Neighbourhood Planning: Communities, Networks and Governance

Description

Neighbourhood planning offers a critical analysis of community-based planning activity in England, framed within a broader view of collaborative rationality and its limits. From the recent experience of drawing up parish plans, and attempts to connect these to formal policy frameworks, it identifies lessons for future planning at the neighbourhood scale. It is not a manual on community planning practice, nor does it provide a formula for producing parish or neighbourhood plans. But in the context of the latest 'localism' agenda in England it, first, examines the potential contribution of neighbourhood planning to building a 'collaborative democracy' and, second, asks how much movement towards genuine local partnership, and consensus around development decisions, can be achieved through the rescaling of 'statutory' planning as opposed to expending greater effort locally on building stronger relationships, and generating trust, between 'people and planning'

Nick Gallent is Professor of Housing and Planning and Head of the Bartlett School of Planning at University College London. Steve Robinson is Senior Planning Officer at Allerdale District Council and is currently completing doctoral research into rural gentrification and community change at the Bartlett School of Planning.

"The Government has shaken up the planning system and wants to hand more power to local people through new 'Neighbourhood Plans'. Providing a critical analysis of community-based planning in England, Professor Gallent's book' could not be timelier." Kate Henderson, Chief Executive, Town and Country Planning Association "This book should be required reading for all those in central and local government who have an interest in promoting local democracy and ensuring that local communities are fully engaged in a more devolved planning system." Urban Studies journal "This book challenges the rhetoric and megaphone debate that surrounds localism. It is essential reading for anyone who wants a critical understanding of the background and issues posed by the new planning system." Professor Vincent Goodstadt, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, UK "...a major advance in the development of collaborative planning that combines erudite scholarship with a pragmatic appraisal of the role communities can play in helping to shape their own localities..." Professor Stephen Owen, Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, UK