Stephen Hincks

Getting involved in plan making: participation and stakeholder involvement in local and regional spatial strategies in England

In 2004 the English planning system was subject to extensive reforms which introduced a ‘spatial planning’ approach that goes beyond traditional land-use planning in integrating policies for the development and use of land with other policies and programmes which influence the nature of places. At the regional level, regional planning guidance was replaced by regional spatial strategies (RSSs) and, at the local level, existing local land-use planning documents were replaced with a portfolio of documents that make up the new local development framework (LDF). Together, the LDF and RSS make up the statutory development plan for an area. At the heart of the new spatial planning reforms is a heightened emphasis on stakeholder and community involvement. This paper brings together research at two different spatial scales. The ‘Spatial Plans in Practice’ study examined stakeholder involvement in LDF preparation across England. Parallel research examined the experience of stakeholders in the formation of the North West RSS. Drawing on this empirical base, we examine experiences of stakeholder involvement in the reformed spatial planning system and discuss the implications for the future.

A Framework for Housing Market Area Delineation: Principles and Application

A review is presented of the requirements of a framework for the delineation of housing market areas (HMAs) in the context of undertaking a housing market assessment. This prompts adoption of a methodology that features an iterative application of information obtained from estate agents, to identify HMA cores, and a functional regionalisation of 2001 Census interward migration flows. The approach is demonstrated using data for North West England. The concluding section explores some implications of the HMA framework for policy and future research.

The Spatial Interaction of Housing and Labour Markets: Commuting Flow Analysis of North West England

The consideration of housing and labour market interaction is a relatively recent development in an academic and policy debate which has traditionally considered home and work in isolation. This paper aims to examine empirically the spatial process of housing and labour market interaction in the form of commuting at the sub-regional level via a case study of North West England. A statistical analysis and visual GIS mapping of commuting flows are adopted to explore the relationship between the two functional areas. In light of the inadequacies of traditional modelling approaches at capturing the complex nature of housing and labour market interaction, this approach is intended to generate more relevant intelligence to inform policy development. Based on the analysis of housing and labour market interaction, some pointers for future research and policy implications are drawn out.

Explicitly permissive? Understanding actor interrelationships in the governance of economic development: The experience of England’s Local Enterprise Partnerships

Local Enterprise Partnerships in England were intended as organic entities in which coalitions of local actors, led by business interests, would determine locally relevant policy for self-defined spatial units. Informed by ideas around localism and the desire to extend sub-national economic development policy making beyond the local state, central government envisaged an increased unevenness in local governance arrangements and policy approaches. The article assesses the experiences of four Local Enterprise Partnerships, employing social network analysis in an attempt to systematise the comparison of actor relationships and urban governance arrangements. The article considers the degree to which the discursive emphasis on liberating local policy actors from central government control has any empirical basis in the variable shape and structure of local elite actor networks. It argues that although Local Enterprise Partnerships operate within an environment characterised by lighter touch regulation, there is a dissonance between local discretion and the political imperative for central government to exercise oversight. Equally, variability in the web of actor interactions across the sample of Local Enterprise Partnerships suggests that asymmetrical urban governance and competitive localism are intrinsic features of post-regional local economic development, reflecting a wider national framework for spatial policy in which diversity in sub-national institutional form is viewed as a source of policy innovation and dynamism.

Making Plans: The Role of Evidence in England's Reformed Spatial Planning System

Abstract This paper explores the use of evidence in the making of local development frameworks in England, introduced as part of the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act. The reforms dictate that for a plan to be considered ‘sound’, the policy choices it contains must be justified through the compilation and use of an appropriate evidence base. The paper draws on research undertaken as part of the UK government-sponsored Spatial Plans in Practice (SPiP) project looking into the operation of the reformed spatial planning system in England. It draws on the findings of a number of reports produced as part of this research on the use of evidence in the making of local development frameworks in England as well as wider components of the SPiP project including interviews with local authority planning officers, documentary review of adopted planning documents (core strategies and area action plans) and a longitudinal suite of case studies covering a number of local planning authorities using both qualitative semi-structured interviews and a strategic survey. The paper finds grounds to believe that, although local planning authorities are collecting more evidence than ever before, the culture of using evidence to inform policy-making is far from a well-established or uniform practice.

Deprived neighbourhoods in transition: Divergent pathways of change in the Greater Manchester city-region

Many studies of neighbourhood change adopt a ‘bookend’ mode of analysis in which a baseline year is identified for a chosen outcome variable from which the magnitude of change is calculated to a determined endpoint typically over bi-decadal or decadal timeframes. However, this mode of analysis smoothes away short-run change patterns and neighbourhood dynamics. The implications of this practice could be far reaching if it is accepted that as neighbourhoods change they are liable to cross a threshold and transition from one state to another in the short- as well as longer-term. In a case study of deprived neighbourhoods in the Greater Manchester city-region, this paper aims to contribute to neighbourhood change debates in two ways. The first is by isolating transition pathways for individual neighbourhoods using annual change data. The second is by testing the thesis that the more deprived a neighbourhood is, the more likely it is to respond with greater volatility to short-run shocks when compared with less-deprived neighbourhoods. Four indicators collected annually between 2001 and 2010 are used to develop a typology of neighbourhood change and a subsequent typology of neighbourhood transition. The analysis exposed 260 different transition pathways that deprived neighbourhoods followed over the study period. Multinomial logistic regression was then used to determine the odds of a neighbourhood undergoing transition along a specific pathway owing to its level of deprivation. The model revealed that the most deprived neighbourhoods were likely to follow more volatile transition pathways compared with the less-deprived neighbourhoods especially during periods of economic difficulty.

Placing Greater Manchester

In this short paper we place Greater Manchester (GM) in two ways. First, we place historically the current construction of ‘Greater Manchester’ which has formed the territorial basis of the recently created Combined Authority. This reveals the work that has gone on by actors of varying geographical reach to build, maintain and nourish a particular set of governing arrangements, particular in the institutional vacuum created by the mid-1980s abolishing of the Greater Manchester Council. Second, we consider the geography of the GM metropolitan city-region and the competing spatial imaginaries that underlie it. That is, the ways in which spatial scales are imagined by different actors and over which there may be conflict and contestation. With the Greater Manchester Combined Authority increasingly presented as a model for others, including neighbouring Leeds and Liverpool, the argument is that the experience of GM reveals the broader set of forces that are shaping and structuring new state formations elsewhere in England. The paper concludes by considering the potential implications of this over the coming years.

Mapping policies and programmes: the use of GIS to communicate spatial relationships in England

It has long been acknowledged that there is a gap between the advancement of GIS in the research field and its application in planning practice. This paper demonstrates the potential for employing simple GIS mapping overlays as a way of communicating complex planning issues in a ‘language’ that is easily understandable and effective at stimulating policy debate, critical thinking, and learning. The analysis focuses on capturing the synergies and conflicts in two key planning challenges in England, progrowth and housing delivery agendas. In a political context where spatial evidence-based policy making has been eroded in recent years, the analysis demonstrates the need for policy makers to ‘think spatially, act spatially’ when developing different policies and programmes. The paper concludes that only by making spatial relationships of policies and programmes explicit in a manner that is easily understood by a range of actors, can different spatial scenarios and metaphors of future opportunities and challenges be developed to inform long-range development and planning.

Fragility and recovery: housing, localities and uneven spatial development in the UK

Hincks S., Webb B. and Wong C. Fragility and recovery: housing, localities and uneven spatial development in the UK, Regional Studies. Uneven spatial development has long been a characteristic feature of the economic and social fabric of the UK. The north–south divide has become something of a hegemonic narrative in the UK and this has served to mask an ‘archipelago’ of variegated spatial development in housing and locality conditions at sub-national and sub-regional scales. This paper explores the changing nature of sub-regional housing and locality conditions across the UK and evidence is found of significant spatial variation in the way that places responded to the effects of the most recent economic recession.

Migration, Mobility and the Role of European Cities and Regions in Redistributing Population

Abstract Increased policy interest in geographical mobility necessitates a fuller understanding of the uneven spatial patterning of migration in Europe. This paper reports on research exploring the experience of cities and regions in respect of migration, and the socio-economic factors associated with disparities in net migration across sub-national areas. This involved modelling the relationship between net migration over the period 2001–2006 and the underlying socio-economic circumstances across European cities and regions, and generating an area typology that captured variable experiences with regard to migration. The results of multivariate analysis suggest that urban areas are more likely than other types of areas to have net in-migration levels which exceed those expected given their socio-economic characteristics, both for places with flourishing economies and unmet demand for labour as well as those whose economic fortunes are less buoyant. The results also suggest that the experience of cities and regions is polarized, with large urban areas featuring prominently among the best and worst performing areas in respect of net in-migration. The potential implication of this complex pattern is that bespoke, rather than blanket, policy interventions are required to address the variable experiences of cities and regions in relation to migration.