This paper looks at how the term 'sustainable development' has been used in the process of regional plan making over the past decade. It emphasizes the differing geographies of these debates within England, in terms of how sustainable development has been used to justify different types of approach in different parts of the country. Both drawing on and challenging recent work on state theory, the paper argues the need to see regional planning as a part of a multi-scalar governance system, whose importance should not be underestimated.
The new regional governance arrangements for England are raising profound challenges for the integration of planning, sustainable-development, and economic-development strategies. The authors examine how tensions are emerging in respect of efforts to provide employment sites for large-scale inward investments, using the contrasting experiences of the South East and North East of England during the period 1997–2001. Some major ideological faultlines between national control over plan making and regional aspirations to devise distinctive approaches to planning for regional development are revealed.
This paper explores attempts to operationalize some themes and principles of sustainable developmentin five UK structure plans which performed best in an overview of current practice (Counsell, 1998). Following a summary of literature, the approaches to sustainable development in the five plans-Avon, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, and West Sussex-are described. The plans are then used to explore the operationalization of a range of resource protection (environmental capacity, environmental capital and the precautionary principle) and socio-economic (social equity, policy integration and participation) themes. It is concluded that the planning system probably provides greater scope for accommodating the resource protection than the socio-economic themes, which are likely to present a considerable challenge in making sustainable development operational in planning.
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