Manchester outlines planning reform concerns
The city council said the proposals laid out in the Government’s planning white paper would further complicate the process of formulating local plans and present a “seismic negative challenge” in determining planning applications.
Local authorities across the country are in the process of responding to the proposals, which were published in August and are aimed at overhauling and simplifying the existing planning system.
In its response to the proposals, described as “radical” by Whitehall, Manchester City Council supports the existing planning system, saying it has been “effective in maintaining a flexible approach to planning the future of the city”.
The council added: “There is no evidence to suggest the existing approach in Manchester is hindering good-quality and sustainable development.”
The zoning approach to planning proposed by Government, whereby land will be placed into one of three categories – for growth, renewal or protection – could be too rigid to function in a “complex” urban area like Manchester where “areas of what might be categorised as growth, renewal and protection are intertwined”, according to the council.
If the proposals had a similar impact on the system as previous attempts to overhaul the planning process, they could serve to make it more complicated, the council added.
Additionally, Manchester warned that implementing permissions in principle for certain areas would not speed up decision making as the Government hopes, but rather serve to overload the local plan making process and negatively impact the “long established approach of determining planning applications”.
Manchester also has “significant doubts” over whether the Government’s target of reducing the amount of time it takes for councils to formulate a local plan to 30 months from an average of seven years can be met.
Look at the Skyline …Stunning
By Anonymous
Is that Sheffield , Leeds or Bradford ?
By Anonymous
Oh no Manchester planners might lose there grip on a bent planning system… about time…
By anon
That image you have used shows what a mess a lot of Manchester is.
The redevelopment of Manchester has been an aesthetic disaster.
By Observer
Oh dear some people do get their Huggies in an uproar! This picture shows virtually no new development at all its an existing picture taken Down the side of one of the worst buildings in Manchester the Arndale . Shows why even more development is needed; and being Manchester it will happen
By Liverpool romanc
The redevelopment of Manchester has been phenomenal.
By Anonymous
A lot of whats in that image above has been there for years. It’s basically the back end of the Arndale!
By Anon
Not quite the classical beauty of some cities, for example Oxford, Bath or Liverpool. Manchester is a totally different experience. Grimey, urban and rough round the edges. A real working city.
Manchester should work on it’s working class roots and sell itself as such.
By Liverpool romance
Eeek mass mess
By Anonymous
The majority of that picture is the Arndale centre which was redeveloped in the 1970s.
If you had an article on Liverpool prominently featuring a picture of the St John’s centre and that beacon thing, you’d be looking at an even bigger aesthetic disaster.
By Dispassionate Observer
Manchester is the ‘Northern Powerhouse’.Get over it.
By Peter Chapman
None of the buildings in this image are new. In fact most Mancs will tell you this is the ugliest view in the city, with the back end of the Arndale and *shivers* High Street.
I’m also not sure that Liverpool is really in the same league architecturally as Oxford or Bath. And neither should it aim to be – Oxford and Bath are boring. Liverpool is a visual feast for the eyes.
By Anonymous
Accepted that this looks a mess. Architecturally Manchester is never going to be able to compete with Liverpool, or some other places; but nonetheless it has some stunning industrial buildings; the Refuse Assurance, London Rd Fire Station, Watts Warehouse, etc, and there are indeed further ‘classical’ examples. The difference is that Liverpool has hundreds and hundreds of examples in all classes, whilst Manchester has too few equals; but the cities were ‘designed’ for different reasons that is why the architecture, the open spaces, even the road and rail networks are different. Urban design follows urban economics but Manchester too has some pearls.
By Billy
Liverpool romance you’re quite sour towards Manchester time and time again, to compare Liverpool with Oxford and Bath is laughable, to pretend Liverpool is not grimey and urban round the edges, please..
By David
Trying to equate Liverpool with Oxford or Bath,.. Please! it has its strength’s but this is a stretch in the wrong direction!
By Liverpool notopia