New housing association development and its potential to reduce concentrations of deprivation: An English case study

Social housing across Western Europe has become significantly more residualised as governments concentrate on helping vulnerable households. Many countries are trying to reduce the concentrations of deprivation by building for a wider range of households and tenures. In England this policy has two main strands: (i) including other tenures when regenerating areas originally built as mono-tenure social housing estates and (ii) introducing social rented and low cost homeownership into new private market developments through planning obligations. By examining where new social housing and low cost home ownership homes have been built and who moves into them, this paper examines whether these policies achieve social mix and reduce spatial concentrations of deprivation. The evidence suggests that new housing association development has enabled some vulnerable households to live in areas which are not deprived, while some better off households have moved into more deprived areas. But these trends have not been sufficient to stem increases in deprivation in the most deprived areas

Financial viability appraisals for site-specific planning decisions in England

In England, appraisals of the financial viability of development schemes have become an integral part of planning policy-making, initially in determining the amount of planning obligations that might be obtained via legal agreements (known as Section 106 agreements) and latterly as a basis for establishing charging schedules for the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). Local planning authorities set these policies on an area-wide basis but ultimately development proposals require consent on a site-by-site basis. It is at this site-specific level that issues of viability are hotly contested. This paper examines case documents, proofs of evidence and decisions from a sample of planning disputes in order to address major issues within development viability, the application of the models and the distribution of the development gain between the developer, landowner and community. The results have specific application to viability assessment in England and should impact on future policy and practice guidance in this field. They also have relevance to other countries that incorporate assessments of economic viability in their planning systems

Taking stock of neighbourhood planning in England 2011-2016

Neighbourhood planning (NP) as enabled by the 2011 Localism Act in England has precipitated a considerable literature discussing its potential, limitations and likely shortcomings referenced against government rhetoric and the reporting of initial experiences of the process. This paper provides an overview of the current literature on neighbourhood planning and sets out how it has been received and practised across England drawing on empirical evidence. The extent of take-up and the experience of those involved first five years of neighbourhood planning and to consider how community-led planning may be designed and used following operational principles of inclusivity, capacity-building and adding value

The financialisation of housing land supply in England

The aim of this article is to identify the calculative practices that turn urban development planning into the supply-side of land financialisation. My focus is on the statutory planning of housing supply and the accounting procedures, or market devices, that normalise the practices of land speculation in the earliest stage of the urban development process. I provide an analysis of the accountancy regime used by planning authorities in England to evidence a 5-year supply of housing land. Drawing on the work of Michel Callon on market framing, I assess the activities of economic agents in performing or ‘formatting’ this supply, its boundaries, externalities and rules of operation. I evidence the effect of this formatting in normalising the treatment of land as a financial asset and in orienting the statutory regulation of land supply to the provision of opportunities for the capture of increased ground rent at a cost to the delivery of new homes

Problem-solving for problem-solving: Data analytics to identify families for service intervention

The article draws on Bacchi’s ideas about problematisation (2020) and links to technological solutionism as governing logics of our age, to explore the double-faceted problem-solving logic operating in the UK family policy and early intervention field. Families with certain characteristics are identified as problematic, and local authorities are tasked with intervening to fix that social problem. Local authorities thus need to identify these families for problem-solving intervention, and data analytics companies will solve that problem for them. In the article, we identify discourses of transmitted deprivation and anti-social behaviour in families and the accompanying costly public sector burden as characteristics that produce families as social problems, and discursive themes around delivering powerful knowledge, timeliness and economic efficiently in data analytic companies’ problem solving claims for their data linkage and predictive analytics systems. These discursive rationales undergird the double-faceted problem-solving for problem-solving logic that directs attention away from complex structural causes

When does hate hurt the most? Generational differences in the association between ethnic and racial harassment, ethnic attachment, and mental health

Using data from Understanding Society, this paper provides a comprehensive account of the associations between ethnic and racial harassment (ERH), mental health and ethnic attachment for ethnic minorities living in England. We find an association between ERH and poor mental health measured using GHQ for ethnic minorities, even after controlling for a rich array of individual and area level characteristics. We find that ethnic attachment, measured as ethnic identity and co-ethnic friendship ties, moderates this association but solely for UK born ethnic minorities. In contrast to previous research, we further find that living in areas of high co-ethnic concentration appears to exacerbate the association between ERH and mental ill-health

Rethinking City-regionalism as the Production of New Non-State Spatial Strategies: The Case of Peel Holdings Atlantic Gateway Strategy

This article was published in the journal, Urban Studies [© Sage]. The publisher's website is at: http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/19/0042098013493481City-regions are widely recognised as key to economic and social revitalization. Hardly surprising then is how policy elites have sought to position their own city-regions strategically within international circuits of capital accumulation. Typically this geopolitics of city-regionalism has been seen to represent a new governmentalised remapping of state space conforming to the prevailing orthodoxy of neoliberal state spatial restructuring. Through a case study of the Atlantic Gateway Strategy, this paper provides a lens on to an alternative vision for city-region development. The brainchild of a private investment group, Peel Holdings, the Atlantic Gateway is important because it points toward the production of new non-state spatial strategies. Examining Peel’s motives for invoking the city-region concept, the paper goes on to explore the tensions which currently surround the strategy to further identify the potential and scope for non-state spatial strategies. Connecting this to emerging debates around the key role of asset ownership and the privatisation of local democracy and the democratic state, the paper concludes by suggesting the key question arising is can and will the state maintain its degree of governmental control over capital investment in major urban regions in an era where persistent under-provision of investment in urban economic infrastructure behoves institutions of the state to become ever more reliant on private investment groups to deliver the deliver the jobs, growth and regeneration of the future

Sustainable rural development in England: Policy problems and equity consequences

Spatial planning policies ensure a 'no development' ethic for rural areas in England, brought about by strong restrictive housing polices and an urban-centric view of sustainable development. Such an ethic is unlikely to be ameliorated by the Localism Bill passing through the English Parliament in 2010-11. Economic development policies provide confusing signals for rural sustainable development as they appear simultaneously to require the pursuit of productivity, well-being, endogenous development and income support: objectives that are not compatible. Together these policy sets are likely to exacerbate inequalities in both wealth and opportunity in rural areas. This inhibits the achievement of sustainable development when viewed as having equity considerations at its core. © The Author(s) 2012

Promoting community renewable energy in a corporate energy world.

Small-scale, decentralized and community-owned renewable energy is widely acknowledged to be a desirable feature of low carbon futures, but faces a range of challenges in the context of conventional, centralized energy systems. This paper draws on transition frameworks to investigate why the UK has been an inhospitable context for community-owned renewables and assesses whether anything fundamental is changing in this regard. We give particular attention to whether political devolution, the creation of elected governments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has affected the trajectory of community renewables. Our analysis notes that devolution has increased political attention to community renewables, including new policy targets and support schemes. However, these initiatives are arguably less important than the persistence of key features of socio-technical regimes: market support systems for renewable energy and land-use planning arrangements that systemically favour major projects and large corporations, and keep community renewables to the margins. There is scope for rolling out hybrid pathways to community renewables, via joint ownership or through community benefit funds, but this still positions community energy as an adjunct to energy pathways dominated by large, corporate generation facilities

Change in the political economy of land value capture in England

Variations in the character, performance and impact of policies and practices to capture land value for the community are usually examined by analysing experience in different countries. Such international comparative research is cross-sectional and does not cover the evolving relations between systems of land value capture and the economies, polities and societies within which they are set. This paper examines the relations in England between the extant political economy and supporting ideologies, and the distinctive forms of land value capture that they produced. It traces the shift from a top-down, strategic approach in an era of corporatist government before 1979 to the subsequent extension and consolidation of bottom-up practice set within the context of neo-liberalism. The analysis highlights the evolution of the idea of land value capture and the policies and practices associated with it, especially the contestation that informed such changes