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Regional Planning

Statutory regional planning was first introduced in 2004 by The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, and underwent some changes as a result of the Planning Act 2008. Following the 2010 General Election the Secretary of State for planning revoked all regional plans, and announced the intention to legally abolish these plans, and the regional planning bodies responsible for them.  

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Regional planning in England

The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 introduced statutory regional planning to England for the first time. As a result of the Act a regional planning body was responsible for preparing a Regional Spatial Strategy for each of the nine English regions. Local authorities were still responsible for making decisions on planning applications and for writing a local development plan, but these plans had to conform to the Regional Spatial Strategy as well as national policy.

The Planning Act 2008 gave the regional planning body the ability to delegate its planning responsibilities and functions to the relevant Regional Development Agency.

The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 tried to simplify the regional process by combining the Regional Spatial Strategy and other regional strategies addressing issues such as economic growth and housing into a Single Regional Strategy. This Act also abolished Regional Assemblies, and replaced them with Leaders' Boards. Leaders' Boards were groupings of local authority leaders from the region.

Regional plans

Regional Spatial Strategies, and their successors Regional Strategies were extremely important documents that could shape powerfully development across England. Regional plans addressed many issues, including:

  • house building targets
  • transport
  • waste
  • energy
  • minerals
  • landscape