Re-imagining neighbourhood governance: the future of neighbourhood planning in England

Neighbourhood planning is arguably the most radical innovation in UK local governance in a generation, with over 2,200 communities in England now involved in statutory development planning at the neighbourhood level. Following incremental policy reforms, we argue that neighbourhood planning has reached a critical juncture where the future of the initiative is at stake. In this paper we reflect on existing research to assess the policy to date before imagining what an optimised version of the policy might look like. Despite being a state-led initiative, central government has failed to provide an image of success for neighbourhood planning which we argue has held back widespread innovation and progressive participation. We therefore outline a normative guide against which future iterations of neighbourhood planning might be assessed, and employ this in order to imagine a more comprehensive form of neighbourhood governance.