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The research has impacted for over a decade via contributions to changes in planning legislation, policy, guidance and practice in both Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland. Now as the framework for local government reform is being developed in NI, planning is undergoing structural change to enable powers to be devolved to the new councils. In an advisory capacity to the Minister for the Environment on the Ministerial Planning Advisory Forum and also to the Northern Ireland Assembly, specific contributions have been made to the development of the Planning Act (NI) 2011 and a new single planning policy statement which will inform planning decision making. Impact is also manifested in the preparation of government guidance for plan-making in the Republic of Ireland. The research impacts upon all aspects of urban and rural planning decision making in the jurisdiction of NI (population 1.8 million) and also on design based urban and rural planning decision making in the Republic of Ireland (population 4.58 million).
Research at Newcastle has made a significant contribution to the development of strategic and local planning practice in the UK and globally. It has also shaped concepts and expectations of spatial planning and place governance. Based on a concerted approach to the theorisation, analysis and transfer of ideas through teaching, research and engagement with practice, the role of collaborative planning as a key element of urban governance, to bring different interests and communities together, continues to influence debates about the nature of development processes and their future role in place-shaping.
Planning obligations are used by local government to capture some of the financial windfall that accrues to land owners and developers when planning permissions are granted. University of Sheffield research into the incidence of planning obligations, their financial value, and variations in related local policy and practice has made a significant contribution to national policy development. This includes the shaping of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and the improvement of obligations policy implementation throughout the UK. The three main impacts of the research have been: (i) to provide evidence that has resulted in a much larger proportion of sites now contributing to infrastructure provision than was initially intended in national policy; (ii) to provide evidence that influenced the decision to restructure affordable housing grants, resulting in better use of around £2.8bn per annum of public expenditure and a greater supply of new housing for lower income households than would otherwise have been possible; and (iii) to inform best practice within local authorities, enabling many of them to use obligations to capture increasingly large contributions to infrastructure provision.
The importance of this impact relates to how it changed policy and practice in regard to spatial division in Northern Ireland's contested society by linking planning, regeneration and reconciliation. Beneficiaries include: north Belfast communities (33,000 population) which have a new planning framework and knowledge to improve their regeneration; a network of reconciliation agencies, which has endorsed a policy manifesto based on the research; the main government department concerned with planning and development which has embedded reconciliation into its legislative and core policy framework, and Belfast City Council, which has been guided about how best they can tie their `good relations' strategy to their emerging powers around planning and regeneration.
The research highlighted here has had a major impact on the design of community led planning (CLP) and neighbourhood planning in England since 2006; initially within the voluntary and community sector and subsequently on policymakers' thinking. This has shaped the trajectory of policy development nationally since 2010 and influenced the way in which local authorities and other intermediary organizations (such as the Rural Community Action Network (RCAN) / Action in Communities in Rural England (ACRE) / Rural Community Councils (RCCs) in England) have approached community-led planning (CLP) and subsequently Neighbourhood Planning (NP). The work has had a significant impact on the NP approach and therefore on the public through the 2011 Localism Act. This legislation led to the `Supporting Communities in Neighbourhood Planning' (SCNP) programme, funded by Communities and Local Government (CLG) since 2011 to a value of circa £20m overall (which includes a 2013-15 tranche of £9.5 Million). The case study lead researcher (Parker) is now co-ordinating a large part of this programme while on 80% secondment at the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)/Planning Aid England (PAE) (2012-2014).
This case study demonstrates how extensive University of Manchester (UoM) research over nearly two decades has led to a step change in policy monitoring practices, through the development of innovative indicator methodologies that have strong analytical, learning and spatial emphases. The key impact was the direct translation of a UoM research report into the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's (ODPM) official spatial planning monitoring guidance, with all 394 English local planning authorities required to comply with evidence-based plan-making. This work continues to shape the policy debates and practices of the UK Coalition Government, with impact extending internationally, influencing policy, debate and practice within: the EC, the UN, the World Bank, Australia and China (Shantou).
A series of research projects, between 1994 and 2013, developed innovative land use and transport models to provide an evidence base for urban decision-making. They have impacted the planning of cities around the world, in particular the industrial declining city of Bilbao, Spain, now heralded as an exemplar of renewal; the planning of the developing world city of Santiago, Chile, now an exemplar of modernity; and the expansion of the knowledge-based city of Cambridge, UK, now an exemplar of sustainability. This research continues to contribute to planning policies around the world.
Research undertaken at LSE since 1995 has changed the terms of debate about land use planning and contributed to substantive changes in government policy. Planning was previously thought of as purely an environmental/design issue, but the underpinning research has demonstrated substantial economic effects on housing supply and affordability, housing market volatility, and on the productivity of economic users of space: it has shown that England's planning policies add up to 35% to housing costs, act as a tax equivalent of up to 800% on the cost of office space and since 1996 have reduced the productivity of a representative English supermarket by 32%. The work had significant influence on the two Barker Reviews and subsequent housing policy changes introduced by the Blair and Brown Labour governments. More recently it has influenced Coalition thinking and policy on planning's wider economic impacts.
This impact relates to the research and development of the SuBETool, a new framework and method for assessment of spatial master-plans. International use of this framework by planning professionals has set a new bench-mark for master-planning, and re-positioned master-planning as a critical stage in the development process.
The SuBETool research has:
The Local Governance Research Unit (LGRU) undertook a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), a not-for-profit local government association that provides policy and operational advice to over 300 councils. This partnership informed APSE's strategic policy review, co-producing a new model of the Ensuring Council, which was adopted by its national council, and used to brand and position APSE within local government. Seven evidence-based policy tools were created through the partnership and taken up and used by APSE for consultancy and membership services. Externally, APSE used these outputs to increase its influence over national policy.