Can neighbourhood planning breathe new life into local democracy?

With over 850 Neighbourhood Plans underway, and some already guiding the shape of development, can we tell if the devolution of influence and control to local communities envisaged by the Coalition government is also taking place? Neighbourhood planning provides the statutory framework to integrate participatory and representative democracy in local plan-making so we might very well expect there to be political – with a small ‘p’- impact. Government Ministers have talked about giving local people power and control over what happens in their neighbourhood, and one of the principle objectives of the policy is to increase civic and democratic participation . Although there is healthy scepticism over the extent to which any real delegation of power is taking place and deep concerns over the patchwork of uneven development emerging, there are already signs that neighbourhood planning may have a reinvigorating effect on local democracy. Research being carried out by Leeds Metropolitan University, involving a sample of 25 rural and urban neighbourhoods, suggests that there may be four areas of impact where the policy is capable of achieving a fundamental shift in civic engagement.

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