Tucked away on page 155 of the 6 Jan 2016 Cabinet papers is the Monthly Performance Report November 2015 with a hot link to the “Systems Thinking Reports for Housing, Development Management and Revenues and Benefits”.

For our planning officers (or Management Development Team) “Systems Thinking” tells us something very profound: work pressures are still high and complex due to lack of adopted Local Plan; and its adoption will greatly assist with morale and workloads.

The essence of “Systems Thinking” is to think “in the round” or – if you are flogging it as a consultant “holistically”. When doing so, you might think this would include how the policies under review might affect the long-suffering residents of East Devon, who have had to watch this management-speak jingoistic fiasco play out since the first early attempts at drafting of the Local Plan were published for consultation in 2002. Alas, not.

“Systems Thinking” might also tell us that if you don’t answer the exam questions you are not likely to pass the exam!

The principal reasons Inspector Thickett threw out the Draft Local Plan, sent to him in 2014 were: that the housing targets were not based on empirical evidence; there was no 5 year land supply; the plan period was too short (given the time it had taken to draft); and there was no plan for Gypsies and Travellers. Not much systems thinking there then!

In July 2015 we had the Public Examination of EDDC’s exam resit after Inspector Thickett put a halt on all the foot-dragging and imposed a timetable for it.

As a result of this Public Examination, Inspector Thickett has decided to make the decision on the overall housing target himself, presumably after running out of patience. EDDC’s reaction to his other concern – that divvying up 5% of the target to small towns and villages was arbitrary and not based on evidence – has been to simply remove the target. End of problem? Maybe not as some villages will almost certainly be forced to have to have some development (see Chardstock below, and Dunkeswell) unless Mr Thickett can sort that out too.

On the 5-year land supply the developers have written at length explaining that although they might have been granted sufficient (indeed, more than sufficient) planning permissions, there are very good reasons (to them) why build out rates are falling behind. This is not, as most people would claim, to keep house prices artificially high. The developers don’t give any alternative explanation, they just argue that more land should be released for more building ( or non- building, which would mean releasing more land ad infinitum. It should be noted that, as a penalty for not having a Local Plan or a 5-year land supply, the Government adds an extra 20% to this land supply target, so developers could play this out for decades to come!

For many years the draft Local Plan covered the 20 year period 2006 to 2026. For reasons known only to EDDC, the current draft runs for 18 years from 2013 to 2031. The minimum time horizon for a Plan is 15 years. We are now in 2016, having wasted another three years of the revised Plan period. So things are getting tight again, depending on how Inspector Thickett interprets this. Another year’s delay could mean back to the drawing-board – again.

Inspector Thickett himself has decided that, in order to speed things up, he must draft the missing Gypsies and Travellers policy himself. But EDDC has managed to put a spoke in that wheel by announcing that it wants most places around Cranbrook – not, of course, popular with the new locals there!

During the Local Plan Examination another potential show stopper became apparent. This is that EDDC had failed to get Natural England to agree on how EDDC proposes to meet the habitat mitigation regulations to offset all the building, something that is a legal requirement. This is one of those compulsory exam questions that EDDC hadn’t really attempted to answer. Despite being asked by the Inspector to go away and reach agreement with Natural England, it is clear from EDDC’s latest submission (how many resits do you get to take?) that they now expect him to adjudicate between them and Natural England, too. Yet again, not much evidence of systems or thinking!

You might have thought that the Exmouth Masterplan, if it is going to achieve anything substantive, should be an important element of the new Local Plan. But all references to it have been removed from the current Local Plan draft because meeting the habitat conditions in this case would take a couple of years at least. Does “Systems Thinking” include anticipating problems and planning ahead?

Lastly, poor Chardstock! Classified as a village unsuitable for further development up until the last moment (thanks to some nifty footwork from Councillor Andrew Moulding), then suddenly and without explanation reclassified as “suitable for sustainable development”, its fate now depends upon Inspector Thickett’s reading of the local bus time-table!

So let us give Cllr Paul Diviani the last word, from his Christmas/New year message:

“Finally, it gives me enormous pleasure to say that the finalisation of our Local Plan is now within sight and we are anticipating being able to adopt it early next year. This detailed and robust document will help us deliver the aspirations and housing needs of local people, as well as land for employment. It will also help protect our beautiful countryside from unwanted and inappropriate development.”

Or nearly the last word because how much of this plan will be EDDC’s and how much Inspector Thickett’s?

And whose Systems and whose Thinking!