NEW DIRECTIONS IN AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING: SOME POINTERS FROM THE UK STRUCTURE PLANNING EXPERIENCE

Abstract: Environmental planning legislation in Australia has been primarily concerned with the formulation of detailed land-use allocation plans. Changing circumstances are leading to a more broadly-based view of the planning process centred around the delineation of development principles and the broad structure of land uses. The United Kingdom's experience with structure plans during the past decade is of value in reshaping environmental planning in Australia. Within the United Kingdom both the slow speed of structure plan preparation and its very broad scope have posed problems. By merging land-use issues with the development plans of other government instrumentalities structure plans have exceeded the responsibility of the central planning agency. Simultaneously they have been seized upon by the public as the only formal means of dissent against governmental decisions in such areas as social service and housing. Reactions have been twofold. In Scotland regional reports have imposed an additional corporate plan which provides guidelines for subsequent control of land use. In England and Wales structure plans have become increasingly general, long-term and land-use orientated, thereby side-stepping the problems their introduction created. To be effective in Australia, structure plans must achieve corporate liaison with other government departments and statutory undertakings. This will be achieved not by copying the English structure planning model, but by working towards regional reports prepared by a combination of State government agencies and reconciled through decisions at parliamentary level. Local, detailed land-use plans, based upon written reports as in the United Kingdom, can fit readily into such a framework, supplemented where necessary by State-wide guidelines pertaining to critical land-use considerations. The coordination of development will be facilitated by the liberalization and increased availability of professionally recognized qualifications.