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Substantial responsibility for town and country planning has been Devolved in to Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament . The system has not altered much since the , Town Planning Act 1925 and Town And Country Planning Act 1932 . Current planning legislation is consolidated in the Town And Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990) . Associated with this principal Act are threee further Acts related to planning. These four acts were defined as the Planning Acts . Parts of these Acts have been replaced or amended by the provisions of the Planning And Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (PCPA), which received Royal Assent on 13 May 2004 . However, the Government is engaged in a process of radical reform via the Planning Green Paper . HISTORY The roots of the UK town and country planning system, created in the immediate post-war years, lie in concerns developed over the previous half century in response to Industrialisation and Urbanisation . The particular concerns were Pollution , Urban Sprawl and Ribbon Development . These concerns were expressed through the work of thinkers such as Ebenezer Howard and the Philanthropic actions of industrialists such as the Lever Brothers and the Cadbury family. By the outbreak of World War II , thinking was sufficiently advanced that, even during the war a series of Royal Commission s looked at the problems of urban planning and development control. These included:
Also, Patrick Abercrombie developed a plan for the reconstruction of London , which envisaged moving 1.5 million people from London to new and expanded towns. The culmination of this intellectual effort were:
The 1947 Act in effect nationalised the right to develop land, requiring all proposals, excepting a small number of specific exclusions, to secure Planning Permission from their local authority (although provision exists to appeal against refusal). The Act - the essential nature of which is unchanged - required local authorities to develop Local Plans or Unitary Development Plan s to outline what kind of development would be permitted where and to mark special areas on Local Plan Maps. It did not introduce a formal system of Zoning as used in the USA . Counties were expected to develop Structure Plans which set broad targets for the wider area. Structure Plans were always problematic and were often in the process of being replaced by the time they were formally adopted. The planning system received a number of alterations consolidated in the Town And Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990) . Associated with this principal Act were three further Acts related to planning, namely, The Planning (Listed Buildings And Conservation Areas) Act 1990 , the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 , and the Planning (Consequential Provisions) Act 1990 . These four Acts were referred to as the Planning Acts . Almost immediately after parliament passed these Acts, the government had further thoughts on the control of land development which led to the Planning And Compensation Act 1991 which rewrote, with important alterations many of the provisions of the Planning Acts . The Planning And Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 resulted in a number of substantial changes to the British Development Plan system. It did away with both Structure Plans and Local Plans in favour of Local Development Frameworks ( LDFs ), which are made up a number of Local Development Documents ( LDDs ) and Supplementary Planning Documents ( SPDs ). The Regional Spatial Strategy ( RSS ), which is produced by Regional Assemblies , replaces the Structure Plan as the strategic planning document (i.e. it is the RSS which will set targets for housing and employment development within each district in a Region in the future). Local Authorities are also now required to produce Local Development Scheme s ( LDS ) - which outline the work the LDDs/SPDs they intend to produce over a three year period, and Statements Of Community Involvement (SCI) which outline how the Council will involve the local community. All LDDs and SPDs also have to be accompianied by a Sustainability Appraisal ( SA ) and a Strategic Environmental Assessment ( SEA ). The SEA is a requirement under European Union laws. Planning Policy Guidance Notes are also being gradually replaced by Planning Policy Statements . USE CLASSES The requirement to obtain planning permission extends not only to new construction, but also in substantive changes of use of a property. There are various 'use classes', and change of use to a different use class generally requires Planning Permission . The main classes are:
Classes A3 to A5 were formed recently by a split of the previous A3 class 'Food and Drink'. Various uses are considered to be '' Sui Generis '', meaning that they are considered to be a use class in themselves, and not part of an existing use class. These specifically include:
ELEMENTS OF THE MODERN SYSTEM
Regional variants
CRITICISM The apparent aim of the new planning system was to simplify and speed up the production of Plans. The system has not been in place long enough to determine if this is the case, though the increase in the number and type of documents an authority is required to produce (and the sheer number of new acronyms that have been introduced) would imply that these aims will not be achieved. REFORM
SEE ALSO
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