50 Shades of Planning

Thanks to this piece by Ed Smith, the former cricketer turned writer and TMS commentator, I have been introduced to the concept of 'The Prisoner' Dilemma'. "Imagine how good cricket could be if we cured the easy fixes", writes Ed Smith, contemplating the factors that led to England's run chase in recent first Test against Pakistan being cut short. Those factors all arise from a seemingly rational pursuit of self-interest, but, as Albert Tucker, the Princeton mathematician and game theorist, showed in his "Prisoners' Dilemma" theory, when two agents pursue narrow self-interest it can work against the long-term benefit of both. In cricket's case this is the long term future of the Test Match as a spectacle. "That's interesting, Sam" I can hear you thinking, "but where are you going with this?" Well, might it be said that planning in the Eric Pickles-inspired, post-RSS world has suffered from its own version of t

There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which, having been inspired by a Spinal Tap gig, Homer and Marge buy Bart an electric guitar. A little while later, spotting that his initial enthusiasm has waned, Homer asks Bart why he doesn’t play it anymore… “I'll tell you the truth”, says Bart. “I wasn't good at it so I quit. I hope you're not mad.” “Son, come here”, says Homer laughing. “Of course I'm not mad. If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing. ” There is a reason, Reader, for shoehorning a Simpsons reference into the start of this piece, and that is because this exchange often comes to mind upon hearing news of local plan delay. Why is it that according to NLP , in March this year, more than ten years since the 2004 Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act, 46% of councils had no local plan in place or had adopted one before the NPPF was introduced in 2012? The short answer is that local plans are hard. They are hard technically (the empirical