Online

Trust response

The Assembly has a special web site devoted to the plan and its consultation timetable link. You can download the complete plan in Acrobat format.

The Welsh Assembly Government has achieved a spectacular “first” — a nationwide “spatial” plan. Says Sue Essex, former environment minister and now minister for finance, local government and public services, “spatial planning is the consideration of what should happen where, investigating the interaction of different policies in different places, as well as the role of places in a wider context”. This is an approach that goes beyond traditional land use planning and sets a strategic framework with which to guide future development and policy interventions.

The government intends the plan — entitles People, places, futures — to help build a sustainable Wales, to offer a framework for collaborative decision making, to become a forum for debate that helps shape future thinking. It is an ambitious enterprise, and there is a real opportunity through the extensive programme of consultation that is planned, to influence and fine-tune the document.

We will offer a fuller analysis of the document in our Bulletin and in About Wales, and we encourage civic societies to read the document for themselves and consider in particular how its content would affect their region.

Key themes
The plan is underpinned by two key values:

• respecting the distinctiveness that has it origins in the strong sense of place evident in Welsh communities, and
• embracing the future —  using the detailed database that underpins the plan to address the challenges of future economic, social and environmental policy

Its objectives are

• to build sustainable communities
• to value the environment
• to increase and spread prosperity
• and to achieve sustainable accessibility.

It's main sections analyse “where we are now”  in terms of these objectives, analyse the forces making for change, and propose ways forward for Wales as a whole and for defined areas within Wales. A fascinating map that illustrates the strategy framework portrays four zones, and proposes key strategies for each. The “area perspectives” complement this zonal analysis, and it is acknowledged that future work will be needed to develop these perspective locally. Examples include the Menai straits and surrounding communities, Swansea Bay, and Cardigan Bay, together with the Cefn Gwlad, the rural, upland interior of Wales that reaches from Llanrwst to the Beacons.

Early comments on the draft plan emphasise its significance and its potential in co-ordinating and managing change in Wales, and recognise its originality. Prior to its emergence a lot of confusion surrounded the idea of a “spatial” plan — but it is much clearer now what this implies. Its concern is not simply land use, but as David Dewar noted in Planning (10 October 2003), “any form of activity with spatial implications,including health, social deprivation, transport, education, wildlife, coastal protection and the economy”.

This is clearly why Sue Essex retained control of the plan's emergence when she moved from her environment job. Unlike a development plan, it is not intended to be prescriptive, but to be a guide for councils and other agencies in managing future change. It enables regional issues to be addressed in Wales, and may help to overcome the vacuum that was formed when the old eight counties were extinguished and their strategic role lost to sight. However, it remains to be seen how far the plan will help restore a sub-regional element to planning in Wales, and whether it will become more than, as one senior planner has labelled it, an “issues” document.

These concerns about the potential impact of the Spatial Plan are likely to be a focus for consultee responses. There is a debate to be had, and plenty of room to influence the outcome.

14 October 2003