Action I: kick the can down the road

It is an encouraging start to the Development & Planning Authority’s 17-page action plan.

Six months in the making, the plan acknowledges the many voices in the States Assembly and among islanders concerned about current planning policies.

Those hoping for immediate and radical action will, however, be largely disappointed.

While the DPA’s new president offers some ‘quick wins’ the plan is less about action now than an appeal for more time. The committee wants to get to the five-year review point in 2021 before even considering a change of direction.

By then the DPA could be a very different looking body. The general election of June 2020 will be followed by the selection of a new committee (hopefully one with a president with the full confidence of the Assembly) and a full complement of five deputies.

The five-year review will come under that committee’s control. There can be no guarantees that the commitments of today’s action plan even to look at changes, let alone implement them, will be adhered to.

To some extent then this is a large can being kicked some way into the distance.

Meanwhile, the applications keep coming in, the Island Development Plan functions as it was designed to and there will be yet more of those unloved development frameworks.

At the poisoned heart of it all lies the States Land Use Policy – a document based on a 14-year-old law that has laid the foundations for the continuing overdevelopment of the northern corridor – and the Long-term Infrastructure Investment Plan.

The latter piece of work has been missing in action for the duration of this Assembly, despite its crucial role in assessing how the island’s schools, roads, hospital, airport, telecoms etc fit together and where the stresses are greatest. It should be a vital tool informing the work of planners and helping decide when there is overdevelopment.

The promise is that a supervisory board will come to the States with a report on the infrastructure plan at the start of next year.

Based on progress so far, expect that deadline to be missed and for this to be another issue kicked into the long grass of the next Assembly.