A Vision

17. Every strategy needs a vision or goal: something which illuminates and guides its purpose. The strategy needs to combine imagination and realism to envisage communities and lifestyles for the next century that are achievable and attractive. The vision adopted for this Plan promotes Hampshire as:

`A prosperous and attractive area where social and commercial needs are met in ways that, while minimising the need for travel, improve the quality of life and sense of community for present and future generations.'

18. Prosperity and attractiveness provide the essential platform for future planning policy. Although economic growth and environmental protection are sometimes seen as conflicting objectives, there is no realistic "either/or" choice. The lesson of recent years, embodied in Regional Planning Guidance, is that a healthy and prosperous economy makes a major contribution to an attractive environment and vice versa.

19. The social and commercial needs should be met because local people and firms are a valuable resource. Nevertheless, the infrastructure to provide for these needs must be developed without compromising other aspects of the vision.

20. The need for travel, particularly when it gives rise to the increasing use of the private motor car, creates environmental problems. Minimising the need for travel will result in reductions in fuel consumption, exhaust emissions, noise and physical damage to the built and natural environment. The Plan can, by influencing the location of development, affect the need for travel. Extending the mix of uses within existing and proposed built-up areas will assist in reducing the need to travel, while at the same time encouraging community development.

21. Finally, the Plan will count for little unless it sets out to improve the quality of life and sense of community. Hampshire must be a place where people want to live and work. This situation can only be achieved if the qualities which make Hampshire so attractive to people and investors are protected and deficiencies identified and overcome. Improvements in the quality of life should be the expectation of everyone: for the existing community as much as for any new communities which may be planned.

22. Whilst the process of long-term change is gradual, every short-term decision contributes to it. Planning decisions made now will affect the opportunities of the next as well as the current generation and help to shape the environment in 20 years time and beyond. It is important that policies respond not only to short-term requirements, but also to a longer-term view of the future.

23. By signing up to Agenda 21, the Biodiversity Agreement and the Climate Change Convention, the Government is committed to achieving a more sustainable pattern of development through local action. The duty on the authorities is to ensure that the fabric of Hampshire remains sound for future generations. This duty will, in part, be fulfilled by initiating a new approach to land-use and transportation planning. This Plan breaks with the predict-and-provide, demand-led, strategies of previous structure plans and instead adopts an approach described as `plan, monitor and manage' by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

24. The policies in this Plan will accommodate the needs of both business and the workforce. Many opportunities will become available through redevelopment. Emphasis on the regeneration of Portsmouth and Southampton and facilitating development and redevelopment in other urban areas will ensure that the maximum opportunities are created for homes and jobs to be easily accessible.

25. Urban regeneration and redevelopment is an efficient and effective way of attracting investment and enhancing the environment. Moreover, maximising the potential of urban areas to accommodate future development needs will conserve resources of land and energy, provide opportunities to limit travel demands and facilitate the provision of public transport.

26. The Plan promotes a wide range of initiatives to put new life into urban areas. Emphasis is given to the renewal and improvement of outworn residential areas and commercial centres while ensuring that development is achieved without `town-cramming'. Policies are included which recognise the special importance of Southampton and Portsmouth in the social, economic and cultural life of Hampshire.

27. The need to travel will be reduced by providing for homes, work, shops and schools and other facilities to be within walking or cycling distance of each other. The Plan encourages the use of public transport as an alternative to the car by locating new development close to existing public transport links or where it will support public transport use or new public transport initiatives.

28. Taken together with the land-use policies, the policies for transport will influence the need for travel and make the best use of the existing transportation infrastructure for all modes of transport, including new transport services which are efficient, reliable and regular and which offer attractive alternatives to the use of the private car.

29. Integrated area transportation strategies, supplemented by route strategies cover the whole Structure Plan area. They develop packages of proposals for the appropriate transport infrastructure taking into account social, economic and environmental needs. A strategic transport network will be maintained to cater for inter-urban and through-traffic and to facilitate access to and from the main ports to improve links with mainland Europe. Corridors and networks appropriate for public transport will be used to guide development, especially for housing, business, industry and leisure.

30. Changing attitudes to growth have brought into stronger focus the potential conflicts between development and the environment. The policies in the Plan recognise that the countryside and open coast have a complex character. The scale and location of any development will be an important consideration in retaining these characteristics.

31. Within the countryside there are communities and businesses which need to respond to changing circumstances. The Plan promotes environmentally sensitive economic growth in the rural economy to ensure the retention of those features which make Hampshire's countryside so attractive.

32. The Structure Plan has a key role to play in helping to conserve and enhance biodiversity and the local distinctiveness and variety of landscape character. This role will involve not only the protection of areas of international, national and regional importance, for example the New Forest, but also areas of local importance.

33. The coastline is under threat from leisure and waterside development pressures. The Plan promotes an integrated approach to the use and management of the coastline.

34. In addition to development which affects the built environment directly, the indirect impact of development must be carefully considered. The character of individual settlements relies, in part, on the landscape of the open areas and countryside between them. The Plan recognises that the relationship between built development and these open areas must be respected if a formless urban sprawl is to be avoided.

35. Ultimately the success of the Plan will be judged by the degree to which it is thought by the community to have improved the quality of life. The community includes not only those who live and work in Hampshire today, but also those who will be living and working in the areas developed as a result of the policies and proposals put forward in this Plan.

36. In practice, the Plan can only directly influence the quality of life where it is affected by new development and the infrastructure and services provided to serve it: for example by providing opportunities for homes and jobs; protecting the environment; and providing facilities to reduce the use of the private car. Nevertheless, in providing a policy context for local plans to support urban regeneration strategies, focus development at locations where the maximum benefits can accrue, ensure that opportunities are provided to develop mixed-use developments, and protect the environment, the Plan will create a situation within which all communities can develop and prosper.

37. A structure plan is a crude tool for dealing with the provision of infrastructure. However, the Plan recognises that facilities will need to be provided in the future to meet both existing needs and complement the new provisions of this Plan. For example new integrated transport, education, health and social facilities will be required and sites may need to be reserved for public utilities (the supply of water, gas, electricity and the disposal of waste). Insofar as the need for any of these facilities arises wholly or mainly from new development, the Plan establishes the principle that the developer will be expected to contribute towards its provision. The need for new or improved facilities will be assessed during the preparation of local plans. Development will not proceed in the absence of the infrastructure identified in this Plan, or subsequent local plans.

38. An environmental appraisal of the Plan, undertaken at the deposit stage in 1996, has confirmed two predictable issues: the conflict between promoting the conservation and enhancement of the countryside and accommodating major new development areas; and the unproven nature of initiatives promoted to stall, or even reverse, current trends in such things as shopping habits and car usage. It is evident that development will impact on the environment and that, more particularly, areas of land currently valued as countryside will be urbanised. The Plan seeks to achieve a balance which ensures that the development needs essential to the future well-being of Hampshire are met in places and ways such that environmental costs are minimised: steering development to the appropriate places and preventing inappropriate development.