Abstract
There is a clear consensus amongst both academic commentators and the professional community that current arrangements for strategic planning in England are inadequate. The withdrawal of central government from leadership of the proposed Oxford-Cambridge Arc in early 2022 marks a particular nadir, not least given the ambitions for the planning of the area set out only a year earlier. This article offers a conjunctural reading of the failure of the proposed Arc spatial framework, emphasising that not only was the process of planning the Arc itself problematical, but it also faced wider governmental and political headwinds which fuelled public opposition to the scheme, reduced central government commitment and redirected political priorities elsewhere. In this context the prospects for the future of strategic planning in England appear rather bleak.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 611-633 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Town Planning Review |
| Volume | 94 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 24 May 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 9 Nov 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The article now moves on to recount the failure of this strategic planning process, focusing firstly on the overall conception of the area and the associated governance and policy approaches, and secondly on the evolving context of political opposition and declining central government enthusiasm within which the Arc project emerged. The analysis set out here draws on a sustained programme of research and participation, including interviews, participant observation and non-participant observation, attendance at numerous online meetings, secondary review of policy documents and council minutes, and further ad hoc discussions over the past three years. The authors were all engaged in an independent research project reviewing strategic planning arrangements for the Arc spatial framework carried out under the umbrella of the Arc Universities Group (AUG, see https://arcuniversities.co.uk/), and funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG, subsequently the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, DLUHC) between October 2021–January 2022. This also benefitted from a focus-group discussion (November 2021) with a group of leading academic commentators on strategic planning in England and other comparator nations. Valler additionally participated in regular meetings of the stakeholder-led ‘Strategic Place Working Group’ comprising local authority partners in the Arc area and other public sector organisations, and in the AUG’s Environment Partnership Board. The extensive engagement here clearly offered important insight into the workings of the policy-making process for the Arc and privileged access to key policy actors both within the Arc area itself and in central government. However, it also required a good degree of discretion in navigating sensitive institutional relationships, recognising shifting and uncertain agendas, and accepting the very real constraints imposed by engaging with a live and unpredictable policy-making process of national importance.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities | |
| MHCLG | |
| Department for Communities & Local Government |
Keywords
- conjunctural analysis
- governance
- Oxford-Cambridge Arc
- strategic planning
- sub-regional planning
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Urban Studies
