Spatial planning, area action plans and the rural-urban fringe

The rural-urban fringe has been called 'planning's last frontier', and it is a frontier that is now receiving greater attention from policy makers. This is partly a result of ongoing reforms of the planning system—through the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, and potentially through further legislation in 2007 or 2008—and the apparent opportunities that have been created to manage the inherent complexities of these near-urban interstitial landscapes through 'spatial planning'. This may include landscape enhancement and the provision of green infrastructure to meet community needs, which past green belt policy has tended to overlook according to the recent Barker Review of Land-Use Planning. This paper examines how spatial planning delivered at the local level, through area action plans (AAP), provides the potential to carry forward a new set of objectives at the rural-urban fringe, essentially, to reflect the 'multi-functional' nature of the fringe to a greater extent than past land-use planning with its emphasis on policy control. Existing green belt policy has been, for the past 50 years, an expression of this policy control focus. But what potential now exists to do more than merely control and respond to development pressure? Do AAP offer a means of enhancing the rural-urban fringe for the benefit of nearby communities and the wider environment? Can they 'bridge the gap' between the ideas of spatial planning and the need for transformative and integrative projects on the ground? These questions are asked in the context of a recent project at St Helens, in the north of England, which has aimed to carry forward a more holistic approach to the planning and management of the rural-urban fringe through area action planning rolled out by a local strategic partnership of public and private bodies.