For any district council a key service area is planning; both policy production and development management.  While development management is a quasi-judicial, dayto-day function, planning policy is one of those subject matters that requires a vision to implement that falls well outside the normal political cycles.

The changes made by the coalition Government to the planning regime have been vast and far reaching in terms of consequences.

The abolition of regional spatial strategies and the implementation of the National Planning Policy Framework have made huge changes to what was already a challenging process.  Adoption of local plans/core strategies sometimes seem to have taken longer than the plan period themselves, as well as creating a huge market for consultants.

However, the thrust of creating a plan based on evidence is a good one.

One aspect which is fundamental to the whole planning process does not solely rely on evidence base, but rather more on a mathematical formula.  As everyone knows, forecasting is an inexact science at best. 

However the Planning Inspectorate, when assessing core strategies/local plans, places great emphasis on the forecasting model for housing numbers.