Now the West Midlands Combined Authority is in place, property industry figures want a regional spatial plan. But they may be in for a long wait.
The industry sees such a plan as vital to tackling shortfalls in housing and employment land supply and associated infrastructure. Local politicians, however, are hesitating.
The WMCA deal for devolved powers that was agreed with the government (see box, overleaf) barely refers to spatial planning. If the industry wants a plan, it must fight for it.
WMCA chair, Solihull’s Conservative leader Bob Sleigh, says: “There is not going to be a regional plan. Any spatial planning will be with the local authorities.”
Labour’s Roger Lawrence, leader of Wolverhampton Council, says transport planning should be overseen regionally. But, he says: “We are not going down the statutory plan route, not at all.”
Lawrence adds: “There is no question of anyone just allocating [housing] totals to local authorities.”
How then was a WMCA formed that was missing the rather obvious responsibility of spatial planning?
The problem lies in the Treasury’s insistence that the WMCA is led from next year by a “metro” elected mayor.
Birmingham City Council chief executive Mark Rogers says that council leaders would accept a deal with an elected mayor above them only if the WMCA got substantial devolved powers in return, and having secured those, they did not want the mayor taking over their planning role.
Rogers says: “We agreed with the Treasury that going straight to a statutory planning process would be too much too soon as there were a lot of other significant issues that would have to be delivered. It’s something we would return to.
“It’s likely we could not have got a [devolution] agreement otherwise. The Treasury recognised that it would have been difficult for [leaders] to accept strategic planning in that too.”
It is unclear how much will change under a mayor, since the devolution deal refers only to he or she receiving “planning powers… to drive housing delivery and improvements in housing stock, and the same competencies as the Homes and Communities Agency.”
Rogers says the member councils “are not going to give up their statutory planning powers and consents over sites, and that is very strongly felt”.
The WMCA had a difficult birth because, unlike its rival the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, there was controversy about its boundaries.
All seven councils in the West Midlands conurbation (see right) have now joined, as has a somewhat random collection of “non-constituent member” districts, but not some important urban areas such as Bromsgrove and Rugby.
The WMCA has absorbed one important lesson from the GMCA, which directly employs only a handful of people: the WMCA will stay small and “be housed in some public building with a bit of spare space”, Lawrence says.
Industry figures, though, want some sort of plan to emerge.
Barton Willmore senior partner Mark Sitch says: “There is an absence of references in the devolution agreement to a spatial framework.
“They should deliver on a strategic plan that sets out ambition for growth in housing, employment and infrastructure, a framework into which the local authorities can fit their individual plans.”
Peter Fowles, a partner in Sanderson Weatherall’s Birmingham office, says: “The combined authority should co-ordinate development and transport for the benefit of the whole region.
“For example, Birmingham has a great transport plan for its future, but it stops at the Birmingham boundary and I think, ‘what a waste’.
“A strategic plan is essential, otherwise it’s like the refugee crisis, with no one wanting to take their share.”
Martin Guest, CBRE’s managing director in Birmingham, agrees. He says: “You need a plan so that you don’t have one local authority refusing to take development.”
Guest thinks the region’s main challenge is housing, where “we need 20,000 homes and that means going into green belt”.
He says the WMCA should plan for this and for different employment uses, in order to offer clarity over sites – a strong incentive for investment.
Few things antagonise voters like “going into green belt” but Guest says this is unavoidable, Although the West Midlands has ample brownfield land, he says, much is in the Black Country while the greatest demand is elsewhere.
“I think other areas would struggle to get capacity,” he says. “Fundamentally you have to dig into the green belt and also increase density with more city living.”
Employment land supply is also a problem. Paul Rowse, director of planning at Savills’ Birmingham office, says: “Birmingham’s plan allows for less than a quarter of what is needed over five years and it is very clear that employment land should be planned for across the region.
“There is a demand for logistics sites, particularly on the eastern side. Birmingham is relying on the Black Country to provide land and there is a feeling in some circles that the area has not got the right market presentation.”
In a sign that future battles could ensue, Lawrence says the region has “loads of brownfield land if it is remediated properly”, adding that those eyeing the green belt “just haven’t been looking carefully enough for brownfield sites”.
He points out that the WMCA has allocated £200m to brownfield land remediation and £500m to housing initiatives.
Only in the Coventry & Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership area might the industry soon see the sort of strong planning it seeks.
Chief executive Martin Yardley says: “There is a strategic economic plan for the LEP area and there may also be a single land-use plan, which could morph into one for the combined authority, or each of the three LEPs could have its own. I don’t know yet.”
He says the strategic plan will be binding on members once agreed, “so that it says how many homes are needed in each area or how much employment land but councils will make their own decision on the actual sites.”
The WMCA Land Commission
One of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s main projects is its Land Commission, which will compile a comprehensive register of development sites and available property, and work with public and private partners to return these to use.
WMCA chair Bob Sleigh says: “The main issue is land that needs remediation to be used and one of the things the Land Commission will do is support that and provide some up-front funding.
“It will look at brownfield land, and the public sector estate, and determine sites that are strategic assets that can be developed according to local plans.”
Bilfinger GVA is advising on the public estate, but has yet to draw conclusions.
Sandwell’s Peter Yeomans, lead local authority officer for the work, says: “Central government is looking for major schemes and one is likely to be co-location of central and local public services rather than these being scattered in different offices, so releasing sites.”
The devolution deal between the WMCA and George Osborne
• A consolidated, devolved transport budget
• Planning powers to drive housing delivery and improvements in housing stock, similar to the Homes and Communities Agency
• Control of £36.5m a year funding over 30 years to drive growth
• Government commitment to support the HS2 Growth Strategy
• Responsibility for franchised bus services
• Age 19+ adult skills funding
• Responsibility for a maintaining a network of key local roads
