Leading planning and housing charity, the Town and Country Planning Association(TCPA) will celebrate its 110th AGM today by publishing a Manifesto for the 21st Century. The Association’s vision – Towns and Countryside for a New Age of Challenge – sets out a new set of aspirations which directly address today’s challenges of climate change, globalisation and social justice.

TCPA Chair of Trustees Lee Shostak said:

“Our efforts to realise our vision start with the need to promote better development. In many communities there is a fear that any change is undesirable. But such a negative view denies the challenges of climate change, globalisation, social justice and the acute housing shortages facing the nation today. Therefore from here on the TCPA wants to forge a new consensus about the need for responsible high quality development, only if we achieve this will our towns and countryside become sustainable.”

The TCPA’s Manifesto comprises four main elements: choice and diversity; cities and the larger task; a revitalised countryside; and networks of cities, towns and villages.

TCPA President Professor Sir Peter Hall said:

“We see the need to improve the outcomes from town and country planning. We believe that Britain has the best town and country planning legislation in the world and while some legislative reform would be helpful, the real challenge is to improve the performance of government and local authorities. The TCPA advocates more devolution of power to democratically elected regional, sub-regional and local authorities, away from unelected bodies. However, we recognise that acting locally will not be enough: the challenge of wider environmental change needs to be addressed at international, national and regional levels. At all levels openness, participation and above all education provide the best guarantees of a local community’s rights and freedoms.”

The Manifesto sets out the need for a national spatial planning framework, stronger regional and particularly sub-regional planning, and far more sensitive local planning.

TCPA Chief Executive Gideon Amos OBE added:

“This new agenda places cities as much as town and countryside at the heart of the TCPA’s mission. The country’s urban centres will feel the greatest heat of changes in climate and economy and all the places where people live and work shape – and in turn are shaped by – their sense of identity. This pluralist and diverse society can and should find confident expression in our plans for the future of the UK as a whole and for the many and varied local communities.”