This paper begins by reflecting on how the English planning system might achieve the government's policy objective of engaging the public more effectively in both development planning and development control. The vehicle chosen for this purpose was a series of interviews designed to discover and record the views of a sample of senior planning practitioners in management positions in five urban local planning authorities in the Yorkshire and Humber region about the implications of this objective. The focus of this process of enquiry was not on whether the policy objective in its own terms was seen as being right or wrong, although in fact our senior practitioners were strongly supportive of it. Rather, the focus was on what would be involved from their perspectives in trying to turn a central government policy objective into an effective local government reality. Thus, we sought to clarify the starting points of these practitioners and their employing authorities, to identify differences between development plans and development control processes in respect of the objective of extending public engagement, and to understand the key barriers that will need to be overcome. The views of people such as our sample of senior planners about these matters are of particular significance, of course, because, in a very real sense, if the government's policy objective is to be achieved, this will largely be as a consequence of the work of people such as those we interviewed, rather than of the civil servants in central government who write the broad policy papers.
展开▼
