I comment more in sorrow than anger after a particularly bruising experience of failed partnership working this week.For 10 years Luton Borough Council and what was then South Beds DC & Bedfordshire County Council developed a Core Strategy for the South of the County. From 2009 the new Unitary of Central Beds picked up the work & developed the relationship with it's neighbour Luton.The Core Strategy had reached a point where it was to go before an Inspector later this year - it contained key and critical planning guidance, identified where housing growth was to go, promoted mission critical infrastructure and outlined how the local economy was to grow.The parts of Bedfordshire outside Luton had kind of accepted that there would need to be housing growth beyond Luton's borders & a significant Rubicon had been crossed in terms of sharing the pain of housing growth.But right at the last moment the Labour Group in Luton met & after a very acrimonious debate voted to pull out & write to the Secretary of State seeking permission to collapse the Core Strategy & effectively write off 10 years work & over £5 million of costs.Central Beds will seek to adopt parts of the Core Strategy in any case - but the key point is the around the perils of joint working & establishing firm political foundations as a project of this nature proceeds.I fear Luton will pay a heavy price for collapsing this planning framework & sincerely hope that where blame is to be apportioned it is those politicians whose narrow minded, self serving approach has done huge damage to the principle of joint working in this area.The wider lessons here need to be learnt - it's not the first time a major partnership project has failed, nor will it be the last, but I know that there is some learning that can be taken from this sorry saga.
