Regional Development: An Integrated approach? By Frank Gaffkin and Mike Morrissey
From: Local Economy, 2001, Vol 16, No.1. (Published by Pearson Education)
Economic and spatial strategic also link around the issues of energy efficiency. Yet, little or no reference is made to concepts such as alternative energy resources, waste management and electric cars. More innovative ideas, such s new buildings incorporating alternative sources of renewable energy and being designed to be energy efficient, were relatively neglected. In all of this, the Regional Strategic Framework could link not just with Strategy 2010, but also with strategies emerging from Local Agenda 21, designed to ensure sustainable development to the new preventative model of health is similarly important. SPGs 29 and 30 aim to improve the quality of the living environment, implanting the National Air Quality Strategy aiming for cleaner water and unpolluted land. Together with enhanced household income, greater social and spatial equity, improvement in, and greater symmetry between the built and natural environment would contribute to healthier lifestyles, which, in turn, would reshape the economics of health provision.
Another example of the connection between the spatial and economic relates to town centre regeneration policy, which many argued needed to be more focused, prescriptive and interventionist in order to counter the negative ramifications of out-of-town and edge of town development. The strategy could have included incentives for developers to build on brownfield sites, supported by levies on greenfield site development, reflective of its real social costs. Without reference to specific instruments such as these, the strategy document risks being as an `indicative' plan rather as an authoritative plan intended for systematic implementation.
In all of this, the rubric of sustainability could inform all development, not merely in reference to the natural environment. For instance, the concept of sustainable communities is critical - referring to the need for socially mixed neigbourhoods of diverse social and economic use that can allow residents to work, shop, school and leisure within reasonable proximity and transit access. But, linking these local communities to a wider world is increasingly important. This, in European terms, the strategy needs to make explicit connection with the mega regions such as the Atlantic Arc, thereby elaborating strategies for economic networking with city-regions such as Glasgow-Strathclyde and Liverpool-Merseyside, and for cross-border development with the Irish Republic.
BEYOND AND AUCTION MODEL
In the public discourse around Shaping Our Future, two models of regional development emerged. The `Auction model' viewed the region as a crucible of finite resources and development opportunity. Consequently, within this perspective, different areas felt compelled to bid against each other in an auction for the distribution of planning permission for growth. The preferable alternative was the `Additionality model', one that sees that the region as a whole can prosper best when its constituent parts collaborate for the benefit of overall regional prosperity and quality of life. In essence, this involves District Councils and sub-regions moving beyond the `me tooism' culture, whereby each part feels entitled to a similar investment to its neighbor's heritage centre or marina, or whatever. Rather, each part of the regional could be seeking its own particular competitive niche that complements that of other parts, thereby achieving an added value for the whole region, from which, in turn, every part can benefit. This `additional' approach to regional development allows the region to obtain competitive advantage through the collaborative advantage of the connectivity of its different sub-regions.
Such complementarity can only operate within an agreed common planning and
development agenda, to the benefit of the region as a whole. Similarly,
to be effective, the regional plan needs the support on the ground of local
and sub-regional plans and City Visions. Without such detailed and customized
arrangements for the delivery of projects and infrastructures, the regional
plan can be reduced to generalized aspiration. So, the two processes are
inextricably linked. Shaping Our Future, together with Strategy 2010, are
about seeing a new vision for Northern Ireland, as a region less reliant
on external subsidy, but more reliant on its well-educated human capital
to place it at the leading edge of high tech and high value-added production.
Embedded into this vision are related concerns about social inclusion and
quality environments. |
