If there is one trait which should perhaps be the unique feature of planning and serve to distinguish it from all other disciplines, is its normative future-orientated agenda. In fact, planning has been singled out by futurists as a discipline where foresight and analysis of the future is most required – as nowhere in society are peoples futures mortgaged so far ahead as when local and national authorities make planning decisions, zone land and develop infrastructure. No matter how present focussed are current planning debates, the actual intent of decisions will unfold over decades. Decision-making in planning therefore cannot avoid addressing the future, and future generations. In this sense, we are all living our daily lives today with the locked-in, path dependent and largely irreversible consequences of past land use planning policy decisions.
While this may seem patently obvious, when I look around planning practice in Ireland today I see no evidence whatsoever of any foresight or analysis of the future. While local authority planning departments typically have a section which is nominally labelled ‘Forward Planning’, planning’s responsibility to be a source of thought, or even inspiration, about what might be, and ought to be, has been largely abandoned in favour of a conformist, reactionary and entrepreneurial approach. Paradoxically, one of the unintended consequences of the recent ‘turn’ to more evidenced-informed planning is that the overload of new spatial data from a proliferation of different sources appears to be simply adding to the general confusion about ‘what to do’. Rather than fostering a culture of initiative taking and adaptability, more evidence is creating a risk-adverse planning culture and dimming policy-makers horizons – and is certainly not leading to better decision making or even different decisions!
Good evidence is of course essential in making informed policy and planning decisions. However, as we are so often told these days, past-performance is also no guarantee of future performance. The problem is that the future is unknowable, uncertain and there can be no agreed description of what it will bring. Planners are faced daily with often high-stakes decisions with long-term implications which must be made in the context of immediate and messy short-term socio-economic and political imperatives where facts are uncertain and values in dispute. A useful example of this is the decision last week by An Bord Pleanála to grant planning permission for a large peat burning electricity power station in Co. Offaly. This is in spite of a 2011 report prepared by over forty scientists for the Environmental Protection Agency which concluded that continued peat extraction and burning for electricity is the most climate-polluting source of energy and that “continued carbon emissions from peat burning are contrary to the national interest”. Climate change and energy descent are perhaps the two greatest ‘known unknowns’ of the forthcoming century. Yet, despite the transformative implications of these phenomena for how we use our land, to date they have not been considered germane to planning policy or decisions. In the context of this manifold uncertainty what is required are creative new methodologies, analogous to the greater use of evidence, which seek to make our ignorance of the future useable and help guide complex planning and policy decisions.
In Scotland, a jurisdiction which views planning as a progressive and proactive force for nation building, an entirely different approach has been adopted with the publication in 2011 of a new land-use strategy for Scotland – the first of its kind anywhere in Europe. Interestingly, the strategy arose not out of planning and development legislation, but as a requirement of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. The strategy, which sets out a long term vision towards 2050, explicitly recognises that land is Scotland’s fundamental and finite base asset and that decisions about how to make the best use of it are becoming increasingly contentious, complex and challenging in the circumstances of changing consumption patterns and a growing acceptance that we need to urgently adapt our lives and the way we use resources. As part of the public consultation process for the strategy, scenarios for the future were developed not to predict the future but to stimulate thought about what might be the logical outcomes and consequences of current trends and policies, and hence how policies might be altered to achieve a more desirable future. In Ireland, the use of futures methods and scenario-planning techniques in developing official planning policy has been completely absent with officialdom favouring instead a singular interpretation of the future – business-as-usual (An exception in academia was the publication in 2008 by the DIT Futures Academy of Twice the size?: Imagineering the future of Irish gateways).
In the UK, however, futures research is well established with the establishment in 1994 of the Foresight Programme which aims to assist the UK Government to think systematically about the future and to ensure today’s decisions are robust to future uncertainties. Foresight projects are in-depth studies looking at major issues 20-80 years in the future including, for example, tackling obesity, future flooding, demographics and wellbeing. A major piece of work currently underway by the Foresight Programme is Land-Use Futures: Making the Most of Land in the 21St Century which is taking a broad and overarching look at the future of UK land use over the next 50 years. It demonstrates that there is a strong case to develop a much more strategic approach to guide incremental land use change, incentivise sustainable behaviours, and to unlock value from land. The ESPON funded ET2050 – Territorial Scenarios and Visions for Europe is similarly involved in developing future scenarios on a pan-European scale aimed at policymakers in the field of territorial development.
| Scenario 1: Economy to the fore Looking outwards, to enhance our economic position and competitiveness with respect to the rest of the world.A focus on major cities and larger towns as key drivers of economic activity and public services
Maximising agricultural output focussing on high-value dairy and beef primarily for export markets Maximising renewable energy generation capacity, including export of renewables. Increasing contribution of outdoor recreation and tourism to the economy |
Scenario 2: Keep it localProgressive transfer of governance to local level.Self-sufficiency driving agricultural practice and community cultivation playing a bigger role in agriculture
Local food – protection of market towns and rural services Transport considerations – focus on developing existing small settlements and villages as hubs and reducing dispersal Small scale renewables with more dispersed supply networks Maintaining cultural landscapes and distinctiveness |
| Scenario 3: Climate change exemplarOptimising use of land for renewable energy, including biomass, biofuels, wind energy and hydro powerMinimising need for travel, including minimising food miles.
Preservation of peat-rich soils and expansion of forestry for carbon sequestration. Avoiding development on land liable to flood Landscape ecology approach to biodiversity (creating green infrastructure networks and avoiding fragmentation of habitats) |
Scenario 4: Ireland – a great place to liveProtecting existing designated biodiversity and enhance biodiversity through linking ecological networksSupport for rural services and new dispersed development in the countryside
Protecting iconic landscapes , recognising their role in tourism Limiting onshore renewable energy and grid infrastructure Conserving heritage and archaeology Promoting high quality of life in communities. |
Potential Land Use Futures for Ireland? – Adapted from the Scottish Land Use Strategy
In the context of the forthcoming review of the National Spatial Strategy and the new Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies in Ireland, rather than passive adoption of the status-quo, the use of futures methods offers the potential to cast planning as a proactive, confident and dynamic ‘intervener’ in a fast changing and increasingly complex world. Key questions which need to be asked in developing scenarios for the future are: What land use challenges could we face over the next 50 years? Will existing structures and mechanisms help us to meet those challenges? What opportunities are there to use and manage land differently now so that society continues to enjoy a good quality of life in the future? Developing scenarios for the future may assist in anticipating potential surprises – a good example of this is the current proposal to blanket the Midlands with large wind turbines for energy export which is not referenced anywhere in any national or regional planning policy.
Importantly, futures techniques also offers the potential to shine a light on alternative perspectives that are currently marginalised in mainstream planning policy debate and which can significantly contribute to questioning current hegemonic groupthink and the cosy post-political consensus i.e. that the sine qua non of a happy and affluent society is the neoliberal growth model. Moreover, as a consultation tool, sketching potential futures may help smoke-out entrenched positions and the usual zero-sum ‘winners-losers’ stalemate which accompanies public and political discourse on all matters related to spatial policy, to make our policy choices explicit and, dare I say, maybe a more mature debate and deeper political reflection on Ireland’s future? We live in hope.
Gavin Daly
Dublin City Council is hosting ‘Business as Usual – What next for Planning?’ on Thursday the 5th of December 2013. Details of the event and how to book a place are available here:
http://www.dublincity.ie/Planning/Documents/Businessasusualposter.pdf
http://www.dublincity.ie/Planning/Documents/Businessasusualtimetable.pdf
Ireland after NAMA 
November 30, 2013 at 1:08 pm
It is impossible to plan for energy /capital dumping & subsequent extraction as seen in Ireland over the decades.
The system is in too much flux for such talk.
The energy balance of the UK from the early 80s has been more or less static when compared to the wild gyrations of the Irish conduit.
This dynamic can also be seen in the UK balance of payments where Ireland has become a sort of release valve for excess oil /capital……until excess oil was no longer available…”growth” then flowed back to the UK.
Recently the UK has reduced its income from the rest of the world (inc Ireland) and has begun to burn fuel more directly into its internal systems – this can be clearly seen in new car sales where it is the only growing large economy car market in Europe.
Talk should orbit around reducing the scale of global banking operations – on a physical level this can be achieved by returning to domestic primary production activity in areas such as fishing (which has been outsourced simply because financial capitals earn interest from efficiency and not the local redundancy of the village) and energy production.although its perhaps better to burn peat directly in a stove rather then losing energy via transmission and transformation loss.
November 30, 2013 at 2:04 pm
Reblogged this on One-Off Ireland.
November 30, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Is it not striking that our debate continues to orbit around issues we have no control of such as climate change ?
Which is driven by global banking operations such as its recent scaling up so as to take advantage of cheap Chinese products from coal heavy / labour light China.
Having hung around the fantastic debris of car dealerships and junk for home improvement that is New Waterford coming out of the Cork road one begins to wonder what the Irish academia is smoking.
The old center of Waterford is dying ………but why ?
What is happening is pretty simple – we have a now completely global non local and now even non national system of goods exchange,
Compound interest therefore flows to the financial capitals (no longer so much national capitals)
This enormous sum of symbolic capital accumulation cannot be spent locally as local people continue to fight for artificially scarce tokens…………you get a general breakdown of the production , distribution and consumption chain.
This is what Larry Summers was talking about recently.
He is the keeper of the gate for the financial class.
As the product produced cannot be consumed by the local proles the capital accumulated must be destroyed via bubbles therefore maintaining the relative wealth disparity between the insiders and the outsiders.
Given that Ireland was destroyed more so because of a dash for gas & oil rather then local production which would confer a level of redundancy (but only if the profits remained local which is now less and less the case.)
Indeed Waterford has reached for a new level of absurdity in the rentiers tragic comedy that is Ireland.
With the new Toll bridge seen empty by this Dork during morning rush hour while the road into Waterford remained full.
What was the purpose of this capital project ?
We need to reevaluate what exactly the purpose of “Growth” is now.
It clearly has got nothing to do with enriching our internal well – being and perhaps never has.
November 30, 2013 at 3:27 pm
Just so as to simplify this – interest on the ultimate expression of the commons (the money supply) flows to the financial capitals…….rents on natural utilities flows to the financial capitals ……tax on carbon (life) flows to the financial capitals…….
Guess what happens ?
The financial capitals subsequently burn the carbon released from the non consumption within their now global hinterland.
But the carbon will get burned regardless.
Local austerity (deflation) to pay rent and interest causes global bubbles.
Why do we allow the banks to reclaim payment on their criminal double entry money via the extremely limited circulating currency ?
The symbolic capital accumulated will eventually have to be destroyed as we cannot afford to use it.
“Closely associated with the concept of cultural inheritance as a factor of production is the social credit theory of economic sabotage. While Douglas believed the cultural heritage factor of production is primary in increasing wealth, he also believed that economic sabotage is the primary factor decreasing it. The word wealth derives from the Old English word wela, or “well-being”, and Douglas believed that all production should increase personal well-being. Therefore, production that does not directly increase personal well-being is waste, or economic sabotage.
The economic effect of charging all the waste in industry to the consumer so curtails his purchasing power that an increasing percentage of the product of industry must be exported. The effect of this on the worker is that he has to do many times the amount of work which should be necessary to keep him in the highest standard of living, as a result of an artificial inducement to produce things he does not want, which he cannot buy, and which are of no use to the attainment of his internal standard of well-being.[10]
By modern methods of accounting, the consumer is forced to pay for all the costs of production, including waste. The economic effect of charging the consumer with all waste in industry is that the consumer is forced to do much more work than is necessary. Douglas believed that wasted effort could be directly linked to confusion in regards to the purpose of the economic system, and the belief that the economic system exists to provide employment in order to distribute goods and services.
But it may be advisable to glance at some of the proximate causes operating to reduce the return for effort ; and to realise the origin of most of the specific instances, it must be borne in mind that the existing economic system distributes goods and services through the same agency which induces goods and services, i.e., payment for work in progress. In other words, if production stops, distribution stops, and, as a consequence, a clear incentive exists to produce useless or superfluous articles in order that useful commodities already existing may be distributed. This perfectly simple reason is the explanation of the increasing necessity of what has come to be called economic sabotage ; the colossal waste of effort which goes on in every walk of life quite unobserved by the majority of people because they are so familiar with it ; a waste which yet so over-taxed the ingenuity of society to extend it that the climax of war only occurred in the moment when a culminating exhibition of organised sabotage was necessary to preserve the system from spontaneous combustion.[11]”
C H Douglas.
This perhaps is a perfect expression of modern Ireland which is a extreme case – we even have a drop in unemployment – perhaps a result of people doing pointless jobs in former natural utilities so as to gain access to scarce tokens ……….but they cannot afford to buy local & social products….only external junk items often with a extreme credit prejudice.
You can then see a hollowing out of old energy low input regional cities such as Cork & Waterford with some scarps flowing to Dublin (the reward for servicing the needs of the financial class) and the remaining wealth flowing abroad.
The owners of this symbolic capital then subsequently force feed us products such as cars etc etc in various ever increasing bubbles.
December 1, 2013 at 2:29 pm
The Quaker history of the Waterford Tramore rail line as narrated by a former worker on the line. ( starts at 2.00 minutes)
A form of private & local quasi social credit was issued to insure the sustainability of the line.(4.30).
Whats striking is the lack of physical capital spend on this line with the 4 engines lasting into the 1930s and beyond.
Contrast this with the vast individual depreciation if everybody using the line was instead driving a Model T !!!
Beware of hard money bankers who would consider the issuing of social credit a waste (for them).
Instead the bankers will project the production of useless assets which have huge collective input costs.
True money is not a physical thing you somehow run out of as our politicians such as Gilmore seem to think………its a symbolic construct.
Whats truly important is the real & holistic physical resource input of our activities.
Ireland is in danger of another bout of pointless for most capital dumping again.
The Irish economic and social situation is beyond parody.
December 2, 2013 at 6:11 pm
The greatest change to the British isles in the 20th century , in particular over successive periods from the great war to the more dramatic phases after the second world war and Suez was the replacement of domestic coal (much of which was directly burned rather then as currently used in electrical generation with its obvious massive transformation loss.
(The Uk only started to import coal after 1970.)
But what if the entire post war petro apparatus and the physical structures which absorb this now vital primary good & which drives our trade deficit in primary goods is about to turn over.
The excellent British DUKES 60th Anniversary: Digest of United
Kingdom Energy Statistics published in 2009 gives us a very good template from where we started from.
Click to access 1_20090729135638_e____dukes60.pdf
In the case of Ireland when it was part of the union until 1973 / 1979~ we traded agricultural goods for British coal.
Afterwards we became a extreme conduit for European entrepot activities….i.e. receiving value added goods which completely overpowered Irish primary and basic secondary industry.
UK final energy consumption 1948 Mtoe
Total ;131.5
of which
Coal / Coke : 101.5 (direct burn)
oil : 13.2
NG : 0
town gas /coke gas : 12.5
electricity : 4.2
Uk final energy consumption 2008 Mtoe
Total : 154.8 Ktoe
of which coal / coke (direct burn) : 2.6 !!!! –
oil : 68.1
NG : 51.7
Town gas / coke gas 0.1
electricity : 29.4
renewables / waste 1.8.
Has our entire system based on Gas and oil consumption been just a brief moment in time.
Will be back boiler homes of the Irish & British urban past come back as before ?
How will Ireland deal with a return to a coal based economy on these isles.
Already coal is replacing Nat gas in electricity generation with modern early 1990s CCGT generators being mothballed including the largest CCGT generator in Europe – Teeside CCGT – 1875MW
In the DUKES 2013 report they state UK co2 emissions increased by 4.5 % between 2011 and 2012 chiefly as a result of a major switch to coal fired powered stations.
If it is in the UKs national interest to not push for carbon taxes then we could see a major switch in global policy.
At the moment the policy of carbon tax is still a runner as global rent flows will continue to flow to the UK given its extreme banking nature.
But if Nat gas via Norway or LNG from Qatar is not available then we could see a change in tune.
Then what ?
December 2, 2013 at 6:16 pm
Want to know what the future has in store for us ?
Mothballed CCGT generators is almost a certain faith for us,.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teesside_power_station
This was a result of a criminal deregulation of the gas market post 1990 in the UK.
The Dash for gas is over.
Which means wind elec. power is a non runner.
December 5, 2013 at 9:26 pm
Revisions to the Irish energy balance in this recent PDF document (not explained in detail)
But if we compare Irish fuel inputs into the electricity sector we can see that the dash for gas is over.
Click to access Ire_GHG_Emissions_1990_2012_M_Howley.pdf
Flow of energy in electricity generation expressed as a % of total.
Y2010
Gas : 61.4%
Coal :17.6%
Peat : 10 %
Fuel /gas oil : 2.8 %
Hydro : 1%
Wind : 4.9 % (what were the transmission losses in this sector ?)
Back to the world of using lower quality fuels for electricity generation
Y2012
Gas : 49.1 %
Coal : 25.1 %
Peat :12.1 %
Fuel / gas oil : 1.1%
Hydro : 1.5 %
Wind :7.5 %
As I have argued on the Irish economy blog a few years ago available Nat gas should be used for home cooking and heating (in that order.)
Using Nat gas for elec power is a high crime.
The UK / Qatar LNG crisis is also our crisis…..
Also :Continued overuse of diesel in the private car fleet is to be questioned.
If we were living in a sov state new private car purchase should be banned for some years as the last remaining bits of our capital was directed elsewhere….however our role remains as a small market for the cores car market – helping to keeping them afloat for just a bit longer.
Another 5.7% reduction of our transport fuel inputs seen between 2011 & 2012
Petrol down 9.1 %
Diesel up : 0.1 %
Kerosene (jet fuel) down : 16.3% …. that is a big drop by any standard.