What should we make of the claims of internal divisions within the Urban Task Force as it prepares to issue its progress report on Prescott and Miliband’s communities plan?

The task force’s idealism, as captured in its wonderfully cogent and visionary final report of 1999, has since been polluted by experience as planners, developers and architects have struggled to implement many of its principles. The consequent waning in its influence over the government’s built environment policy has been deflating for architects, whose interests the task force tended to serve.

For some time now, Richard Rogers and company have been moving further and further from power. A source close to Prescott last week told me the deputy prime minister was infuriated with his former urban tsar’s continued criticism of the communities plan. What is interesting about the latest leaks from the task force is that they reflect a difference in beliefs that is dividing urban policy dangerously in the UK. You’ve heard it before, but the question remains: is it better to build densely on sites in existing settlements or expand our towns and cities?

So far the planner Peter Hall has claimed a victory in persuading his task force colleagues to drop their calls to scale back the growth areas in the South-east. Now he is trying to reject the idea of raising brownfield development targets to 75%, up from the current 60%.

But in 2005, the debate is no longer ideological. It is instead informed by the experience of planners, architects and developers trying to deliver high-density development. In recent weeks, plans for the rebuilding of the Aylesbury estate have raised local hackles because the density is too high. The residents risk living in “rabbit hutches”, says one on pg 5 this week.

Developers, particularly in areas of relatively low land values, continue to resist high density on brownfield land as it increases development costs. Why? You have to pay an architect. On the other hand, the communities plan so far leaves a lot to be desired. There is a lack of infrastructure investment and proper masterplanning.

It will be a masterpiece of thinking that can tackle both problems at once. The task force changed the direction of urban policy before. It remains to be seen whether it can do it again when the government is older, wiser and perhaps less idealistic. Good luck to it.