David Brock questions the Barker report’s implications for government and economics
The Barker Review of Land Use Planning—Final Report—Recommendations (the Barker report), was published on 5 December 2006, the day before the Pre-Budget Report (PBR), Investing in Britain’s Potential: Building our Long-Term Future (Cm 6984). The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, commissioned the review in 2005, surprising many, coming just a year after the major changes to the planning system wrought by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (PCPA 2004)—changes born of criticism that planning was holding back economic growth.
The Chancellor’s wider agenda, probably most recently stated by him in the PBR, “drives forward the great economic mission of our time—to meet the global challenge, to unleash the potential of all British people, so that the British economy outperforms our competitors—and deliver[s] security, prosperity, and fairness for all.”
Despite press comment on green belts, the most important recommendations are on the plan-led system; the role of economics in planning; streamlining the new system; and the role of the secretary of state in planning decisions, especially for infrastructure.
Until 1991 our planning system—founded in post-war
