Community engagement through town planning

This ongoing town-grown engagement project draws on six years of work with local communities and elected representatives in Brighton and Hove, partly through advisory work with local authorities and councillors, but mainly through academic and student collaborations with local councillors, council officers and community groups.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government elected in 2010 introduced the Localism Act 2011, followed shortly afterwards by the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012. The legislation heralded a new power for neighbourhood visions to be enshrined in new Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs), part of the statutory local development plan. Tight control of high level housing numbers is still held as a ‘strategic’ element of the Local Plan which communities have to be in conformity with, although they can opt for more development if they choose.

The process of setting housing numbers can become a political battlefield, as accusations of ‘top down’ imposition of housing numbers set by the national Planning Inspectorate lead some communities to question whether Localism happens in practice. Some communities consider there is little point undertaking a Neighbourhood Plan when they are powerless to prevent housing numbers they consider unsustainable, however for those communities in broad agreement with the housing number set for their area, there is a new opportunity for communities to decide where sites are located and to establish local policies for the area in a Neighbourhood Development Plan.

Project aims

The project aims to enhance student learning through hands on work with real live projects working with communities; communities of practitioners and communities of residents strengthening town-gown relations and emphasising the beneficial impacts of planning.

Project findings and impact

Students on the Master of Science in Town Planning in two academic years, 2012–2013 and 2013–14 drove forward work baseline research with the Hove Station Neighbourhood Forum. Over two years, students’ work was taken forward with local debates about the right boundary for the neighbourhood plan which would allow communities on both side of the boundary in Hove to benefit from opportunities to improve the area’s future. Through attending community meetings, students could see for themselves how this urban group had grown up in a fairly ‘ad hoc’ way, compared to rural Parish Councils having a formal structure and often planning sub-groups already in place.

This academic year, 2014–2015, students have been working with the Brighton and Hove City Council’s Estate Regeneration Team, the community group Due East in Whitehawk, the Hove Station Neighbourhood Forum and the Hove Park Neighbourhood Forum to drive through community led agendas in each of the three areas. A presentation and exhibition of the students’ work will take place on 21 May 2015.

Research team

Dr Samer Bagaeen, Environment and Technology

Helen Walker, Environment and Technology

Output

(2014) ‘Neighbourhood planning in action’, Roundtable at the 2014 UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference, held at Oxford Brookes University, 9-11 September

(2014) ‘Reconnecting town and gown: The co-creation of knowledge and the experiences of students involved in a live project in Brighton and Hove’, paper presented at the University of Brighton Pedagogic Research conference, 7 February 2014

(2013) ‘Neighbourhood planning: The challenge for planning education - reconnecting town and gown’, paper presented at the 2013 UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference, held at the University of West of England, 11–13 September

Partners

Georgia Wrighton, CPRE London

Mike Gibson, Hove Station Neighbourhood Forum

Jaine Jolly, Brighton and Hove Estate Regeneration Team

Cllr Vanessa Brown

Cllr Christina Summers

Rob Fraser, Head of Planning Strategy, Brighton and Hove City Council

Helmut Lusser, Hove Civic Society

Neighbourhood Planning Team, Department for Communities and Local Government