Can't turn a pub into flats. Community has 'the right' to buy shops considered vital for economic good. That's just going to slow down selling process or conversion for houses.

But even within the localism there is nothing to stop new housebuilding {see previous post.} National framework still trumps local framework developments. Localist views just add a delay.

I know of several developments,Domestic and industrial with planning approved, that took over 20 years to be built because of opposition.

And CU has a story about a planning in Ely, or Cambridge or somewhere?

Ryan said...

Hmm, so basically the native English families with 2.4children should impose their planning beliefs on ethnic minorities that believe fecundity is the root of religious success.

Well, I can sympathise with that view but it seems that would be a very different society to the one we are living in right now.

If the local Jewish community is big enough to turn their local area into a model of back-street Jerusalem then multicultural Britain will just have to let them. Why try to keep a lid on it until all these minorities aren't really the minorities anymore? Lets take a good look at this multi-culti boil and see if it needs lancing.

Raedwald said...

Glad to rise to the challenge on this one, Nick!

I can't take the decision myself - as the ultimate degree of localism - of whether to store 50 gallons of petrol under the stairs or not. The risk of negative external consequences is too great for this decision to be 'devolved' to household level.

Localism is not about devolving every administrative decision to the neighbourhood - but to devolve decision making to the lowest appropriate level at which proper decisions can be taken, taking into fair account all those affected by the decision.

I expand a bit on my blog ..

Alex said...

A vote for localism from me. I would love to see a lot of decision making pushed down from state (and EU) level to local level.
Of course many local politicians are 'incompetent but noisy' as CU says. But have you looked at Westminster lately? If more important decsisions are devolved to local level then the standards may improve.
Advantages for me are…
Helps tailor decisions to local conditions
Allows more experimentation, and the spread of 'best practice' instead of huge national top-down reorganisations every time a new party wins power.
Individuals and small groups have more chance of being heard (as opposed to Westminster lobbyists)
If you don't like the result, you can move to another town, instead of another country/continent.
Finally, countries with strong localism see to function well (Norway, Switzerland …).

Blue Eyes said...

Another factor is that councillors may be noisy and useless precisely because they have no real power. If they had power voters might choose more responsible players.

If the local council jacked up council tax to pay for a new flyover through your garden you might take a bit more interest in local politics.

hovis said...

Alex / BE - Agreed about the link between competance-power relationship. You could even point to as more powers go to the EU, the more incompetant and secnd rate our parlimentarians become. is there anyone of the stature of Enoch Powell and Tony Benn these days? ( end even in those two cases they wer both flawed) But in comparison they are all now second raters imho.

Agence communication said...

i like so much those informations they are very interesting to me "" The good Raedwald and I have a long-running disagreement over 'localism'. To caricature our positions for the sake of brevity: he is a strong supporter of decisions being made at at the ultra-local level, with control over resources being correspondingly devolved. I am deeply skeptical, having (in a long career in local government) seen things happen that range from inspirational, through undesirable, all the way to dreadful when control, de facto or de jure, is exercised at this level. At the worst extreme there is outright warlord-ism; and don't let anyone tell you this doesn't happen, or that it is easy to put right. ""