The danger is that people will think that the problem lies in the particular proposals put forward in this particular Strategy – whereas the real problem is with the very idea of a Regional Spatial Strategy. This is not merely the wrong thing. It is altogether the wrong kind of thing. 

For years, the so-called planning system has been far from perfect. Too often, it has not resulted in rational and acceptable plans for enabling our population to be housed in a way that respects local opinion, environmental constraints and the desire to make Britain more beautiful rather than uglier. 

But the invention of wholly unnecessary regional government and the transfer to regional government of immense power over “planning” has accentuated this long-running problem. 

The result is that we are now faced with ghastly fantasies proposed at regional level and imposed on local government, only to be opposed by locals. And this confrontational system pleases no-one. The objectors, of course, are unhappy. But most of the houses in the regional “plan” will in fact never get built because of the opposition generated and the delays caused by the opposition. So the first-time buyers can’t buy and there are two million people on waiting lists for social housing. .

This is not a sensible way for our nation to proceed. 

We need to move to a completely different model, in which regions have no part to play in the planning process, there are no national “targets”, and local people play a serious and constructive part in developing local plans and local planning decisions through co-operative processes such as enquiry by design. 

In this new world, the vehicle for progress will not be the ghastly lucubrations of remote, regional bureaucracies, but local Community Land Trusts, which enable people in villages and neighbourhoods (urban as well as rural) to come together to provide the affordable housing that they and their children need.

That’s the way we can square the circle, end the confrontation and provide what is needed, where it is needed, at a price that can be afforded and with a look and feel that connects in a sensitive way with the buildings and the society around it.