A number of you may be interested in participating in this session. The usual apologies for cross-posting apply.
Call for Papers: RGS-IBG international conference London 26-29 August 2014
Session title: Neighbourhood
Planning in England: the contested politics of localism and co-production
Sponsored by the Planning
& Environment Research Group
Session convenors:
Dr Sue Brownill, Oxford Brookes
University. Email: [log in to unmask]
Dr Quintin Bradley, Leeds
Metropolitan University. Email: [log in to unmask]
This session will explore the contested politics of Neighbourhood
Development Plans (NDPs), one of a raft of measures introduced under the
Localism Act (2011) in England. With over 800 Neighbourhood Development Plans
underway, and several already approved by popular referenda, the initiative is
promoted as devolving power to communities and enabling popular engagement in
local decisions, thereby bridging the divide between participatory and
representative democracy, harmonising
the competing priorities of the strategic and very local, and improving
relationships between local authorities and local people.
As such the emerging experience of NDPs in England and
similar initiatives in other countries speak to some key debates in geography
and planning which this session seeks to address. These include:
- The contradictory meanings,
uses and propositions of localism; as Cochrane and Clarke, 2013 and
Featherstone et al 2012 argue there are a variety of rationales, meanings
and claims behind localism in general and the form of localism which is
emerging within England in particular. Work on NDPs has already revealed
the value of exploring empirically how these play out in practice and the
session will add to those studies.
- The uneven geographies of
localism; much of the controversy surrounding neighbourhood planning has
focused on the uneven distribution of the social and economic capital,
skills and capacities needed to share in the apparent freedoms of localism
. Lowndes and Pratchett 2012 argue that neighbourhoods will either sink or
swim in the tides of localism, however there is also value in exploring
the potential for how a variety of ‘localisms’ are emerging ( or are being
assembled) and how NDPs, particularly those in urban neighbourhoods may
impact on inequalities of power and resources.
- Governance and
topographies of power; localism represents the latest in a a long line of
initiatives aimed at changing the relationship between the state and its
citizens through the political construction of place and
neighbourhood. Debates over the
extent to which this represents the ‘soft places of neoliberalism’ (Houghton
and Allemendinger, 2013) or the emergence of a non-scalar topography of power
(Allan and Cochrane 2010) can be addressed through the study of
neighbourhood planning.
- The potential for a
progressive localism; the session will explore whether or not within the
technologies and infrastructure of localism as they are emerging through
NDPs and related community rights, more progressive forms are emerging.
This will draw on experiences from other countries within the UK, and
wider and will include exploring
the role of neighbourhood planning in encouraging co-production and
broadening knowledge of, or interest in planning decisions
Papers for this session are invited on aspects of
neighbourhood planning that address these broader debates. The convenors welcome
either conceptual or empirically focused papers on the impact of neighbourhood
planning on planning, the environment and the politics of governance and are
keen to extend enquiry beyond England/UK.
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words, plus title
and author details to Quintin Bradley ([log in to unmask])
and Sue Brownill ([log in to unmask]) by 14
February 2014
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
Dr Sue Brownill
Reader in Urban Policy and Governance
Department of Planning
Oxford Brookes University
Gipsy Lane
Oxford OX3 0BP
Tel ++44 (0) 1865 483877
_______________________________________________________