Ben Clifford

Spatial planning is at a crossroads, with government reform undermining the traditional vision of state-employed planners making decisions about urban development in a unified public interest. Nearly half of UK planners are now employed in the private sector, with complex inter-relations between the sectors including supplying outsourced services to local authorities struggling with centrally-imposed budget cuts. Drawing on new empirical data from a major research project, ‘Working in the Public Interest’, this book reveals what it’s like to be a UK planner in the early 21st century, and how the profession can fulfil its potential for the benefit of society and the environment.

Spatial planning is at a crossroads, with government reform undermining the traditional vision of state-employed planners making decisions about urban development in a unified public interest. Nearly half of UK planners are now employed in the private sector, with complex inter-relations between the sectors including supplying outsourced services to local authorities struggling with centrally-imposed budget cuts. Drawing on new empirical data from a major research project, ‘Working in the Public Interest’, this book reveals what it’s like to be a UK planner in the early 21st century, and how the profession can fulfil its potential for the benefit of society and the environment.

This book provides crucial insight into the fight back against austerity by local authorities through emerging forms of municipal entrepreneurialism in housing delivery. Capturing this moment within its live context, the authors examine the ways that local authorities are moving towards increased financial independence based on their own activities to implement new forms and means of housebuilding activity. They assess these changes in the context of the long-term relationship between local and central government and argue that contemporary local authority housing initiatives represent a critical turning point, whilst also providing new ways of thinking about meting housing need.

In England, it has been possible since 2013 to convert an office building into residential use without needing planning permission (as has been required since 1948). This book explores the consequences of this central government driven deregulation on local communities. The policy decision was primarily about boosting the supply of housing, but reflects a broader neoliberal ideology which seeks to reform public planning in many countries to reduce perceived interference in free markets. Drawing on original research in the English local authorities of Camden, Croydon, Leeds, Leicester and Reading, the book provides a case study of the implementation of planning deregulation which demonstrates the lowering of standards in housing quality, the reduced ability of the local state to proactively steer development and plan for their places, and the transfer of wealth from the public to private spheres that has resulted. Comparative case studies from Glasgow and Rotterdam call into question the very need for the deregulation in the first place.

Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a greater pace of reform to planning in Britain than at any other time. As a public sector activity, planning has also been impacted heavily by the wider changes in the way we are governed. Yet whilst such reform has been extensively commented upon within academia, few have empirically explored how these changes are manifesting themselves in planning practice. This new book aims to understand how both specific planning and broader public sector reforms have been experienced and understood by chartered town planners working in local authorities across Great Britain. After setting out the reform context, successive chapters then map responses across the profession to the implementation of spatial planning, to targets, to public participation and to the idea of a 'customer-focused' planning, and to attempts to change the culture of the planning. Each chapter outlines the reaction by the profession to reforms promoted by successive central and devolved governments over the last decade, before considering the broader issues of what this tells us about how modernisation is rolled-out by frontline public servants. This accessible book fills a gap in the market and makes ideal reading for students and researchers interested in the UK planning system.

Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a greater pace of reform to planning in Britain than at any other time. As a public sector activity, planning has also been impacted heavily by the wider changes in the way we are governed. Yet whilst such reform has been extensively commented upon within academia, few have empirically explored how these changes are manifesting themselves in planning practice. This new book aims to understand how both specific planning and broader public sector reforms have been experienced and understood by chartered town planners working in local authorities across Great Britain. After setting out the reform context, successive chapters then map responses across the profession to the implementation of spatial planning, to targets, to public participation and to the idea of a 'customer-focused' planning, and to attempts to change the culture of the planning. Each chapter outlines the reaction by the profession to reforms promoted by successive central and devolved governments over the last decade, before considering the broader issues of what this tells us about how modernisation is rolled-out by frontline public servants. This accessible book fills a gap in the market and makes ideal reading for students and researchers interested in the UK planning system.