Town and Country Planning Association
Encyclopedia
The Town and Country Planning Association is England's
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 oldest environmental charity. It was founded as the Garden Cities Association in 1899 by Ebenezer Howard
Ebenezer Howard
Sir Ebenezer Howard is known for his publication Garden Cities of To-morrow , the description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature. The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement, that realized several Garden Cities in Great Britain at the...

, initially to promote the development of Garden Cities
Garden city movement
The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...

. Howard's successor as chairman was Sir Frederic Osborn
Frederic Osborn
Sir Frederic James Osborn was a leading member of the UK Garden city movement and was chairman of the Town and Country Planning Association. He lived in Welwyn Garden City, the garden city he helped create, and a local school was named after him in 1968.-Life:Born in 1885 in London, he left...

.

Today the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) is an independent charity working to improve the art and science of planning. The TCPA puts social justice and the environment at the heart of policy debate and inspires government, industry and campaigners to take a fresh perspective on major issues, including planning policy, housing, regeneration and climate change.

The TCPA objectives are to:
  • Secure decent, well designed homes for everyone, in a human scale environment combining the best features of town and country
  • Empower people and communities to influence decisions that affect them
  • Improve the planning system in accordance with the principles of sustainable development


The TCPA "is working to improve the quality of people's lives and the environments in which they live." (op cit)

Policies adopted to further these objectives cover a wide range of major national and regional issues, including, sustainable development, improved strategic planning, inner city regeneration and the provision of affordable housing, building new and extended settlements to reduce development pressures on existing towns and villages and to achieve a more sustainable pattern of development throughout England.

Current projects

The TCPA is advising the UK Government on the criteria for planning "eco-towns
Eco-towns (UK)
Eco-towns are a government-sponsored programme of new towns to be built in England, which are intended to achieve exemplary standards of sustainability.In 2007, the...

" under the three aspects of sustainable development - social, economic and environmental. The TCPA will produce a series of "worksheets" in collaboration with experts under expert panels. Such "worksheets" for transport, community development, water, waste and renewable energy and more, will be produced to assist developers in their planning of "eco-towns" to ensure the strict criteria as set out by the Government's publication "Eco-towns Prospectus".

One of the first worksheets to be published is 'transport'.

The completed worksheets can be downloaded from the Town and Country Planning Association's website. Others will be available as soon as they are published.

Other jurisdictions

The acronym TCPA is also used by a group of townships in Olmsted County, Minnesota
Olmsted County, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 124,277 people, 47,807 households, and 32,317 families residing in the county. The population density was 190 people per square mile . There were 49,422 housing units at an average density of 76 per square mile...

who do their own planning and zoning independent of and sometime in conflict with Olmsted County. In 2004 the TCPA lost a lawsuit with Olmsted county, clarifying with statewide implications in the State of Minnesota of how far its authority reaches.

Publications


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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