Re-imagining neighbourhood governance: the future of neighbourhood planning in England

Abstract

Neighbourhood planning is arguably the most radical innovation in UK local governance in a generation, with over 2,200 communities in England now involved in statutory development planning at the neighbourhood level. Following incremental policy reforms, we argue that neighbourhood planning has reached a critical juncture where the future of the initiative is at stake. In this paper we reflect on existing research to assess the policy to date before imagining what an optimised version of the policy might look like. Despite being a state-led initiative, central government has failed to provide an image of success for neighbourhood planning which we argue has held back widespread innovation and progressive participation. We therefore outline a normative guide against which future iterations of neighbourhood planning might be assessed, and employ this in order to imagine a more comprehensive form of neighbourhood governance.

London governance and the politics of neighbourhood planning: a case for investigation

“…Later follow-up analysis of the User Experience survey and other research has noted the absence of explicit criteria for success. An agenda for improving policy and practice for neighbourhood planning, 're-imagined' has been produced, which suggests better 'co-production' by the community with the local council (Wargent and Parker 2018).…”

Collaborative governance towards cities sustainability transition

“…This makes collaborative democracy go beyond the boundaries of representative democracy, which makes collaborative governance an important strategy for managing sustainable cities (Challies et al, 2016;Hamilton & Lubell, 2017). Wargent & Parker (2018) emphasize that principles of collaborative governance, based on the role and leadership of citizens, ground the idea of collaborative democracy. In this sense, Bartoletti & Faccioli (2016) argue that democracy must be inclusive, allowing citizens to participate and collaborate.…”

Planning for rural communities and major renewable energy infrastructure

“…Debates on rural governance lend some support to such a move, as they suggest that rural planning ought to err on the side of directly empowering local communities (Dalal-Clayton et al, 2002). Indeed in the UK, a new legitimacy has been given to arguments for local control (Wargent and Parker, 2018) by the introduction of statutory neighbourhood planning in England by the Localism Act (TSO, 2011). Nonetheless, rural planning scholars argue that 'despite an apparent localisation of rural policy delivery, the design of policy -and the framing of its delivery -is occurring at numerous levels and within a variety of different bodies above the point of delivery' (Gallent et al, 2015: 55).…”