Is Planning “Under Attack”? Chronicling the Deregulation of Urban and Environmental Planning in England

Abstract

Successive attempts to reform planning practice in England have given rise to an impression that planning is “under attack”. Various academic commentaries have performed the valuable service of cataloguing aspects of this reform agenda, often within the context of the analytical framework offered by neoliberalization. In this paper, we seek to chronicle the cumulative effects of the sustained programme of neoliberalization to which urban and environmental planning has been subjected in England over a period spanning approximately the last 15 years. In doing so, we hope to show why planning has been such an intractable issue for all governments that have sought its reform irrespective of the particularities of their political agenda.