View from Wales: Learnings from the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act

Welsh law provides an indication of how planning can enhance both the wellbeing of current and future generations and GDP.

The UK government has set out its intent to rebuild Britain, raise living standards, build an NHS for the future, make streets safer, give children the best start in life and secure home-grown energy. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill 2024-25 aims to accelerate housing and infrastructure development by streamlining the planning process.

How can the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (the Act) help achieve this growth and support the UK government’s ambitions?

The Act placed the sustainable development principle into law to make it a central organising principle of government and public bodies across Wales. It is about improving the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales and it requires the long-term impact of decisions and trade-offs to be understood. This pioneering vision for Wales is expressed as seven ‘Wellbeing Goals’ (based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) and five ‘Ways of Working’ (Thinking for the long-term, Prevention, Integration, Collaboration and Involvement). These are principles that must be demonstrated in decision making.

The Planning, Environment and Historic Environment Acts embed the Future Generations Act’s sustainability principles and provide clarity on how to apply them.

There are three key insights we can take from the Act and its supporting framework:

Sustainability

Sustainability is not a barrier to decision-making. In Wales, the principle is imbedded across the full legislative framework and is the basis for decision-making within all areas of government and public bodies. It is a way of thinking, not a barrier to overcome.

Trade-offs and transparency

Sustainability requires a multi-capital approach. Social, environmental and cultural outcomes are to be explicitly considered alongside economic development. Thus, the trade-offs from every decision are fully transparent. This supports a more coherent process that communities can contribute to and for which decision makers are held accountable.

Planning for clarity and certainty

Planning for the long term should not be confused with a lack of agility or speed. Having a strategic spatial plan with clear policies and principles for achieving it provides clarity, which improves certainty for the developer and investor, who are primarily interested in economic outcomes. It also gives communities, statutory consultees and planning authorities certainty that wider wellbeing, social and environmental interests are being given due consideration.

For example, Future Wales: The National Plan 2040 sets out the Welsh government’s national framework for planning over the next two decades. Its spatial plan and policies provide intent. Policies for Shaping Urban Growth and Regeneration – Strategic Placemaking and Resilient Ecological Networks and Green Infrastructure are two examples of where planning for people, place and nature are positioned alongside planning for renewable energy, electricity and transport infrastructure.

The landscape profession

The Five Ways of Working will be familiar to landscape professionals. The very nature of our work requires us to think in different time and spatial scales to many other professions. We work with others by choice and necessity, our projects integrating multiple objectives. Through the rigour in contextual analysis, spatial planning, design, technical skills and clear articulation, we present a vision and carve a place in development for people and nature. Our customers comprise not only the client employing us, but also the current and future generations that will benefit from the environments we have a hand in shaping.

Conclusions

The Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and supporting Acts required considerable dedication and time to come to fruition. What can the UK government’s growth agenda learn from it?

With foresight, intent and clarity, sustainability is not a barrier to decision-making or speed of delivery. Pre-emptive work is, however, necessary. Contextual analysis leads to optimising choices about location, scale and spatial form of development. Site planning and design principles then create places that realise the wellbeing of future generations.

The Five Ways of Working provide a useful framework within which to develop and test policies, projects and plans for sustainability.

Trade-offs will happen. We know that without timely input and advocacy the opportunities to create places that serve both current and future generations can be weakened or missed. The profession needs to be prepared in its positioning, skills and team building. Through masterplanning solutions we can meet the developer’s, local community’s and planning authority’s aspirations.

Finaly, growth is more than about gross domestic product. Growth is about ensuring that development and the wellbeing of current and future generations are inseparable goals.