Community involvement opportunities for the reformed planning system – new report released

Professor Gavin Parker, Mark Dobson and Tessa Lynn from the Department of Real Estate and Planning at Henley Business School have produced the final report on Community involvement opportunities for the reformed planning system: front-loading and deliberative democracy.

Download the report

The August 2020 planning white paper ‘Planning for the Future’ (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2020) set out broad proposals for a reformed planning system in England. This includes an aim to ‘…democratise the planning process by putting a new emphasis on engagement at the plan-making stage’ and to ‘create great communities through world-class civic engagement and proactive plan-making’.

The research reported here was carried out by a team led by Professor Gavin Parker, specifically to inform the debate about how to deliver on such aspirations and focuses on the challenge of meaningfully front-loading engagement in the system. The research applies key ideas drawn from a wider participation literature to assess live examples in practice.

The report sets out key issues relating to how current community involvement operates and how changes could be approached with front-loading and deliberation in mind.