IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/loceco/v29y2014i3p245-256.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Empty gestures? A review of the discourses of ‘localism’ from the practitioner’s perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Carol Ludwig
  • Gregory Ludwig

Abstract

Little has been written from the practitioner’s perspective about the discourses of localism permeating local planning practice. Even less has been written about the tangible local economic outputs of such planning initiatives legislated through the Localism Act (House of Commons, 2011). As such, this paper fills a gap by reviewing the practicalities of the neighbourhood development plan (NDP) process; a localism tool heralded as a mechanism to allow local communities to choose where they want new homes, shops and offices to be built. Reflecting on the 858 NDPs currently underway across England and Wales, the real drivers, practicalities and implications of this new policy layer are critically analysed from the practitioner’s perspective. The paper concludes that behind the rhetoric of the neighbourhood planning discourse is a covert political objective of enabling local economic development by facilitating private sector-led growth (through ensuring fewer local objections to development proposals and more planning approvals). However, quite the opposite, the paper reveals a dangerously misplaced emphasis on empowering localities through NDPs. This is because in reality experimental NDPs have a limited and uneven scope and at times may be inflammatory, increasing anti-development sentiments. Instead, it is proposed that an adjusted policy focus is adopted which facilitates genuine community engagement with the local development planning process.

Suggested Citation

  • Carol Ludwig & Gregory Ludwig, 2014. "Empty gestures? A review of the discourses of ‘localism’ from the practitioner’s perspective," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 29(3), pages 245-256, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:29:y:2014:i:3:p:245-256
    DOI: 10.1177/0269094214528774
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269094214528774
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0269094214528774?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Phil Allmendinger & Graham Haughton, 2013. "The Evolution and Trajectories of English Spatial Governance: 'Neoliberal' Episodes in Planning," Planning Practice & Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 6-26, February.
    2. Graham Haughton & Phil Allmendinger, 2013. "Spatial Planning and the New Localism," Planning Practice & Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 1-5, February.
    3. Laurence Ferry & Peter Eckersley, 2012. "Budgeting and governing for deficit reduction in the UK public sector: act 2 ‘the annual budget’," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 119-126, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sykes Olivier & Ludwig Carol, 2015. "Defining And Managing The Historic Urban Landscape: Reflections On The English Experience And Some Stories From Liverpool," European Spatial Research and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 22(2), pages 9-35, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katherine Brookfield, 2017. "Getting involved in plan-making: Participation in neighbourhood planning in England," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(3), pages 397-416, May.
    2. Mace, Alan & Holman, Nancy & Paccoud, Antoine & Sundaresan, Jayaraj, 2015. "Coordinating density; working through conviction, suspicion and pragmatism," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 56768, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Crystal Legacy & Ryan van den Nouwelant, 2015. "Negotiating Strategic Planning's Transitional Spaces: The Case of ‘Guerrilla Governance’ in Infrastructure Planning," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(1), pages 209-226, January.
    4. Andy Inch & Richard Dunning & Aidan While & Hannah Hickman & Sarah Payne, 2020. "‘The object is to change the heart and soul’: Financial incentives, planning and opposition to new housebuilding in England," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(4), pages 713-732, June.
    5. Laurence Ferry & Peter Eckersley, 2015. "Budgeting and governing for deficit reduction in the UK public sector: act three 'accountability and audit arrangements'," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 203-210, May.
    6. Andy Inch, 2018. "‘Opening for business’? Neoliberalism and the cultural politics of modernising planning in Scotland," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(5), pages 1076-1092, April.
    7. Kristian Olesen & Helen Carter, 2018. "Planning as a barrier for growth: Analysing storylines on the reform of the Danish Planning Act," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(4), pages 689-707, June.
    8. Niedziałkowski, Krzysztof & Beunen, Raoul, 2019. "The risky business of planning reform – The evolution of local spatial planning in Poland," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 11-20.
    9. Graham Haughton & Phil Allmendinger, 2016. "Think tanks and the pressures for planning reform in England," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1676-1692, December.
    10. Phil Allmendinger & Graham Haughton & Edward Shepherd, 2016. "Where is planning to be found? Material practices and the multiple spaces of planning," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(1), pages 38-51, February.
    11. Andy Yuille, 2020. "Performing legitimacy in neighbourhood planning: Conflicting identities and hybrid governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(7-8), pages 1367-1385, November.
    12. Talia Margalit & Nurit Alfasi, 2016. "The undercurrents of entrepreneurial development: Impressions from a globalizing city," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(10), pages 1967-1987, October.
    13. Nancy Holman & Alessandra Mossa & Erica Pani, 2018. "Planning, value(s) and the market: An analytic for “what comes next?â€," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(3), pages 608-626, May.
    14. Anja Jørgensen & Mia Arp Fallov & Maria Casado-Diaz & Rob Atkinson, 2020. "Rural Cohesion: Collective Efficacy and Leadership in the Territorial Governance of Inclusion," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 229-241.
    15. Sarah LJ Longlands, 2013. "Growing nowhere: Privileging economic growth in planning policy," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 28(7-8), pages 894-905, November.
    16. Sarah Ayres & Graham Pearce, 2013. "A Whitehall perspective on decentralisation in England’s emerging territories," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 28(7-8), pages 801-816, November.
    17. Kristian Olesen, 2020. "Infrastructure imaginaries: The politics of light rail projects in the age of neoliberalism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(9), pages 1811-1826, July.
    18. Phil Allmendinger & Graham Haughton, 2013. "Revisiting … Spatial Planning, Devolution, and New Planning Spaces," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 31(6), pages 953-957, December.
    19. Graham Haughton & Philip Allmendinger, 2015. "Fluid Spatial Imaginaries: Evolving Estuarial City-regional Spaces," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 857-873, September.
    20. Sara Maestre-Andrés & Laura Calvet-Mir & Evangelia Apostolopoulou, 2018. "Unravelling stakeholder participation under conditions of neoliberal biodiversity governance in Catalonia, Spain," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(7), pages 1299-1318, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:29:y:2014:i:3:p:245-256. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/index.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.