21st January 2011, 10:39 AM
kevin wooldridge Wrote:I've never really understood why 'planning' should be a political brief. I mean we acknowledge the expertise of doctors, the police, the judiciary, postmen, soldiers sailors and airmen, teachers (and their female equivalents) to be above the swill-stirring grasp of politicians, so why are planners not regarded the samel?
After all it seems to me (despite various editorials by the Daily Mail to the contrary) that most examples of bad urban planning are where politicians are involved and having had our collective fingers so badly burnt in the past 70 years shouldn't we be saying 'enough is enough' and taking such decisions out of the remit of the 'moat cleaners' and 'multiple mortgage claimants'.....
Hi
Planning is political because in determining the merits of a development there is often a conflict between benefits for one factor (or persons) and negative impacts on other factors (or people). This is the same with the police in that those factors are weighed up by politicians when they are passing legislation whilst the police enforce the legislation and so don't have to determine "balance". Doctors decisions normally impact on an individual not a community and so don't generally have to balance the benefits and negative impacts on different factors (or people). The armed forces again carry out policy through enforcement and don't decide on that policy, only on strategy to achieve the policy (like planners do when using delegated powers). Same with teachers.
Planning needs political input so that elected members of a community make decisions on behalf of that community as their representatives. They can then also delegate decisions when they only have minor impacts on factors, or people.
Steven