The planning system, coastal regeneration

Local Development Frameworks

It is in the Local Development Framework (LDF) of every local planning authority, with its constituent Local Development Documents, that the planning system will develop locally distinctive responses to the issues affecting individual coastal resorts.

The key component of the LDF is the Core Strategy and, unlike an ‘old style’ Local or Unitary Development Plan, the Core Strategy does not have to be comprehensive, but should focus on issues critical to the district’s development strategy. Its objectives should flow from the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) for the area, and the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) should be involved in its preparation.

The Core Strategy is an opportunity for coastal authorities to develop positive planning strategies that are ‘bought into’ by other bodies such as development agencies, health authorities, further education and infrastructure providers. Further than that, there is the freedom to develop plans which speak with a distinctive voice in ‘selling’ the town to investors as well as acting as lobbying documents for external funding from central government or Regional Development Agencies.

The Core Strategy of the LDF should:

• provide for enough housing to meet the needs of the community over the next 15 years;
  
  In resort towns, providing affordable housing for a low-income community may be a particular challenge, not least where there is significant flood risk.
  
  
• ensure that there is land to provide enough jobs over the next 15 years;
  
  This may be an issue for resorts that are hemmed in by AONB, cliffs, and/or valuable agricultural lands. However, for many resorts the real issue is attracting new business sectors to the area and to the available sites and premises. A few larger resort towns have grown and diversified – Bournemouth, Brighton, Scarborough – but many resorts will require creativity and external funding to stimulate economic diversification.
  
  
• establish how much investment in retail and other relevant development is needed in town centres (not to mention other parts of the town such as resort or port areas);
  
  A healthy town centre will provide a ‘wet weather’ draw involving our most prevalent leisure activity, shopping, as well as making the town more appealing to the wider coastal hinterland for leisure and entertainment purposes – the coastal resorts USP! Resorts can lend themselves to additional town centre developments, such as creative quarters or public administration – for example, the existence of thousands of public sector jobs in Lancashire resort towns.
  
  
• demonstrate that the community can take the level of development envisaged (traffic, water supply, drainage, broadband);
  
  Flood risk in many areas, utility capacity in others and poor infrastructure can all combine to influence the capacity of a community to effectively accommodate needed development.
  
  
• protect and enhance the built environment, both heritage ‘assets’ and the local character of streets, neighbourhoods and open spaces;
  
  The built environment and the ‘heritage assets’ of resorts determine their popularity and attractiveness that require robust protection and visionary enhancement in order to maintain and maximise the expectation and satisfaction for residents and visitors alike.
  
  
• make sure the natural environment is looked after – particularly, protected areas, which are much more likely to be very close to coastal settlements than is usually the case inland – and these are tourism assets;
  
  The natural coast clearly contextualises seaside resorts in historic, aesthetic and liminal contexts and, as with heritage assets, combine to make areas unique, evocative and desirable. As with the coastal build-up areas, deterioration of the natural environment can deter visitors and reduce the quality of life for residents.
  
  
• keep housing, community and key infrastructure development away from areas vulnerable to flooding.

Sitting ‘beneath’ the Core Strategy may be a number of more detailed documents, including, where necessary, site allocations documents, setting out the specific sites that will help deliver the strategy.

Many authorities are producing Area Action Plans (AAPs), or, where they may want to provide additional clarity to existing policies or sites, Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs)) for particular areas of significant change, or conservation, within their districts. A resort town might produce an AAP promoting the regeneration of an area dominated by B&Bs, for instance; or a port might do so to guide the evolution or redevelopment of parts of its port for tourism- or housing-led mixed-use development. And of course, any coastal town is likely to want to develop a planning framework for its town centre, or a residential or industrial area undergoing change, just as an inland town would, albeit perhaps with particular attention being given to characteristics of the community, the economy or the built environment which derive from its coastal location.

• Planning implementation.

Policies have to be put into effect, and it is important that ‘development management’ is operated both sensitively and proactively. Modern tourists are much less tolerant of ‘tat’ than their forebears; for too many years, too many resorts took a laissez-faire approach to (for example) hotel frontages and roofscapes, and paid scant respect to their architectural and public realm heritage. The result is that most British resorts became very unattractive compared to the places people could afford to go to in Greece or Portugal. This trend has been reversed, of course, Llandudno being a noted pioneer. We see a stark contrast in Southport between the striking new bridge over the boating lake, and the 1990s retail sheds which turn their back on it. Planners need to be vigilant and combat any tendency for elected members or chief executives to look for low-grade ‘easy win’ development.

The same also goes for the enforcement of planning conditions and against unauthorised development – though admittedly there is line, very indistinct perhaps, to be drawn between what is off-puttingly tawdry and what captures the ‘cheap and cheerful’ spirit that makes the British resort so distinctive.

With regard to the role of compulsory purchase in regeneration, the 2004 Act was intended to revamp CPO powers to make them less cumbersome. Unfortunately, the decline of positive, comprehensive planning in the 1980s and 90s has left many local authorities short of expertise in negotiating the pitfalls that can stymie redevelopment needing compulsory purchase. The use of consultants is one option, but Regional Development Agencies have increasingly stepped in to do that phase of regeneration schemes.

If you wish to contribute to the debate on the role of planning in coastal regeneration, please contact Patrick.Browne@lincolnshire.gov.uk.