Can less sometimes be more? Integrating land use and transport planning on Merseyside (1965–2008)

Abstract

The integration of land use planning with other spatially significant policy sectors has been a longstanding aspiration and subject of debate in the planning profession and academia. The strategic planning of the 1960s and 1970s, for example, frequently aimed to promote a more ‘spatialised’ management of public policies and programmes. More recently, in the 1990s and 2000s the notion of ‘spatial planning’, popularised by international debates and new forms of governance and public management, has similarly placed an emphasis on the coherent management and coordination of policies and activities with a spatial impact. Achieving greater coordination between land use and transport policy has been a recurring theme in discussions on the integration of land use planning and other sectors. Informed by the context outlined above, this paper considers integration between land use and transport policies, plans, programmes and projects from both a conceptual and empirical perspective. It postulates the existence of a continuum model of integration between policy sectors ranging from ‘light’ to ‘deep’ integration and identifies barriers to and enablers of the achievement of effective integration. These elements are then used to frame and interpret evidence on the integration of land use and transport policies in Merseyside (UK) between 1965 and 2008. The findings indicate that effective integration is more likely to happen at the centre of a continuum between light and deep integration, with the implication being that deeper integration between policy sectors does not necessarily result in more effective integration overall.

Keywords:

• spatial planning
• transport planning
• policy integration theory and practice

Notes

1. In the literature various terms are used to refer to those involved in policy and integration processes; for example, ‘partners’, ‘actors’, ‘stakeholders’, ‘communities’, ‘interest groups’, ‘sectors’, and ‘professions’. Here we refer to ‘actors’ (defined as individuals involved in integration processes), and ‘partners’ (defined as the organisations which employ such actors).

2. Since the mid-2000s increasing attention has been paid in England to the concept of city regions. In this context the Greater Merseyside area has increasingly been referred to as the ‘Liverpool City Region’ in policy debates and documents (Sykes et al., 2013).

3. For a fuller account of the method by which this segmentation of the time period was arrived at, see Smith (2009).

4. Despite repeated attempts, it was not possible to identify key stakeholders for the 1960s and 1970s/1980s time periods.

5. Criticisms of the length of time being taken to adopt structure plans, the level of detail they contained, and of metropolitan scale government in general were being voiced in a number of quarters at this time, notably in circles with influence on the then government. These contributed to the abolition of metropolitan structure planning and metropolitan councils in the mid-1980s.

6. A Section 106 Agreement is a provision of English planning law which enables developers to make in kind or monetary contributions in connection with a planned development. An ‘SPG’ is a Supplementary Planning Guidance note which forms part of the land use planning framework for a local planning authority’s area. They are a material consideration (i.e. carry legal weight) for development control purposes.

7. It should be noted that the examples considered for the post-1998 period were in two cases specific projects and in one case a specifically focused statutory planning document rather than a broader plan or framework such as the Structure Plan of the 1970s.