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Abstract
Two trends in contemporary governance practice are mirrored in recent UK efforts in transport policy and practice: first, a concern to develop strategies in more participative and deliberative ways; second, a re-territorialisation of the state with greater attention to regional levels. This article discusses these issues through assessing a single regional transport strategy-making effort. The article argues that the process has achieved some of its aims and is a useful effort at generating awareness of, and interest in, this aspect of strategic policy making. However, the case highlighted shows how important it is to develop an appropriate collaborative process if a policy mechanism is to endure. This requires greater attention to: the purposes of participation in strategy development; the skills, practices and roles needed by the animateurs of such processes; the system of formal decision-making institutions and mechanisms arising from re-territorialisation in the UK case; and reconceptualising participatory processes in more deliberative ways. The article concludes with an assessment of ways forward both specifically for the development of strategic transport policy and for stakeholder engagement in similar exercises in other policy areas.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank four anonymous referees, the journal editor and also participants at seminars held at the Planning and Transportation Research Centre, Perth WA and the Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies for all their comments in improving this article.
Notes
1. The New Approach to Transport Appraisal framework in the UK for example (DfT, Citation2003).
2. The author took part in two meetings of a Wider Reference Group, analysed documentation and undertook one semi-structured interview with a key stakeholder.
3. Regional Assemblies comprise representatives from public, private and voluntary sector agencies and are charged with developing various aspects of regional strategy.
4. Trunk roads are strategic routes of ‘national importance’.
5. Transportation demand management emphasises the management of existing resources to meet transport policy objectives, emphasising behavioural change rather than supply-side increases in infrastructure.
6. It should also be noted that it is something of an outlier in relation to transport policy, perhaps along with south-west England, in its orientation toward ‘predict and provide’ policies that emphasise the importance of infrastructure investment in overcoming ‘peripherality’ for the purposes of economic development (see MVA, Citation2004).
7. ANEC was superseded by the North East Assembly in 1999.
8. A quasi-public organisation charged with regional development in the north-east of England.
9. The NEA is the regional assembly for the North East, designated by the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 as the ‘voluntary regional chamber’. It has 72 members: 50 from governmental agencies (mostly local authorities), and the rest from the private / business sector, trade unions, culture / media / sport, further & higher education, skills and training, MPs and MEPs, health, rural, the environment and voluntary sectors.
10. The author became part of the WRG from Phase Two of this process.
11. The author observed two sessions and a colleague observed two others (see Vigar & Porter, 2005)
12. In June 2002 central government announced that a 29-mile stretch of dual-carriageway in North Yorkshire would indeed be widened to three lanes. Earlier that year the A1 multi-modal study had concluded that dualling the A1 throughout Northumberland could not be justified, although it remains in the Regional Spatial Strategy.
13. Interestingly, these issues are considered less important in urban areas, perhaps reflecting the composition of the WRG, but also the structuring of the RTS process in this case. This typifies the absence of ‘accessibility’ issues in policy discussions generally, except in remoter rural areas where they are perhaps more visible but potentially no more significant than in urban areas.
14. The absence of evidence in the open fora is itself interesting given the concern for ‘evidence-based’ policy making in UK governance in recent years.
15. This may be a British peculiarity, it is certainly not inevitable. For example, in Western Australia significant numbers of transport planning staff at the Department for Planning and Infrastructure have been trained in how to conduct collaborative practices.