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Eleven - Localism, neighbourhood planning and community control: the MapLocal pilot
- Edited by Dave O'Brien, University of Edinburgh, Peter Matthews, University of Stirling
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- Book:
- After Urban Regeneration
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 11 November 2015, pp 165-180
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Summary
Introduction
In this chapter, we examine a contradiction in contemporary regeneration between a discourse of putting communities in control and creating policy instruments that disempower the poorest. Our focus is the Neighbourhood Plan, introduced as part of the Localism Act 2011, which epitomises this contradiction. The localism agenda apparently offers greater choice to communities, but, in practice, this new approach to the redevelopment of neighbourhoods requires expertise, organisational capacity and finance in a way that favours already well-resourced communities. Thus, the rhetoric of community empowerment within this new policy landscape has done little to overcome the mechanisms by which the middle classes have historically taken disproportionate benefit from public services (Matthews and Hastings, 2013).
MapLocal, the project described here, was an attempt to tip the scales back slightly by providing a tool for communities to begin the process of neighbourhood planning. The tool was limited to tackling the first stage of a plan-making process: gathering community intelligence about issues facing the neighbourhood and making suggestions for change. In doing so, we placed community knowledges at the forefront of a plan-making process, though with the important caveat that such knowledges and aspirations need to be analysed and mediated, both within a community and with expert knowledges from outside. This, arguably, requires a much greater degree of state involvement than is permitted within the current neoliberal discourse that dominates planning policy.
After assessing the potential that MapLocal offers to improve the neighbourhood planning process, we critically assess the issues with devolving decision-making to neighbourhoods. We conclude that neighbourhood planning does offer some real opportunities for developing democratic discourse at the neighbourhood scale. Nonetheless, this potential is unrealised and the policy offers a sop to middle-class NIMBYism while doing little to enable more deprived communities to shape changes and see improvements to the areas in which they live.
The ‘failure’ of community regeneration and the rise of localism
The New Labour period (1997–2010) saw a return to building in city centres at a scale not seen since the post-war reconstruction, characterised by shiny, high-density complexes of well-appointed, if rather small, apartments. Distinct from flagship projects in city cores, however, a plethora of policies were focused on community renewal, attempting to help struggling neighbourhoods via a combination of social, economic and infrastructure investments.
Using technology to help communities shout louder
- Catherine Durose, University of Birmingham, Liz Richardson, University of Manchester
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- Book:
- Designing Public Policy for Co-production
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 11 November 2015, pp 141-148
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Summary
This contribution from an interdisciplinary team of academics offers an attempt to support communities in ‘shouting a little louder’ within policy making. It models its own aspiration in reflecting the importance of bringing together different forms of expertise: in planning, interface design, engaging communities. The contribution focuses on the development of an app, MapLocal, which aims to draw in the local knowledge of people who may not usually get involved in neighbourhood planning. The app provides a tool for mapping community assets and contributing to planning by tapping into the fine-grained understanding of a place, which comes from living there, but also providing a way of generating and harnessing community creativity and imagination. MapLocal is an example of the potential of such spatial and visualisation tools to shift the parameters, power and potentialities of policy by enhancing the engagement and interaction of communities for local problem solving.
The UK's coalition government, which came to power in 2010, took a flamethrower to the English planning system. Superficially, the Localism Act, 2011 offers a major transfer of power to communities: you can write a legally binding Neighbourhood Plan and bid to buy community assets or to run community services. The rhetoric is that this enables communities to co-produce their neighbourhoods and shape their own local planning destiny. Looking at the detail of the Act, however, co-production only seems to go so far. Communities can suggest which areas of their neighbourhood should be a priority for development and the kinds of things they would like to see built, but these suggestions have to be in compliance with local and national planning guidance. If they are not, then they cannot be included in a Neighbourhood Plan. Similarly, and perhaps more significantly, communities cannot prohibit types of development in their area. Planning that restricts tall buildings, McMansions, chain coffee shops and so on is simply not possible within the new legal framework. Economic growth is everything and planning is not permitted to act as a ‘constraint’ on this.
Neighbourhood Planning as conceived by the Localism Act, then, allows for co-production of planning so long as communities are happy to co-produce the things that policy makers want.