Cecilia Wong

Spatial Analysis and the UK Spatial Planning Framework

Since the turn of the millennium, Cecilia and her colleagues have been collaborating with the Royal Town Planning Institute to investigate the need for a UK-wide spatial planning framework via innovative spatial analysis and visualization.

The first report ‘The United Kingdom Spatial Planning Framework’ was published in 2000 to establish the framework through the test case of employment and housing.

The second report, ‘Uniting Britain: the evidence base – spatial structure and key drivers’ in 2006, sets out the spatial context and structure for a national spatial framework, which was then submitted as evidence by the RTPI to the Treasury’s Barker Review of Land Use Planning. The report was cited in the Barker Review (p.59), “Lengthy commuting patterns are already apparent in the South East due to the ‘pull’ of London as an employment centre. The Royal Town Planning Institute notes that ‘there is a super-London functional labour market area with a 60 km radius ... [with] a clear commuter ring embracing the London urban area in a shape that resembles a symmetrical eye’. The locational choices of dual-income households where earners work in different areas, or a genuine desire to live in the countryside, may also lead to this outcome.” (footnote: Maps provided by the RTPI are particularly illustrative. See RTPI, Uniting Britain: The Evidence Base – Spatial Structure and Key Drivers (July 2006), p. 25). The Uniting Britain report was cited as one of the twelve key references to provide the evidence base for the Northern Ireland’s ‘Regional Development Strategy 2035: Building a Better Future’ (by the Department for Regional Development, 2010, Belfast), launched at in the Waterfront Hall on 15 March 2012.

The third report of the sequence was published in 2012 ‘A Map for England: spatial expression of government policies and programmes’ by the RTPI to examine a broad range of existing government policies and how they relate to each other. This report was used by the RTPI to launch a debate on whether there should be a Map for England to ensure a joined up approach to planning infrastructure and services by having a single place or data source within government that makes all of these maps available to view.

The findings of the Map for England were drawn upon by both the Business Innovation and Skills Minister Michael Fallon MP and Shadow Planning Minister Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods MP to illustrate their points in the Growth and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee last week (29 November 2012), demonstrating the value that bringing together different datasets can bring to informing debate on policy. (RTPI News Release 5 December 2012).

Spatial Inequality Analysis and the UK2070 Commission

The health and economic consequences of COVID-19 have understandably dominated most of the year. We were fortunate to launch our Third, and what we thought would be our Final, Report at the end of February, before the pandemic took hold. Despite the dominance of COVID-19, we have been able to make good progress on work to highlight the spatial inequalities of the UK and measures needed to address them. COVID-19 has made ‘levelling up’ harder but also more urgent. The continued engagement of the commissioners, our partner universities and our other supporters has meant that we have been able to keep the debate going. As a result, the UK2070 Commission has been able to sustain its initiatives through a wide range of activities including:

In October undertaking a major assessment of the impact of COVID-19, by publishing Go Big – Go Local: The UK2070 Report on a New Deal for Levelling Up the United Kingdom, which confirmed that coronavirus had exacerbated regional inequality divides, and called for the implementation of our 10 Point Action Plan, including a step change in the devolution of powers and funding.
Engaging with government and parliamentary committees on the need to re-shape industrial strategy, infrastructure priorities and the planning system as well as the review of the Green Book to deliver the levelling up agenda.
Supporting others who are equally committed to building a better future, ranging from the Commission on the College of the Future re-shaping skills and the FE agenda, to endorsing the work of leading universities in their research agenda and civic engagement, as well as supporting student bodies to work on inequality matters e.g. UoM Peterloo Institute.

The Commission, driven by partners including UoM, is committed to sustaining our efforts in:

Promoting a series of local Task Forces to make local the 10-Point Action Plan. The Teesside Task Force reports were published in October and November 2021 and with advanced discussions with other strategic alliances;
Contributing to the United Nations Climate Change (COP26) Conference discussions to ensure that a ‘spatially just’ transition to zero-carbon is at the top of the agenda; and
Continuing to work with government, to ensure their commitment to a green recovery plan and local-led action is not undermined by short-term, underfunded and micro-managed programmes.