Citizen Participation and Land Use Planning

Author: Diane Warburton

Land use planning shapes the places in which we live – the built and natural environment in cities, towns and villages - by creating plans which provide the framework for the development and conservation of land and buildings. It can affect whether our ‘place’ is liveable and benefits our wellbeing, or squalid, polluted, run down and depressing.

In spite of digital communications, and increased movements around the world, our sense of belonging and community is still often connected to a local place, where we connect with the lives of others and most easily act as citizens in the public realm. This is where we can learn the practicalities of citizenship, participating in community events as well as working together to create change.

The UK planning system is still based on the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, brought in as part of radical post-war measures (including the NHS). Planning was to provide the engine of change for a better and fairer society through the physical development of land and buildings, including new homes, in the public interest and under democratic control. Since the 1960s, that democratic control has extended beyond planning committees made up of elected councillors to include formal mechanisms for public participation – one of very few instances in our legislation of statutory requirements for citizens and other stakeholders to be consulted. Today, planning can still provide a valuable route for citizens to have a say on the quality of our local place.

Developers (and governments) complain that their proposals are stymied by planning processes but in practice almost all planning applications for housing development are approved. The Government’s target of 1.5 million new homes could be reached easily if developers built the 1.4 million houses which have already gained planning permission since 2007 but have not been built. Any opposition to developers’ plans is derided as coming from ‘blockers’ and NIMBYs, which is as offensive as it is inaccurate. It is not a bad thing that people care about the place where they live, and fight to save it from inappropriate, unwanted development. Far from blocking development, extensive research demonstrates that local communities almost always want new housing, as long as it is the right housing in the right place, serves social justice and creates sustainable communities.

Planning has had a chequered history. Some developments were so poorly planned and constructed that they were demolished only a few decades later. It has been abused and starved of resources but, at its best, planning remains about managing local change for the better. Proposed changes to the planning system and to local government structures appear to pose a threat to even the continuation of democratically elected local authority planning committees being allowed to take some key decisions about development, and to the views of local communities remaining part of that process.

However, in spite of the rhetoric, significant opportunities for citizen participation remain: local communities can still develop neighbourhood plans (support from planning aid still exists), local authority development plans still require consultation with local communities, and new opportunities continue to be created (e.g. identifying assets of community value, community right to buy). But it needs local authorities to be encouraged not just to consult but to take account of input from local citizens, and to see such input as a positive contribution to the future of the places in which we live and work. A better and more vibrant future for communities can still be created by planners and citizens working more closely together.

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The publisher is Citizen Network. Citizen Participation and Land Use Planning © Diane Warburton 2025.