How to make planning a cause célèbre

“Every civilised country has a better planning system than we do, evidenced by the fact they have better modern buildings.”

So said the client on a new co-working space and nursery in Hackney.Rohan Silva’s remarks to BDwere borne of frustration at the number of years it took to deliver his project, a colourful ETFE-wrapped refurbishment by Spanish architects Cano Lasso.

You might disagree with Silva, who obviously has an axe to grind, on some of the details. But no one would disagree that there are deep-rooted problems with our planning system and that we’d rather have someone else’s. LA’s gets his vote. Others might prefer Flanders’. But it was what he said next that’s most troubling.

“I worked in Treasury, Parliament and No.10 and I didn’t understand any of this until I left and [became a client]. Politicians don’t understand this. Unless you grapple with the system and are trying to do innovative things it’s only then you bump into it.”

Silva is a design native. He’s married to an architect, he was behind the government’s TechCity initiative and, while a senior policy advisor to David Cameron, he organised a conference in Number 10 on how to improve urban design – yes! – where the speakers included Richard Rogers, Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Heatherwick, David Saxby of Architecture 00:/ and Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable Cities Lab.

如果像席尔瓦这样聪明的人在离开政府之前还不明白我们的计划系统有多么不符合目标，那就有点绝望了。我们如何才能激发公众对改革的兴趣，除了通过迫使每个人都成为自我建设者，从而成为客户来解决住房危机之外?

看住房。住房政策曾经是极客们的专利，直到中产阶级发现他们的孩子买不起前几代人认为理所当然的房产阶梯的第一级时，住房政策才成为一个严重的选举问题。在2010年的大选中，“普通民众”开始询问候选人他们将如何应对住房危机。公众的压力和政府(仍然不够充分)的行动之间有直接的联系。

Similarly, climate change has moved from special interest subject to the mainstream – where in June we saw 1,000 doctors writing to a newspaper demanding action,architects declaring a climate emergencyand “ordinary members of the public” taking part in Extinction Rebellion protests.

What will it take for planning to get to the same place on the public’s agenda? It might not be as obviously life-threatening as climate change but it’s actually one of the solutions: a properly resourced planning system is essential if our towns and cities are to be truly sustainable.

Yes, we need our professional institutions like RIBA and the RTPI to keep lobbying politicians and policymakers behind the scenes.

But to get the public writing letters to their MPs demanding bigger budgets for planning departments we need a planning celebrity to bang the drum. We need a Kevin McCloud or Tom Dyckhoff who can simplify the issues – some of which are mind-numbingly dull and complex for all but those geeks – and popularise the cause.

What about a TV series on Great Places explaining why King’s Cross,Lochgelly,Cambridge几乎荷兰的每个城镇都能工作。还有一档叫《垃圾之地》的衍生节目，收视率可能会更高。

There are plenty of talented young planners, architects and urbanists out there who could front this, with Finn Williams and Pooja Agrawal ofPublic Practiceonly the most obvious.

>> Also read:The rebirth of Lochgelly and lessons for Brexit Britain

>> Also read:Why North West Cambridge is a model for building on the green belt

其他可能有所帮助的事情是，将斯特林奖授予Aecom，以表彰其在剑桥西北部的爱丁顿总体规划，这将为权威人士在主流媒体上讨论选址创造机会。我敢说，没有人不被斯坦顿•威廉姆斯(Stanton Williams)以景观为主导的出租房所吸引。

We also need to teach this stuff in schools, as I’ve said before and will keep saying until it happens.

With initiatives like these, it might not be too long before we have someone inside Number 10 organising a conference on how to improve the planning system. And actually reading the reports they commission from people like Oliver Letwin.

>> Also read:David Rudlin: Letwin’s report could change everything