Relationship between Cohesion Policy, spatial planning systems and territorial

The impact of CP on the development of transport networks can be evaluated positively, particularly at the macro-scale. Although funds were gained for the implementation of many projects, the inertia in the implementation of system solutions has remained. CP promotes the development of large transnational projects, while regional and local level networks remain member-state priorities.

The approach towards CP investments in transport infrastructure in the new accession countries was often reactive. It was necessary to create new instruments for spending EU funds. These were endorsed, but they were based on existing funding capability rather than long-term spatial development needs. The special road and railway acts in Poland have accelerated investments, but have at the same time contributed to a reduced significance of the local plan when it comes to the determining of the final courses of new routes. Such a pattern results in conflicts, especially of a social background. Typical NIMBY effects have been observed on a regular basis. Residents' associations question environmental decisions, most often by seeking out minor errors of a formal nature. On the other hand, the most significant positive impact of CP on the process of spatial planning in the new accession countries that experts point to involves the development of both consultation and mediation procedures.

The role of the planning system as a barrier to the efficient implementation of CP transport projects was most evident in urbanised areas, especially those in the vicinity of major cities.

The suburbanisation process has had a direct impact in making the implementation of transport projects more difficult. A significant constraint on the implementation of transport (particularly public transport) projects has concerned difficulties with cooperation between municipalities of a metropolitan area or even between FUAs around medium-sized cities.

Certainly a desired solution enforcing such cooperation has been the Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) system applied in the current programming period. In Poland, some regional authorities have allocated additional funds for Regional Territorial Investment (RTI), within the Regional Operational Programme operating around the Voivodeship sub-regional centres.

This could be considered good practice (see Chapter 8 on Good practices).

In the case of new developments of more minor scale, including those located more peripherally, project selection often seems to give rise to doubts. For example, funds allocated to the modernisation of regional roads and railways were sometimes over-dispersed (as the result of some kind of egalitarianism whereby each part of a province deserves to receive some investment).

In the countries of EU-15, the issue of transport and accessibility includes the most evident relationship between EU policy and spatial planning and territorial governance, in the way that actors may apply for EU co-funding within the TEN-T programme, or through other EU programmes, rather than by influencing spatial planning systems or territorial governance in general. These programmes and co-funding are useful, and facilitate the implementation of certain infrastructure projects. In this context, the mechanism of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) emerged as particularly crucial. On the other hand, EU CP does not really have a bearing on decisionmaking at local level, although its significant role in ‘getting projects off the ground” was acknowledged. In countries with a well-established local (land-use) planning position and tradition, it is not possible to modify transport investments from the European level.

To conclude, it can be assumed that, in the Western European countries, the role of CP in the development of transport and the improvement of spatial accessibility is limited to specific investments within the TEN-T network. At the same time, these investments are implemented as part of local planning systems, which might in some cases suggest a negative impact on the flexibility of solutions at the local scale. In the countries where CP is being implemented its impact is considerable. As the territorial planning and management system is not always prepared for investment on such a large scale, changes are required as the dedicated solutions are introduced. A further problem lies in cooperation between individual entities (including units of local government), which is indispensable in linear investments as well as in the development of public transport. Dispersion of competence in the area of development and the maintenance of transport infrastructure, as well as the functioning of public transport (including in cross-border areas) could be regarded as a pan-European problem.

6.3 Recommendations

The results of the case studies dedicated to the thematic issue of transport infrastructure and accessibility sustain the formulation of the following recommendations:

• Multi-level governance becomes a prime concern in the transport thematic issue.

Horizontal coordination between and within regions is also important, since regional authorities usually have different responsibilities and mandates for the planning and provision of infrastructure. This policy domain is characterised by parallel government arrangements, such as negotiation procedures between the state and local governments, which need to be adapted and related to the formal, and hierarchical, spatial planning system. Transport infrastructure should be seen as a tool for spatial planning and as a sectoral policy, in which spatial planning can be integrated and coordinated with other sectoral policies such as housing.

• Greater integration of transport policy with spatial planning systems is desirable.

Transport policy must take a broader spectrum of territorially-oriented objectives into account. This should not be only to satisfy the increased transport demand of people and goods. In CEECs, the special solutions introduced during the ‘investment boom’

should be gradually integrated with the spatial planning system.

• The introduction of the CEF mechanism should be assessed positively, and its maintenance seems advisable. Concurrently, projects implemented as part of the TEN-T network ought to be assessed from the point of view of their integration with regional and local transport systems. For example, local plans should be assessed in terms of their preparedness for the ‘adoption’ of a large investment.

• Integration of investments at different levels – with special support for co-operating units, further development of IDI and RTI instruments – ought to be a particularly significant criterion when it comes to the selection of future transport projects.

• Access to CP support for major transport projects in metropolises must be flexible. This applies both to the criteria of profitable units (cities with high nominal GDP per capita may not be able to pursue large investments themselves, especially in public transport), as well as rigorous preferences only for specific modes of transport (intermodal solutions are often the only ones that can increase the system's efficiency).

• When transport and accessibility projects are involved, national planning investment agencies should plan the necessary requirements for inter-modal connections in advance of contruction approval. This would reduce delays in the delivery of projects due to planning constraints.

7 Natural and cultural heritage

7.1 Matters arising from the thematic issues

Areas with valuable bio- and geo-diversity resources, with valuable landscapes, and especially those with rich cultural heritage, tend to restrict development to protect their assets.

In the analysed regions these valuable features are perceived as an important factor underpinning regional and local development, which constitutes an endogenous potential for development. However, although these areas attract tourism, they fail to generate an adequate number of permanent employment opportunities, and they are frequently affected by depopulation. To improve, they require strategic interventions and external funding, including cohesion funding that meets criteria for sustainable development.

Generally, combining management over natural and cultural heritage poses certain difficulties due to the fact that these two fields are most often separate in terms of policy and legislation.

When subjective scope (excluding spatial planning) is concerned, relevant legal regulations are divergent and usually dispersed.

Opportunities to integrate the protection of natural and cultural heritage, as well as the use of valuable assets and resources for sustainable development, revolve around elements as spatial planning and, to varying degrees, government and local-government policies contained in general documents (i.e. concepts, strategies and development programmes).

Political documents and planning instruments underline the significance of valuable natural, landscape and cultural features, and also – with a given level of governance and planning – define areas for further protection, and provide other recommendations and regulations.

Statutory and non-statutory documents and instruments perform discursive and coordinating functions in the process of governance and spatial planning. The latter play a vital role in the case of natural regions whose range is not convergent with administrative boundaries.

The role of spatial planning systems and territorial governance in the management of natural and cultural heritage has a strategic and regulatory character. However, it varies greatly in relation to a given issue and policy conducted by a given country, region or local authority.

In country or regional cross-border areas, problems sometimes arise out of divergent protection and development policies, inter alia manifested in a lack of well-coordinated policies and programmes of action, with a lack of compatible procedures of protection on the two sides of the boundary.

Difficulties with spatial planning are sometimes associated with securing satisfactory access to valuable natural or cultural heritage areas, especially if these are located peripherally, as well as with their development. Most spatial conflicts are generated by new transport developments that cut through valuable ecosystems and ecological corridors, or with the development of accommodation facilities and holiday/second homes in attractive areas, as

coastal and lakeside zones, or land bordering forests. Another problem is the fragmentation of ecological corridors and landscape by the ever-increasing pressure on the environment.

The regional and local levels are reported as the most important in issues of natural and cultural heritage (Table 7.1) in the process of territorial governance and spatial planning. In Hungary and Poland, the central level was estimated of lesser importance, perhaps due to the loosening of previous rigorous regulations for the protection of natural and cultural heritage.

For instance, legal regulations adjusted to EU requirements in respect of established Natura 2000 network sites softened the rigorous protection approach of many areas, what was also reflected in spatial planning. Under the Polish system of governance, many competences were transferred from the central level to the regional or municipal levels. Its is difficult to have a precise evaluation of the importance of a given level, due to varying approaches to a given issue.

Table 7.1. The assessed importance of issues of natural and cultural heritage, along with the impact of Cohesion Policy

Country National Regional Local

Level of

7.2 Relationship between Cohesion Policy, spatial planning systems and territorial governance in practice

Evaluation of the relationship between CP, spatial planning systems and territorial governance is difficult given the complexity of the problems involved. In general, CP supports actions to protect the natural and cultural heritage for achieving sustainable development. CP supports local development in areas of valuable environmental, landscape and cultural heritage, including peripheral areas affected by depopulation processes; ;areas struggling with unemployment; areas whose development is involved with the Natura 2000 network; and areas of special protection at national and cross-border levels.

Analysis of the protection of the natural and cultural heritage in Podlaskie region (Poland) and in Baranya county (Hungary) indicates that the support activities within the framework of CP are often not systematic, but rather isolated and dispersed, and without spatial coordination.

These problems are also valid in the agri-environmental programmes of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Another issue is the neglected protection of landscapes surrounding historical sites. Remarkably, there is support for regional products, but absence of assistance for regional development.

In the case of Sweden, the role of spatial planning systems and territorial governance in protecting natural and cultural heritage was considered more significant than in other studied countries. The most important matter concerns appropriate control over the national interest in municipal planning, a high priority goal in the Östergötland region and the whole Sweden.

High importance is attached in municipalities to the coordination of the regional development programme for regional transport plans and spatial planning. Attention is also paid to conflict management to reduce potential conflicts between development and protection.

Other important issues are associated with varying degrees of cohesion, primarily between Operational Programmes and instruments of spatial planning. For instance, in Poland, recommendations regarding protection plans drawn up for Natura 2000 sites are not always successfully integrated with municipalities’ policies and plans. The weakness is the so-called planning protection of areas with highly-valuable nature, culture and landscape.

Summarising, in practical terms, it is possible view CP relating more to Operational Programmes than to spatial planning in matters of natural and cultural heritage. In contrast, OPs per se are generally related to regional policy, albeit to varying degrees.

7.3 Recommendations

• Areas with valuable resources of biodiversity, landscape or cultural heritage attract tourism, but usually fails to generate enough employment, or conditions conducive to local and regional development. They need to be approached in a special and strategic way, and to get external (CP) funding to support development and stimulating economic activity.

• In matters of natural and cultural heritage, CP, spatial planning systems and territorial governance should carry oot a coordinated, integrated and systemic approach; devising innovative management mechanisms. Such valuable areas could receive a specified part of CP support as ‘natural-cultural RIT (Regional Territorial Investments)’.

• The essential issue is the effective utilisation of spatial planning systems at all levels, as instrument for the integration of policies on natural and cultural heritage, and for better integration with CP.

• It is particularly important to increase cohesion between operational documents and spatial planning instruments, to improve cohesion of spatial planning with CP. Better cohesion should deal with general development programmes plans for transport, with spatial planning in municipalities, and with special attention to the reduction of potential conflicts between development and protection.

• Since the EU financial support to cultural heritage is often dispersed in isolated actions, it is indispensable to systematise the actions. For example, support for regional products should combine with support for the region in question; facility-oriented protection should be connected with landscape protection; and protection of the cultural landscape in conjunction with local development and environmental protection. The protection of natural heritage and valuable ecosystems should be protected entirely, via ecological corridors, areas whose development is protected by Natura 2000, unique and vulnerable ecosystems, and cross-border areas of high natural value.

• It is crucial to secure national interests in regional and local planning, and primarily in plans of a regulatory character.

• A partial strengthening of the law for the imposition of stricter regulations for protective purposes is desirable, in front of the trends of looser requirements vis-a-vis the protection of biological diversity and cultural heritage demand

• Broader involvement of citizens and stakeholders in the process of planning may help to manage conflicts between spatial development and the protection of natural, cultural and landscape heritage, with a view to ecological corridors and valuable ecosystems being safeguarded against fragmentation, as well as (in a broader perspective), against excessive tourism-related and recreational developments.

• More effective use of agri-environmental programmes to protect highly-valuable ecosystems requires the development of systemic mechanisms to support the protection of entire ecosystems, instead of isolated fragments. One possibility entails associations of farmers from given areas. The extension of coverage of hydrogenic habitats under agri-environmental programmes is recommended, including areas beyond Natura 2000.

• In the long-term, it is desirable to reduce the dependence from EU funds of actions towards these thematic issues.

8 Good practices