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As to the city regions, Shaun thinks they offer real potential for visionary planning. Many consider a ‘larger than local’ approach to planning as key to taking a holistic approach to economic development, transport, energy infrastructure and housing, and the strategic plans that metro mayors will develop allow for this. Their scale and, hopefully, the desirability of building in their city regions, will also enable them to set higher expectations of quality and sustainability. This can be as much about using their soft power as regulation. Already some of the city regions are leading the way, whether it is Manchester with their emphasis on place-making, Cambridgeshire’s sustainable housing design guide, or Birmingham’s work on sustainable travel.
What does good practice look like?
Attendees also heard from Nicole Lazarus, who is Oxfordshire programme manager at Bioregional, an Ashden Award winner. Bioregional was appointed jointly by planners and developers as ‘sustainability integrator’ for the NW Bicester new town and Nicole gave an excellent insight into the practicalities of delivering sustainable urban expansion. NW Bicester has had a number of monikers since the project started, following the policy whims of different UK governments – first as an ‘eco-town’, then as part of a ‘garden city’ and now as part of a ‘healthy new town’. But key to its success throughout has been adherence to the Eco-town Planning Policy Standard (PPS), which was drawn up by the then Communities and Local Government department in 2009, advised by Bioregional and others. Although now obsolete, as the concept of eco-towns has fallen out of fashion, developers and the local authority both fought to keep the PPS as the guiding document for their development, due to the clarity of expectation that it provided.