Heartening that all parties are pro-planning

This week, domestic issues played a proper part, including moving my daughter Alex into a new flat in London over the weekend, my Mum’s funeral after a good innings of 86 years, and Philly and my 39th wedding anniversary (she deserves a medal!)
Tino and I, as part of our programme of Party briefings, met Bob Neil and Julia Goldsworthy, respective opposition spokespersons for planning.
They were both interesting meetings: the Tories produce their Planning Green Paper before Christmas and the Liberals a Planning Charter.
Although we are not “statutory consultees”, we are doing our best to influence the documents and gain the impression that both parties are pro-planning. We shall see!
At last, the Minister for Planning John Healey has also agreed to see us, so we will press the case for good planning with him, as well as we move towards an election in 2010.
The Board met with a very busy agenda dominated by the process for agreeing the details of Robert’s replacement.
We are all very optimistic that the market is excellent and expect some high calibre candidates.
That evening, on the way home, I popped into the Royal Society of Arts to listen - for the first time in person - to our Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, John Denham MP. He is a confident and relaxed character, and although he spent much of his presentation basing the Opposition, again, the government continues to demonstrate it is pro-planning.
My last commitment was an extraordinary privilege - the Nathaniel Lichfield Commemorative Conference at University College London, chaired by the cerebral Sir Peter Hall.
Nat was one of the great plannersm, prominent particularly in the 60s, 70s and 80s, alongside Desmond Heap, Sir Colin Buchanan, Walter Bor and others.
The debate was lively and demonstrated the need to try to recapture the spirit of times when eminent planners led public policy!


Martin Willey