Planning and Localism

What can social capital tell us?

Outline• Understanding of the

fundamentals of localism and planning

• How social capital might help us better understand the likely outcomes– Will people get involved?– Will it foster NIMBYism– What happens next – or can

action occur?

The Debate – framing localism“Ostensibly, the core objective of the “Big Society” agenda is to support altruistic communities and active citizens so that they can supplant failing government services that reinforce welfare dependency and incivility in “Broken Britain”

Jacobs (2014), pp25-26

The Debate – framing planning“The Government is committed to ensuring that the planning system does everything it can to support economic growth. Planning should operate to encourage and not act as an impediment to sustainable growth. Therefore significant weight should be placed on the need to support economic growth through the planning system”

DCLG 2012 p.6

‘Powers’ under Localism • Neighbourhood Plans– Allow neighbourhoods to

plan for the type of development they wish to see on land within their area.

• Neighbourhood Development Orders– Allow neighbourhoods to

permit (full or outline) this development without the need for planning permission

Three questions for NP based around the idea of social capital

– Will communities get involved with NP?– Will these plans be NIMBYist in nature?– Will plans engender action?

Will communities get involved?• A longstanding problem in

planning• Charrettes, citizen’s juries,

hand’s-on planning – successful but costly and small reach

• Question – how do ‘publics’ get constituted in planning?• Are they simply the usual

suspects?• Evidence of the Coalition

viewing actors as homo-economicus (Matthews et al 2015) who require economic incentives to act.

Why is it hard to involve communities?• Collective action problem –

that is the costs of participation outweigh the benefits (free-riding)

• Social capital would tell us that by creating bonds in communities could help overcome

• BUT this raises its own set of problems – • Huge time costs may still

outweigh benefits or attract narrow groups

• May breed a ‘dark’ or insular community

• May create a focus only on the local – bonding not bridging

Take up of Neighbourhood Planning• 1.400 Communities have

applied for an area to be designated

• 68 have been formally adopted

• Average voter turnout 33%• Average yes vote 88%

Eric Pickles – Written Statement to Parliament 26 march 2015

Will these plans be Nimbyist in nature?

• Will NPs simply become a charter for NIMBYism?• Bonding SC might indicate

yes• Some early scholarship also

suggests that for housing this could very well be the case as it may be particularly susceptible to middle-class activism (Matthews, et al 2015)

• Author’s like Aldrich (2008) actually found companies searched for areas with low indicators of civil society when siting LULUs

• Real danger of bonding at the expense of bridging or linking SC – duty to cooperate

The story of planning deliver – will NPs engender action?

• In order to maintain interest plans need to be action oriented and deliverable – not simply stories and aspirations.

• Action will require development partners who are willing to bring the community’s vision forward• Communities therefore will

need to build a variety of very specific types of ties in a very targeted way (Bracing SC).

Conclusions

•