Peter Batey Lever Professor of Town and Regional Planning, Civic Design, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool

28th May 2015

1909 2009

Civic Design The world’s first university planning school

Valedictory Lecture

A time to celebrate…….

• 26 years as Lever Professor

• An academic career of 40 years at the University of Liverpool

• A working career of 46 years

Department of Geography and Planning

Professor Peter Batey BSc, MCD, PhD, C Geog, FRTPI, FRSA, FAcSS

Peter Batey has been the Lever Professor of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Liverpool since 1989. A graduate in geography, Peter also holds a masters degree in planning (MCD) and a doctorate in regional science. He is a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute. Peter worked in Lancashire and Greater Manchester County Planning Departments before joining the Department of Civic Design at this University as a Lecturer in 1975. He has served the University in a number of roles, including Head of the Department of Civic Design and Dean of the Faculty of Social and Environmental Studies. Since 2011 he has been Director of the ESRC North West Doctoral Training Centre that organises and funds PhD research training in the social sciences at Liverpool, Lancaster and Manchester universities. A former Fulbright Scholar at the University of Illinois, Peter has an international reputation as a planning analyst , particularly in the fields of demographic-economic modelling and geodemographics. Peter has served as World President of the Regional Science Association International and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). He is an editor of the Town Planning Review and has played a very active role in urban and regional affairs, notably as government-appointed independent chair of the 25-year Mersey Basin Campaign, one of the North West's most successful cross-sector partnerships. Peter has been Chairman of Governors at Merchant Taylors’ Schools, Crosby since 2011.

What my CV doesn’t tell you…1

• Born in West Hartlepool, in North-East England in 1948, to parents George (an Anglican vicar) and Ruth (a teacher).

• My great uncle, (Sir) Norman Haworth, rose from humble beginnings to become a leading research chemist, winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1937 for synthesising Vitamin C. This puts into perspective anything I may have done in my own career!

• Sir Norman was firmly convinced about the value of education: in the 1930s, he was the driving force behind all three of his nieces, including my mother, attending university – exceptional at the time when few women got the opportunity to study for a degree.

Sir Norman Haworth

What my CV doesn’t tell you…2

• After attending Bury Grammar School in Greater Manchester, I went on to study Geography at Sheffield University.

• As a second year undergraduate, I began to think about an academic career in which I would be able to use my training as a geographer. I wasn’t the only one with this idea and there was healthy competition among my peer group.

• In my third year, I took two special options: Urban Geography and Water Resources Development, and came under the influence of a new professor, Stan Gregory, who also taught me multivariate statistics.

• It was Gregory who directed me to Liverpool, when I suggested I wanted to take a Masters degree in Planning. One of his former students, Ian Masser, was teaching in the Department of Civic Design and doing pioneering work on quantitative planning methods – Gregory thought we’d be well-matched!

What my CV doesn’t tell you…3

• Gregory was right and at Liverpool with Ian Masser I was able to develop my interests in analytical planning methods, as an MCD student.

• Later, I was very fortunate to come under the wing of Brian Melville at Lancashire, in the Research Section, and given a lot of freedom to work with new planning methods, on the North East Lancashire Plan and in the early work on structure planning in Greater Manchester.

• At the newly-established Greater Manchester Council, I worked as a transport planner, again able to specialise in analytical methods.

• Both these large local authorities encouraged high quality applied research and in some respects were well ahead of university planning schools where a research culture was slow to develop.

Structure of presentation

• What my CV doesn’t tell you

• Research as a geographer-regional scientist-planner

• The Lever Chair

• Planning in practice: The Mersey Basin Campaign

• Two very special things about Civic Design

• Politics and diplomacy…don’t rock the boat or perhaps you should!

• Reflections

Geodemographics

Research in applied geography

Peter Brown

Geodemographic classification systems

• Geodemographics: the classification of people by where they live

• Neighbourhoods throughout the country are classified according to demographic, social and economic characteristics, as measured by the Population Census.

• Geodemographic systems are created using a multivariate statistical technique, cluster analysis.

• The resulting clusters, or neighbourhood types, can be ranked according to affluence.

• Generally based on Output Areas, the most detailed level of census geography (on average 125 households).

Two sharply contrasting neighbourhood types: how do they

differ?

Example 1:

Strengthening the evidence base for structure planning

The Multivariate Analysis of the 1966 Census, for the new Greater Manchester Metropolitan County, was a pioneering study, the first of its kind outside Greater London. It was carried out in early 1972, when proposals for local government reorganisation were beginning to firm up.

My first big project with Lancashire County Council

Purposes of the Multivariate Analysis, as seen at the time

• Information about socio-economic structure of a new local government area, for the benefit of councillors and officers: consistent and comprehensive analysis across whole County

• A sampling framework for a public attitude survey

• A source of analysis for strategic housing policy

• A basis for monitoring change, especially given the prospect of a similar analysis of 1971 Census

• A Census digest for a wider audience

Geodemographic classification,1966: 26-cluster level

Population Census

Geodemographic system

Commercial or public sector partner

Geographical extent

1966 Multivariate Analysis of the 1966 Census

Lancashire County Council

Greater Manchester County

1971 Multivariate Analysis of the 1971 Census

Greater Manchester Council

Greater Manchester County

1981 Super Profiles O E McIntyre Great Britain

1991 Super Profiles CDMS United Kingdom

2001 People and Places Beacon Dodsworth United Kingdom

2011 People and Places Beacon Dodsworth United Kingdom

Throughout my professional career I have worked on geodemographic systems and together with my colleague Peter Brown, and Simon Whalley of Beacon Dodsworth, I am working on a 2011-Census based classification, People and Places.

Example 2:

Widening participation in higher education

Sir Ron Dearing chaired the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, which published its (wide-ranging) report in 1997.

The Dearing Report, 1997

The long-term trend in the Age Participation Index for Great Britain in the period leading up to the Dearing Inquiry.

Geodemographic analysis, using Super Profiles, formed part of HEFCE’s evidence to the Dearing Inquiry.

Young participation in higher education by Super Profile Lifestyle Neighbourhood Type (10), 1994

Participation in higher education by region, gender and geodemographic type: males

A 2011-based Geodemographic classification system: People and

Places Mark 2

People and Places Mark 2

• Together with my Liverpool colleague, Peter Brown, I am working with Beacon Dodsworth to produce a 2011 Census-based geodemographic system, People and Places Mark 2. Simon Whalley at Beacon Dodsworth is the project leader.

• Design of the geodemographic system needs to reflect how the country is changing in social and economic terms.

• In similar exercises in the past, we have recognised that Greater London has quite a different socio-economic structure from the rest of the country. We need to re-visit this notion for the 2011-based system.

The economic classification

• As a first step, an economic classification was created, with Primary Urban Areas as the spatial units.

• For this classification, variables measuring economic structure and economic change were used.

• The outcome was a classification containing 9 ‘study regions’: ‘the nine Britains.’

• For each study region a separate geodemographic classification was produced, with Output Areas as the spatial units.

This map shows study regions 1, 2,3, and 5, three of which are London and South East based and the fourth (region 5) including London and a sub-set of provincial cities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, Cardiff, Brighton, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Distinctive features of this group of study regions include: • Shorter length of residence •Younger age structure •Mixed ethnic status •Small households •High knowledge-based employment •Highly qualified workforce •High incidence of flats and rented property •Train, bus and tube as travel to work modes.

Study regions 4, 8 and 9 are characterised by a small student population, higher unemployment levels among the well qualified, low incidence of urban deprivation, and high vacant property levels, particularly in flats. The population is predominantly white.

In broad terms, this is middle Britain in its urban and rural dimensions.

Study regions 6 and 7 have a less affluent population, housing vacancy rates are higher, a heavier dependence on semi-routine jobs, people are less likely to hold qualifications, more likely to suffer from poor health. Knowledge-based employment is scarcer. Unemployment is high among former workers in manufacturing and construction.

Study region 6 contains the old industrial centres of the north, the midlands, east London, south Wales, Belfast and west central Scotland, while study region 7 tends to contain smaller urban centres adjacent to study region 6.

People and Places Trees: Merseyside

People and Places Trees: London within the M25

Demographic-economic modelling

Research in regional science

Geoff Hewings Moss Madden

Regional Science 1

• As a young planner, regional science attracted me because of its inter-disciplinary character and its quantitative rigour.

• Prompted by Ian Masser, several of us in Civic Design – Peter Brown, Moss Madden and myself - became active in the Regional Science Association’s British Section.

• In the late 1970s, with Michael Breheny, I ran a workshop on regional science methods in structure planning, aimed at practitioners and academics throughout the country.

• For me this provided a stepping stone between local government, where I had been working, and academia which I had recently joined. It was, in effect, an applied research network. 19 meetings.

• I learnt a lot from this experience, acquiring mathematical and statistical skills and a knowledge of economics and demography which was soon to become an important focus of my research.

Regional Science 2

• In the early 1980s I had the benefit of a sabbatical year spent with the Regional Science Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• This led on to invitations to visit several overseas universities, for example in Japan and Australia, as well as the US.

• It also led to my taking a major role in the RSAI, serving as its World President in 1997-98.

Peter Nijkamp Geoff Hewings Alan Wilson

Population and the economy: inter-dependence

“.... Population can be thought of as depending in good measure on the number of jobs the

demand for its products creates. And since an increase of population means more ‘laundry’,

which in turn means more jobs, which call forth still more population, it is clear that forecasts

cannot be made independently. Thus population becomes a variable to be determined

‘simultaneously’, in consistency with all of the other variables.” (Berman, 1960, p2)

Patrick Geddes’ thinking machine, based on Le Play’s triad, Folk, Work and Place, early 20th Century

Population and the economy: the Batey-Madden model

• There are two interfaces: the economic-demographic and the demographic-economic, work-folk and folk-work in Geddes’ language.

• While the economic-demographic interface had received plenty of attention, the demographic-economic interface had tended to be neglected

• In the 1980s Moss Madden and I tried to conceptualise the demographic–economic interface and to represent it mathematically using an extended input-output model, in order to improve the quality of forecasting and impact analysis.

• The Batey-Madden model was the result and throughout the 1980s and 1990s we were able to explore its properties in great detail, including the development of a suite of demographic-economic multipliers expressing the effect of population change upon a local economy.

Moss Madden

The Batey-Madden Model in its basic form, as an activity-commodity framework

A . x = y Square matrix of coefficients x vector of unknowns = vector of inputs

Conceptualising the demographic-economic interface: Batey and Madden

Source: Madden and Batey (1980)

The 1980s were a formative period as far as my research was concerned and I published extensively in the best regional science and planning journals. For both Moss Madden and myself, it proved to be an excellent opportunity to forge an international research reputation. This extract from Google Scholar shows three of our most cited papers:

1985 I published a very elaborate paper in which I sought to analyse the relationships between ten extended input-output models. The paper drew heavily on the use of matrix algebra and had no fewer than 98 equations. So far this has proved to be my most heavily-cited paper.

Effect on employment of change in industrial

final demand

Economic and demographic components of employment change, 1981-91

Source: Batey and Madden (1999)

Planning History

Planning History

• Making plans exhibition, 2009, to celebrate the Centenary of the Department of Civic Design

• History of planning methodology; how plans are made- first developed as an interest 35 years ago, now re-visiting this

• History of planning education: study of Gordon Stephenson’s curriculum reform

David Massey

The Lever Chair 1

The Lever Chair, the first university professorship in the subject of town planning, was founded by William Hesketh Lever, the industrial philanthropist and soap magnate. He used the proceeds of a major libel case to do this.

Lever’s gift to the University also brought about:

• The founding of the Department of Civic Design as the world’s first university planning school;

• The creation of the Town Planning Review, the first international journal in the subject.

The Lever Chair 2

• The oldest chair in planning in the world, with a distinguished history.

• All of my predecessors were

architect-planners.

• All of them were heavily involved in professional practice.

• They all wrote well, published a

fair amount, and contributed to planning thought, but were not single-minded researchers.

The Lever Chair 3

• My background was different and, as the first geographer-planner to hold the Chair, I felt I had to develop more practice-related interests.

• The Vice Chancellor at that time (late 1980s), Graeme Davies, strongly encouraged senior academics to step outside the University and take on strategic leadership roles, as public service.

• There was no shortage of opportunities here in the North West and I was able to build up a varied portfolio of projects and activities, of which the Mersey Basin Campaign has proved the most fulfilling.

Graeme Davies

The Mersey Basin Campaign

Planning in practice

Walter Menzies Sue Kidd

Mersey Basin Campaign

• Set up in 1985 by Michael Heseltine after the Toxteth riots of 1981, to run for 25 years.

• Civic Design’s involvement began in 1991 when we took on a commission to prepare a strategic framework for the Mersey Estuary. Five staff and nineteen MCD students worked on the plan over a four-year period.

• My own involvement has continued throughout the last 24 years, including a six year stint as independent Chairman of the Campaign, appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister.

“Today the river is an affront to the standards a civilised society should demand of its environment. Untreated sewage, pollutants, noxious discharges all contribute to water conditions and environmental standards that are perhaps the single most deplorable feature of this critical part of England.”

The Problem

Michael Heseltine, 1983

Water Quality in the Mersey Basin 1984

Waterside Dereliction

The Challenge “To rebuild the urban areas of the North West we need to

clean and clear the ravages of the past, to recreate the

opportunities that attracted earlier generations to come and

live there and invest there…

A Mersey Basin restored to a quality of environmental

standards fit for the end of this century will be of

incalculable significance in the creation of new

employment.”

Michael Heseltine,1983

Aims

• to improve river water quality across the Mersey Basin to at least a ‘fair’ standard by 2010 so that all rivers and streams are clean enough to support fish

• to stimulate attractive waterside developments for business, recreation, housing, tourism and heritage

• to encourage people living and working in the Mersey Basin to value and cherish their watercourses and waterfront environments

Mersey Estuary Management Plan

Mersey Estuary Management Plan: Aim

‘…to provide a framework for the management of

the Mersey Estuary within which existing

interests can be safeguarded whilst realising the

full potential of the Estuary as a natural

resource.’ (MEMP 1995)

The Mersey Estuary Management Plan prepared by the Department of Civic Design, 1995

The Strategic Framework

Key Map

My Mersey connections...

Over the last 24 years, I have followed the example set by Graeme Davies and taken on a wide range of leadership roles connected with the River Mersey, including:

• Director, Mersey Estuary Management Plan Study, 1991-95 • Chair of Alt 2000 River Valley Initiative, 1996-2003 • Chair of Mersey Estuary Forum, 1997 to date • Chair of Action Mersey Estuary, 2001-07 • Government-appointed Chair, Mersey Basin Campaign, 2004-10 • Board Member, and subsequently Vice-Chair, Mersey Waterfront

Regional Park, 2003-2011 • Member, Mersey Ask Task Force 2013-14 • Chair, Healthy Waterways Trust, 2004 to date

Two very special things about Civic Design

The Master of Civic Design

• A Liverpool first, introduced by Stephenson in 1950 as a two-year Masters degree and run continuously since then.

• Planning viewed as a multi-disciplinary team effort.

• Opened up planning for social scientists geographers, sociologists, economists.

• In 2004 RTPI revised its education policy, Liverpool response was to create a one-year MCD.

• Jewel in the crown: Spatial Planning in Action, a client-based group project leading to production of a plan.

Spatial Planning in Action

Under Sue Kidd’s leadership, Spatial Planning in Action has developed an enviable reputation, providing:

• excellent practical training in plan-making for students

• a source of stimulating ideas and proposals for outside organisations

Now in its eleventh year, it involves MCD and MPlan students.

Spatial Planning in Action best reflects the professional dimension of planning education at Liverpool.

Sue Kidd

Town Planning Review

1910 1938 1957 1979 1990 2015

Town Planning Review

• A leading international journal since its foundation in 1910.

• Edited throughout in the Department of Civic Design: I have had the privilege of editing the Review over a 25-year period.

• Highly influential in shaping opinion, e.g. Abercrombie’s paper in 1926 that led to founding of CPRE. The TPR helped the Department become a ‘clearing house’ for information about town planning.

• TPR has a proud record and it is vital that Civic Design continues to play a full part in editing it.

• I shall continue to serve as an Editor.

Dave Shaw David Massey Cecilia Wong

Reflections

Politics and diplomacy, don’t rock the boat or perhaps you should!….

• As a young lecturer in Civic Design, I was frequently invited by senior colleagues to join them for a cup of tea which was an opportunity for them to gently warn me not to rock the boat: the Department was just fine and I shouldn’t try to change anything!

• With hindsight I can see they were right in one sense, I was tactless and too direct. Over the years, however, I hope I have learnt a lot about politics and diplomacy and have been trusted to lead organisations where a careful diplomatic approach has been essential. Somewhat perversely, I have even found that I quite enjoy a chairing a challenging meeting with difficult issues to discuss.

Leadership roles over a thirty-year period, inside and outside the University

• Chairman of the Faculty Board, Faculty of Social and Environmental Studies (1985-87)

• Head of Department of Civic Design (1989-97) • Director of the Graduate School of Economic and Social Science (1994-97) • Dean of the Faculty of Social and Environmental Studies (1997-2003) • Head of Department of Economics and Accounting (1999-2000) • Head of Department of Education (2000-01) • Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Planning Schools (1990-96) • World President of the Regional Science Association International (1997-98) • Chairman, RTPI Partnership Board, University of Sheffield (2005-15) • Chairman, RTPI Partnership Board, Queen’s University, Belfast (2007-14) • Chairman, Mersey Basin Campaign (2004-10) • Chairman, Governing Body, Merchant Taylors’ Schools (2011 to date) • Director of the ESRC North West Doctoral Training Centre (Liverpool, Lancaster

and Manchester) (2011-15)

The planning practitioner in 1975

• A positive ethos of what planning can and should achieve • A strong commitment to pursuing this by working in a local authority planning

department, in the ‘public interest’ • Planning had ‘standing’ and this was reflected in the 1974 local government

reorganisation • May have a degree in planning, or may have spent several years becoming

qualified via the RTPI’s examinations • In a large authority, quite likely to be shielded from politicians and the general

public • Working in a department in which original thinking is encouraged and where ideas

can be initiated, discussed and promoted, rather than a constant need to respond to schemes and funding opportunities emanating from central government

• A place for specialist expertise within the planning team, making the local authority relatively self-sufficient and not simply project managing the work of others

• Job mobility: many planners changed local authority every two-three years and it was quite common to move around the country

The RTPI Centenary Dinner, Hilton Hotel, Manchester, 3rd October 2014 An almost exclusively private sector event, with a badly-chosen after-dinner speaker

The planning academic in 1975

• Recruited from practice • Probably no research degree or research training • No PhD students • No grant funding for research • An expectation of consultancy work, some of it for the university itself, to

supplement income • Not trained in teaching • No internet or email • Despite good intentions, few publications • Parochial existence: limited network of academic contacts both within and outside

planning • Shortage of role models • No refereeing of papers for journals • Conference attendance funded from a (competitive) central university budget • An undemanding summer vacation

The quest to find the right structure and working environment within the University • The experience of the ESRC North West Doctoral Training Centre • The social sciences at Liverpool, split three ways between faculties – perhaps the

new Doctoral College will help • The School of Environmental Sciences: a brave experiment but very limited in what

it can ever be expected to achieve • The growth of professional services has created a situation where academics have

a much smaller role in running the University; professional services can all too easily develop a life of their own, protecting their own interests and focusing too strongly on ‘process’

• Too many layers of administration and a lack of resource at the ‘discipline’ level • The importance of professional education, but a lack of appreciation of what it

means, and the RTPI, in some senses, contributing to the problem • Don’t under-estimate the value of a strong brand – Civic Design - and take note of

what the rest of the world tells us – don’t throw it away and become just like the rest

• Not a lot of common ground with Geography – much better to re-kindle the links with Architecture