House of Commons - Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions

Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Written Evidence

Memorandum by Friends of the Earth (LGC 31)

INTRODUCTION

Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland welcomes the opportunity to provide evidence to the House of Commons Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on the effectiveness of Local Authority Consultation. Friends of the Earth is an NGO with over 100,000 individual supporters and local campaigning groups in 200 communities. We are a member of Friends of the Earth International, which has member groups in 68 different countries. Friends of the Earth has worked closely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister over public participation in the planning reform package and has a particular interest in the delivery of planning services at the regional and local level. Our memorandum also reflects the wide ranging experience of our local group network who regularly engage with Local Authorities.

The Committee's Press Notice sets out a number of questions which explore the effectiveness of Local Authority consultation processes. This memorandum focuses largely on the overarching policy contradictions which underlie the current policy on public involvement. The memorandum is structured in two parts. The first provides a broad summary of our concerns about the Government's contradictory message in relation to public participation, the second provides more detailed evidence and is based on the edited version of an article written by Friends of the Earth's Planning Advisor and published by the Town and Country Planning Association[14].

PART 1

Summary

1.1 Friends of the Earth is committed to a system of local governance which is fair, transparent and democratic for all participants and is founded on democratic accountability and clear citizens rights. We believe this commitment is a vital part in achieving the goals of sustainable development. We are concerned that the Government's fragmented policy on local governance fails to deliver this vision for the following specific reasons:

Localise or Centralise?

1.2 There are two powerful policy imperatives which underlie the Government's approach to local governance:

1.3 The first is a genuine desire to localise decision-making and empower communities. This is reflected in a wide range of initiatives including, for example, the recent publication of Planning Policy Statement 1[15] which includes substantial material on the benefits of public participation, and in many of the local regeneration initiatives which are making a positive contribution to the quality of life of many of the nation's communities.

1.4 The second imperative is a powerful centralising policy which recognises, above all, the need to promote a highly globalised and competitive economy. This imperative is represented at its most extreme by the implementation of the Barker Report[16] but is also evident in the Government's attitude to regional government and particularly the new planning framework. The tension between the idea of localisation and economic globalisation is mirrored by a failure of Government to clearly decide how much power to grant local communities and neighbourhoods over their own destiny. The promotion of participation and engagement in local affairs is meaningless unless it is clear to people that their decisions have real power to shape their future.

1.5 Despite a good deal of positive rhetoric there is no sign that these two contradictory ambitions have been properly considered. In fact a failure to grasp the importance of these two ideas is the key fault line which runs through government policy on community engagement and participation. Our most profound concern is that unless these two ideas are reconciled, their incompatibility will undermine attempts at civil renewal and local empowerment, raising expectations of local control which could never properly be met.

1.6 The nature of this clash of ideas is explored more fully in Part 2 of this memorandum but in brief it can illustrated in number of specific policy arenas.

Planning reform

1.7 The planning reform package illustrates the confused nature of government policy. On the one hand the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004[17] actively encourages local communities to shape their own destiny at the local level through mechanisms such as Statements of Community Involvement[18]. At the same time, powerful new regional government institutions have been created which set targets for a whole range of local planning issues and for which there is no democratic accountability nor even any right for individuals to be heard in policy formulation. The creation of this new tier of governance, while abandoning any attempt to make it democratically accountable, is one of the greatest barriers to the encouragement of effective local participation in decision making.

What kind of local governance model is the government pursuing?

1.8 There is a general failure in government initiatives on public participation at the local level to distinguish between differing models of local governance. There are for example important differences between what might be described as the "involvement" model in which individuals are often asked to participate as "stakeholders" in a wide range of differing service delivery arenas and traditional notions of representative democracy or other notions of governance in which rights form an important part.

1.9 This is most clearly illustrated in the relationship of the structures for participation in local planning decisions and those around local government modernisation, introduced by the Local Government Act 2000[19]. While the planning system has retained opportunities to exercise rights and a considerable level of democratic accountability the structure set up in the Local Government Act have none of these characteristics. There is no right to participate or to object to a Local Community Strategy. Local Strategic Partnerships are wholly unaccountable to their communities and may or may not reflect community views. The new structures do not relate well to traditional forms of democratic accountability in local government and represent a vaguely defined "stakeholder" model. There is a further tension between the promotion of a wide range of participatory democratic models which have a poorly understood relationship with representative democracy. This often results in the marginalisation of locally elected representatives. Government policy still assumes that differing approaches and forms of democracy are interchangeable, they are not.

A new constitutional settlement

1.10 Friends of the Earth believes that the Government should seek a fundamental change in our approach to local governance from one determined by a fragmented approach to improving individual "sectors" of service delivery to a holistic approach based on a simple but comprehensive new settlement between individuals and the state. This settlement should start from a clear grasp of how much power local communities and individuals have in the decision making process. It should provide a clear framework in which the relationship of representative and participatory democracy are clearly defined and which sets out effective rights of information, participation and redress which are vital in building confidence in the local decision making process.

Recent developments

1.11 Friends of the Earth is aware that there is a complex and evolving debate over local governance and that there are some signs that the Government is beginning to recognise the importance of representative democracy at the local level. This is most clearly evident in the document published by ODPM in January 2005, Vibrant Local Leadership[20]. While this recognition is welcome it does not amount to the coherent approach to local governance which is so desperately needed. Nor does it pay any attention to the kinds of rights and the level of power local communities can expect. As a result we do not believe that recent government announcements fully address the concerns raised in this memorandum.

PART 2

The case for participation in local governance

2.1 There is a powerful principled case for public participation in local government decisions. This case is based on the importance of community empowerment and learning, encouraging active citizenship and delivering better informed decisions that themselves contribute to social justice and sustainable development. The problem is not identifying the benefits of participation nor the detailed techniques available to achieve it, the problem lies in how public participation fits in to existing decision-making and how ultimately, despite its benefits, it can be squared with the powerful forces who want less not more local control.

The current debate

2.2 The Government is heavily committed to a wide range of initiatives in which people are meant to be "involved", "empowered" "engaged" or "at the heart" of decision-making. This commitment is cross departmental and emanates from ODPM the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department for International Development. For the Government, participation and "new localisation" are intended to form the cutting edge of their public service reform agenda. But while the Government has committed itself to the principles of participation there is a significant gap between rhetoric and delivery. In fact, the policy debate on participation is increasingly confused with little common language between the differing sectors of Government and divided objectives. Empowering people is undeniably a good principle, but there is little sign that policy makers have considered the full implications of effective local community participation. In those cases where they have, they seem distinctly uncomfortable with the implications of the shift of power from the centre to the local. In the real world of planning, and particularly in relation to housing and infrastructure, large-scale new developments are testing the limit of how far local communities can control their own destiny in the face of national economic imperatives. In this sense, and far more than in any other area of public policy, planning is the foil on which the Government's commitment to public participation will be tested.

2.3 However, it is not just Government that is confused about how much power to give local communities, practitioners are equally divided. There are those who pay lip service to participation while regarding it as an expensive waste of time. They believe that their professional expertise should be the main way of deciding the future development of communities. Even the majority who are interested in promoting social justice are caught between wanting to see inclusive planning processes and wanting to see inclusive outcomes. More participation in planning is often assumed to lead to more opposition to those forms of development, such as housing, which are of vital importance to meeting social needs. This is not simply of academic interest. It is the fault line that runs through the practice of planning and the planning community. It is the issue which divides rather than unites our ability to make the case for effective land use planning regulation and ultimately to deliver sustainable communities.

2.4 The central theme of Part 2 of this memorandum is to try to explore some of the big ideas behind the current public participation debate and to assess whether the new language and rhetoric of the Government's planning reform, local government modernistaion and new localisation agendas amounts to a meaningful change in the relationship between people and the state. It is vital that we understand whether, in our headlong desire to localise, we have fudged vital questions about how much power communities should have to determine their own future and how participative and representative democracy might fit together.

2.5 In the view of Friends of the Earth the approach to participation is deeply flawed and should be considered not as a myriad of fragmented participative initiatives but instead a single new constitutional settlement between the individual and the state.

Where have we come from?

2.6 It is tempting to ignore the fact, when surrounded by the new language of localisation and participation, that local government and planning in particular has a long track record of seeking to engage communities. The planning system itself is the most radical form of environmental regulation in the UK, because it grants local democratic control over major environmental decisions. Such accountability is completely absent in relation to the decisions of, for example, the Environment Agency. The planning system pioneered many of the participative techniques we now take for granted. It is important to note, however, that the rapid decline of the reputation of planning as relevant to people's lives is precisely mirrored by the long decline of local government, particularly in relation to the restriction of funding and the removal of functions by central government.

2.7 The current crisis in involvement in local democracy is at least in part due to the continual removal of those local government powers that enable a meaningful difference to be made by Local Authorities in their own communities. We should be particularly careful now as we attempt to reinvent local democracy, that it is not the people who became disinterested in politics, but successive governments who attempted to depoliticise local decision-making. This trend is still a powerful government imperative.

The current debate

2.8 There is a vast amount of literature surrounding the public participation debate and no shortage of good ideas. There is an entire academic body of work from those such as Patsy Healey[21] which aims to offer answers to many of the questions raised here. In addition, there is a huge weight of material in democratic theory and a wealth of practical experience from fields such as regeneration. However, for the sake of brevity there are three important sets of ideas which seem to characterise the current debate. The first is a growing commitment to new localisation, the second is defined by Labour's structural constitutional changes at the national, regional and local level and the third is the planning reform agenda.

A. New localisation

2.9 New localisation is a term to define a whole series of related initiatives surrounding community empowerment[22]. There is no useful shorthand definition and even its advocates such as Nick Raynsford acknowledge that "localism has been used to justify diametrically opposed views"[23].

2.10 So far as there is any defining feature then it is an emphasis on specific service delivery. It has been advocated in relation to local policing and health care provision in a way which assumes that participation by stakeholders will enable services to be provided in a more sensitive and tailored way to suit local circumstances. Some champions of localism go much further than this, pointing to a longer term project of decentralising decision-making "from Whitehall to the regions, from the regions to local government, from local government to the neighbourhood"[24]. Under this definition, localisation begins to encompass aspects of local government modernisation, including constitutional changes, which aim to decentralise decision-making.

2.11 Despite the apparent popularity of new localisation by those seeking a radical Labour third term, even its advocates are deeply concerned at the limits that need to be placed on local control. These reservations surround the impact that localisation will have on efficiency and cost, which are essentially signifiers for the risk of local decisions moving away from nationally established targets and imperatives. There must also be equal concerns from the community perspective that the huge commitment involved in engaging in community activity, such as being a school governor, must be rewarded by having meaningful control. In practice, control over such services means control over the fraction of the budget that is not prescribed by central government. The failure to resolve the balance of power between the local and the central is a major fault line in new localisation even before it has emerged into mainstream political thinking.

2.12 The failure to grapple with the balance of power between the community and the state is not the only unresolved dilemma. While much is claimed for new localisation in terms of delivering an active citizenship or reinvigorating local democracy, there is little or no discussion of how this essentially participative democratic idea might fit with existing forms of representative democracy. Nor is there a fully worked-out idea for how the vast number of new stakeholders' opportunities for involvement might fit together into a pattern of new local governance. What rights would individuals and communities have to participate? What forms of redress would apply? In fact, new localisation is characterised by a vague idea of consensual and collaborative working in which rights are seen as largely irrelevant.

2.13 These questions illustrate the profound difference between trying to make service delivery sensitive to local needs, which is the mainstream Blairite agenda, and trying to achieve a new form of local governance which encompasses civil-rights and democratic accountability. New localisation is clear that it wants to achieve the former but much more confused about what kind of new governance this would add up to. The confusion surrounds the failure to properly consider the implications of localised governance, which are that communities will sometimes make decisions against the national trend. In other words, give people power and rights and they will exercise them.

B. Constitutional change: regionalisation and local government modernisation

2.14 The government has effected radical changes in English regional and local government[25]. This has led to the grant of new powers to regional government and significant local changes both to internal organisation and in new demands for strategies and stakeholder organisations such as Local Strategic Partnerships. These ideas are often claimed by the new localisation agenda and are certainly portrayed by the Labour Government as important new opportunities for public participation.

Regional government

2.15 Regional government is one of the most profound barriers to effective local participation. This is for two specific reasons:

I. There is a vital difference between constitutional settlement between nations and regions and the question of the relationship of individuals and communities to decision-making. There may be many benefits of regional government but a new tier of institutional arrangements does nothing on its own to change the relationship of the individual and the community to the state. In practice, and in planning in particular, the immediate result has been enhanced, unaccountable regional planning bodies, and corresponding marginalisation of democratic county councils.

Local government

2.16 There have been much more effective changes through the local government modernisation agenda with the introduction of a variety of mechanisms to engage communities more effectively, including citizens' juries and area panels which allow for greater participation from community stakeholders and activists. It is, however, significant that the process of formulating Community Strategies[27] contains no formal rights for the public to participate. Instead the model of engagement assumes flexible, consensual involvement with no rights of access or redress afforded to the community. New and influential bodies such as Local Strategic Partnerships also have no direct line of democratic accountability. In practice this has meant that while some Local Authorities have produced excellent strategies and working arrangements, others have not.

C. Planning reform and the Barker Review of Housing Supply

2.17 Nowhere is the confusion behind the place of people in decision-making more clearly illustrated than in the process of planning reform and the recent report by Kate Barker[28]. The Planning Green Paper[29] made clear the need to transform the "slow", "out of touch" planning system into something which gave speedy decisions in an inclusive way. In fact, the reform agenda contained one of the most draconian attempts to remove people's rights to be involved in major infrastructure decisions and the local plan process ever attempted. The worst excesses of the Green Paper were successfully resisted by a vociferous public campaign. However, while the Government ultimately said progressive and important things about public involvement[30], the overall message of the planning reform process was mixed. Public involvement was to be encouraged and the value of participation recognised, but Local Authorities would still be required to meet targets based on speed not quality. There is no enforceable target for public participation and no right to be heard at the regional level, let alone in documents such as the Northern Way or the Sustainable Communities plan[31].

2.18 If the new Planning Act[32] represents a far from perfect compromise between the need for participation and economic growth then the Barker Report offers perfect clarity as to why economic growth should come before democracy. Superficially the Barker Report is about housing provision. In fact, the contents of the report have profound implications for the participation debate, both practically in terms of the recommendations, but also because of what they reveal about the way that influential parts of Government think about the decentralisation of decision-making.

2.19 The Barker Report is quite explicit in seeking to devise mechanisms that "would help distance land availability decisions from the political process"[33]. The logic is simple. In order to increase supply to meet market need we must provide mechanisms which marginalise democratic control. The assumption is that such local democratic control does not adequately serve market needs and will therefore ultimately damage our global competitiveness and prevent economic convergence with the European Union.

2.20 Barker argues for much greater delegation of decision-making to planning professionals as well as the introduction of "price premia", which would trigger the release of housing land if land prices increased. The report accepts that price defines social utility and therefore implicitly questions the role of democratically accountable decision-making in defining the public good. For Barker the public good is price. Significantly, the Government welcomed the Barker Report and has set about its implementation.

2.21 The fact that ideas such as new localisation and the Barker Report can emanate from the same administration is the perfect illustration of how confused public policy has become in relation to the role of individuals and communities in decision-making. On the one hand, we see vaguely defined messages and processes designed to encourage public involvement, while on the other, a profoundly market driven vision of governance in which macro economic imperatives define community needs. Despite some progressive change in the structure of local government, there is no overall coherent message about what kind of local governance we are trying to create. As a result there is a strong policy emphasis in government on changing corporate structures but little on creating rights and responsibilities for individuals and communities.

WHAT LIES BENEATH THIS CONFUSION?

2.22 The profoundly mixed messages which have come from central government result from a collective failure to address two important questions: what kind of local democracy and governance are we trying to create? And what are the limits of public participation in decision-making?

LOCAL GOVERNANCE

2.23 There is an important tension between traditional ideas of representative democracy based on fixed elections and the delegation of power to an individual and participative democracy in which the wider community is encouraged to take an active part in decision-making on a continual basis. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, but there has been a significant lack of clarity as to how they might fit together in practice. Current policy ignores this important distinction by promoting participative and inclusive processes with little understanding of the implications for the representative model. Planning provides the perfect illustration of this policy mess with councillors being increasingly marginalised by internal codes of conduct, which restrict their ability to be lobbied by electors; by increasing delegation of decisions to planning officers; and by the growing fears, real and imagined, of the cost of appeals and the risk of individual surcharge[34].

2.24 Some might ask: who cares if a few out-of-touch politicians are marginalised, so long as people are participating fully? The answer goes to the heart of the difference between these two models of democracy. While active participation has all the merits outlined at the beginning of this memorandum, it does not follow that the results of participation exercises are automatically representative of wider community views. That representative role is the function of democratic elections. Participative democracy is a vital addition to our existing democratic model but it does not replace it because, put simply, it is trying to achieve differing objectives. In an ideal world, the interface between the two models is made clear so that we get better decisions as a result of participative processes, and political representatives and communities can learn from each other. In current practice, however, there is a growing risk that the representative model is traded off against a vaguely defined participative one. There is a very real risk that both ideas, far from enhancing each other, will be diminished. Participative processes will be seen as unrepresentative and representative models will be seen as increasingly out of touch.

ARE THERE LIMITS TO PARTICIPATION?

2.25 The balance between participative and representative democracy is vitally important in defining the limits to public participation. What policy makers are failing to make clear is that while the decision-making process should be as open and participative as possible, ultimately this participation is bounded and limited by the need for elected politicians to make final decisions in ways that are accountable to the wider community. This distinction plays a key part in managing people's expectations. Participation is about having a chance to shape the decision; it is not about automatically controlling it. At best the complex relationship between these two forms of democracy will enrich the decision-making process so that elected representatives and civil servants understand the issues and their communities in much more sophisticated ways.

2.26 Even if we can achieve this positive vision it would be fruitless unless central government decides how much real power to give local decision-making arenas. As we have seen, current government policy is telling communities two quite different stories. On the one hand, it is encouraging involvement, but on the other, it is seeking to restrict rights over decisions which might impact on macro-economic policy. Nowhere is Government clearly stating where the limits of local community power might lie. In fact it is clear that with issues such as aviation policy no amount of participative or consultative process in the formulation of the aviation White Paper[35] or in individual cases will overturn a firmly set national policy to seek rapid expansion of UK airports. Indeed this contradiction is institutionalised in the new planning framework with powerful new regional tiers of planning which will remain unaccountable. The contents of regional plans are examined by invitation only and the outcomes will be enforced on the Local Development Plan Framework. Communities are quite right to ask what the point is of participating in decisions at the local level that are merely about implementing targets which have already been agreed in arenas where they have no voice.

2.27 At present there is no sign that Government has any clear idea of how much power it wishes to see held by local communities and there is deep suspicion by some, particularly in Treasury, at the prospect of communities exercising their voice to seek alternative forms of development which reject national imperatives. Ironically, departing from national policy would be a positive and active sign of communities engaging to control their own future.

A NEW CONSTITUTIONAL SETTLEMENT

2.28 It is of course easy to be negative about the Government's attempts to solve what are complex constitutional problems. Offering real long-term solutions which tackle the questions discussed above is more difficult. However, it is possible to set out the broad shape of an alternative. The first step in this process is to stand the current policy debate on its head and ask not how we engage people with individual bits of service delivery or how we attempt to shore up local democracy, but instead to establish our vision for a more progressive relationship between individuals and communities, and the state. We should see this question as just as important as the new constitutional settlement surrounding devolution to our nations and therefore as a matter of political principle.

2.29 To avoid alienating local communities with a plethora of fragmented initiatives from differing government agencies this new model of local governance must present the public with a simple framework for effective participation, which should apply in all decision-making arenas. This framework must guarantee democratic accountability as well as meaningful participation and rights of redress when the process gets it wrong.

2.30 This new constitutional settlement has three components:

1. A new model of democratic decision-making which makes clear the relationship of participative to representative democracy valuing both as important aspects of vibrant local politics.

2. A genuine shift in power from central to local.

3. Robust, legally enforceable rights to protect the interests of individuals and minorities.

NEW DEMOCRACY

2.31 The outline of a new democracy is built around the relationship between representative and participative democratic models. It seeks to make clear the boundaries and functions of each model by broadly seeing their application as divided between the process and outcome of decision-making. The participative element is focused on the process allowing for a robust community voice while the representative element ensures that the outcome of decisions continue to be accountable to the wider electorate. The interrelationship between the two models should be defined by mutual learning and growing understanding.

2.32 The relationship between representative and participatory democratic models in decision making.

2.33 As with all generalisations, this one underplays the dynamic relationship between the two halves of the decision-making process. Of course councillors are fully engaged with the process of decision-making in the same way as the output of participative processes is a decision shaped to a great extent by community aspirations. The line between these two processes is therefore dynamic and depends on the balance of power between particular community interest and politicians. That, after all, is the nature of politics.

A SHIFT OF POWER

2.34 To some extent the balance of power between local and national will always be a politically contested idea. However, it has been possible for this administration to cede significant powers to new assemblies through devolution. It is therefore perfectly possible, given the political will, to clearly define what powers local communities and individuals might have. Ultimately, since most participative processes at the local level relate to the function of Local Authorities, real community participation and empowerment has to go hand in hand with the empowerment of Local Authorities.

NEW RIGHTS

2.35 Robust procedural civil rights are a vital third component of this new constitutional settlement. Legally-binding rights are the only effective guarantor of the success of the decision-making process, particularly when that process involves deep-seated disputes over the future development of a locality. If local politicians are the ultimate arbiters of decisions then civil rights provide that this arbitration is fair and open and subject to challenge if decisions are made in an irrational and unreasonable way. There are of course strong reservations that such rights will lead to a decision-making process mired in inertia. In fact the legitimacy of local decisions in enhanced by the safe guards that clearly defined and simply expressed rights provide. Rights are also a vital signifier that Government at all levels is serious about meaningful public participation. Without them people will always be "involved" on the state's terms with no power to ensure that their voice is heard and considered.

2.36 As with of all aspects of this new constitutional settlement it is vital that it can be expressed simply to all sections of the community. The most powerful model of procedural rights is offered by the framework of the Aarhus Convention[36] which in summary suggests three kinds of procedural rights:

— Access to information. People should be able to find out what's going on in their locality.

— Access to participation. People should be fully able to engage in the shaping of decisions.

— Access to redress. People should have some mechanism for challenging bad decisions.

2.37 Ironically Government has made major progress with some of these ideas without ever maximising their potential by joining them up into a comprehensive and easily understood set of rights. The Freedom of Information Act[37] creates robust new rights for communities and individuals. ODPM has made clear the intrinsic value of participation. Even on most the difficult issue, that of creating access to redress, DEFRA has begun to explore how the huge barrier of legal cost might be removed to allow public interest cases to be brought against some forms of local decision making. The issue of cost remains, however, one of the most profound barriers to effective forms of redress for local communities and individuals[38].

2.38 None of these ideas about rights, democracy, and power are new or original. Taken individually they would contribute to a better form of decision-making. Taken together as part of a package of constitutional changes they would make a very significant contribution to changing the nature and culture of local governance. Such a model would need to be promoted along with robust enabling measures to encourage participation and knowledge of people's basic rights.

CONCLUSION

3.1 There is little sign at present that the Government is thinking holistically about such a new constitutional settlement. This is despite the fact that the Department of Constitutional Affairs could act as an important catalyst for change. There is in fact little understanding amongst practioners of what role this department might play in what are essentially constitutional questions.

3.2 The hard truth is that there will be little progress until the struggle is settled between those in government who acknowledge the importance of citizenship, and democracy, and those in the Treasury who regard local decision-making only as a delivery vehicle for its wider macro-economic objectives. Government would be well advised to carefully consider how far it wishes to defend local democracy and individual civil rights and how far it wishes to encourage the globalised, neo-liberal economic ideal which regards people and communities as little more than factors of production. There is little point decentralising power from central government if that very government has already surrendered important powers to the corporate sector.

3.3 The Government is not the only barrier to change. Planning practioners also have to answer the question as to whether we regard planning as solely an economic delivery mechanism achieving a highly competitive spatial framework for the marketplace (the Barker Report vision), or whether we regard planning as a more complex negotiation between these objectives and the aspirations and ideals of individuals and communities.

3.4 There is no doubt that there is a significant imperative for change. The legitimacy of local government and the important services it delivers depends on its acceptance by the population. Without the clarity of a new constitutional arrangement, people's disengagement from the local decision making process will increase to the detriment of our democracy. New localisation may have benefits for service delivery but does not offer a vital clarity of purpose nor a coherent vision that can achieve the reconnection with communities. This can only come with a holistic view of the balance between representative and participative democracy and a recognition of the importance of clear civil rights which enable opportunities for meaningful, participative decision-making. Ultimately, social justice is served by open, representative government where communities have a real say in their future. This objective can only be met by a comprehensive but simple new settlement between the individual and the state.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. People, planning and power: Beyond new localisation, Hugh Ellis, TCPA, 2004.

2. Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development, ODPM, 2005.

3. Review of Housing Supply "Delivering stability: securing our future housing needs" Final Report, Kate Barker, March 2004.

4. Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, 2004.

5. SCIs are a statutory requirement of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, Section 18.

6. Local Government Act, 2000.

7. Vibrant Local Leadership, ODPM, January 2005.

8. Healey, P (1997) Collaborative Planning: shaping places in fragmented societies. Macmillan, London.

9. This form of new Localisation is distinct from the progressive thinking surrounding economic localisation in areas such as food production.

10. Raynsford. N et al, (2004) "Making sense of localism", The Smith Institute, London.

11. Raynsford. N et al, (2004) "Making sense of localism", The Smith Institute, London.

12. Through the Local Government Act 2000 and the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

13. This power is enforced through the requirements of local planning strategies to be in conformity with regional plans and the new legal status of RSS which is part of the Local Development Plan and has real effective legal force in local decisions.

14. Community Strategies are a requirement of the Local Government Act, 2000.

15. Barker K (2004) Review of Housing Supply: Delivering Stability: Securing our Future Housing Needs—Final Report—Recommendations, HM Treasury.

16. Planning: Delivering a Fundamental Change. Planning Green Paper.

17. Department for Transport Local Government and the Regions December 2001.

18. Community Involvement in Planning: The Government's Objectives, ODPM, 2004.

19. The Communities Plan (Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future), ODPM, 2003 and Making it Happen: The Northern Way, ODPM, 2004.

20. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, 2004.

21. Barker K (2004) Review of Housing Supply: Delivering Stability: Securing our Future Housing Needs—Final Report—Recommendations, HM Treasury, Box 2.1, pg 40.

22. The Local Government Association has recently published new guidance on the role of politicians in local planning decisions. Member Engagement in Planning Matters, LGA, 2004. However this guidance remains in our view contradictory.

23. "The Future of Air Transport", White Paper (2003) Department for Transport, London.

24. The Aarhus Convention: the United Nations Economic Council for Europe Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters adopted in 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus.

25. Freedom of Information Act, 2000.

26. Environmental Justice: Report by the Environmental Justice Project, Part 2, 2.8 Costs.