The Spatial, Material and Temporal Dimensions of Planning Regulations: A Legal Geography Perspective

Abstract

The field of legal geography provides useful concepts for analysing the spatial, material and temporal dimensions of planning law. This article explores the spatialities, materialities and temporalities embedded in planning regulations. It examines the “things” written into planning regulations and the spatial – as well as social and temporal – relationships and arrangements established among these things. A framework is derived from legal geography to identify the objects, scales, units, boundaries, actors, and social and spatial relationships written into planning regulations. The article identifies a research agenda for further work in examining planning regulation through the lens of legal geography.

Keywords:

• Legal geography
• planning
• regulations
• permitted development
• sites
• boundaries

Acknowledgements

The ideas in this paper were first presented at the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference in September 2018. Thank you to those who provided critical and constructive suggestions on the initial ideas presented at the conference. Thank you also to the challenging and constructive comments of the journal’s referees.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The text of the General Permitted Development Order 2015 can be accessed electronically at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/596/contents/made.

2 Valverde (2014) draws on the notion of ‘chronotope’ as a way of recognising the interconnectedness of spatial and temporal considerations in socio-legal analysis. The other example she uses to illustrate the notion of chronotype is the legal courtroom – attending to the courtroom’s spatial elements interconnected with its temporal elements (p. 69). In essence, the notion of chronotope enables equal, simultaneous and synthesised consideration of time and space in analyses of socio-legal elements and phenomena.

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on work conducted at Cardiff University and has not been externally funded.

Notes on contributors

Neil Harris

Neil Harris is an academic in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. Neil is also a Chartered Town Planner and an active member of The Royal Town Planning Institute. Neil has engaged in a range of research and impact projects on various aspects of the statutory planning systems in the United Kingdom.