I have issues... with the Vision Statement. It is the ubiquitous section of the Development or Local Area Plan where the planner utilises the time machine to construct a series of bullet points in the present tense, of the wonderful place the world turned out to be after all. I've written a few myself.
As far as I know, in Ireland, its something that we imported from UK planning consultants, which imported the thinking from business school mumbo jumbo.
The problem is that it typifies a focus on strategic level thinking that ignores the nitty gritty. It is the equivalent of the powerpoint slide of a nice street in Holland, which by virtue of existng as an image will transmutate into action on the ground. It doesn't.
I presume most people don't want their town to be a dowdy, unpopular, dangerous place where nobody wants to go; so do really need an visioning exercise to confirm this.
Following on the theme of autonomous action, and bottom-up planning, people do know what is needed or the gaps in society, economy and the built fabric. Where planning has a capacity to address that need, thats where the focus of plan should be. A planning authority isn't in the coffee shop businees (this is a symtom of good planning as car/ bus choked streets are a symtom of less than optimum planning) but it can influence the fabric and infrastructure of the town that attract people or not.
The question is what actions will be effected to encourage change to happen. If the vision can't be achieved, for whatever reason (recession, funding, talent, road engineers)why include misleading statements at the core of a plan? Are development plans the place for spin?
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