Project summaries

This is a collaborative research programme between English Partnerships and CUPS. The program is investigating 'the links between social change and change in urban environments' and is led by Professor Paul Syms, National Brownfield Strategy Director for English Partnerships and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Urban Policy Studies (CUPS). Since
November 2007 the post-doctoral researcher Andreas Schulze Bäing has been working on this project as a member of CUPS.

The reuse of brownfield land has emerged as an important issue for planning and urban regeneration. The Urban Task Force report and the subsequent Urban White Paper led to a number of measures aimed at increasing the share of previously developed land used for housing. In qualitative terms, there is wide ranging agreement amongst policy actors that focusing new development on brownfield land, and devoting resources to help in generating developable sites, should be a key element of contemporary urban regeneration. Beyond this it is seen as reducing the extent of green field development and extent of urban sprawl. In quantitative terms these policies have had marked impact. The goal of providing 60% of new housing on previously developed land by 2008 has been exceeded.

The focus of the project is on England but part of the research will also involve a comparison to brownfield policy and practice in other European countries.

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Over the last number of years the Government and security services have warned that the UK, along with many other countries, is under increased risk of terrorist attack from a variety of sources. Although such threats are not new, it is suggested that targeting has turned attention toward public places, or ‘soft’ targets such as sports grounds, shopping centres and entertainment facilities.

Places that are less likely to be adversely affected by such hazards, or that are more likely to recover from a destructive event may be described as possessing resilience. Policy makers and statutory agencies such as the military and police have a range of interventions at their disposal to help protect public places. Yet such activity is often impulsive and implemented with regard to specific threats. As such, they may be highly obtrusive as well as contentious.

Against this backdrop the project investigates concerns regarding the public acceptability of such measures, as well as appraising the potential role for practitioners. It focuses on busy shopping areas and light rail systems, though will develop findings and insights that are transferable to other public places.

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Since the changes to the planning system in 2004, there has been a new emphasis on the ‘spatial’ element of planning and on critical thinking about space and place as the basis for action or intervention. In the context of this new spatial planning agenda, the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Department for Communities and Local Government commissioned the University of Manchester and University of Sheffield to develop a framework within which spatial planning outcomes can be measured. The project was directed by Cecilia Wong, and also involved Alasdair Rae, Mark Baker, Stephen Hincks and Richard Kingston.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the possibility of identifying a coherent and integrated set of indicators for spatial planning outcomes in England and to develop a robust analytical framework to assist the interpretation of the indicators. The analysis and the recommendations of this work were underpinned by evidence collected from an e-survey of local planning authorities, in-depth telephone interviews with regional planning bodies, Government Offices and selected local authorities, as well as three workshops with practitioners held in Manchester and London.

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As one of a consortium of partners, CUPS was heavily involved in a major three year study of the new local plan making system which was launched by CLG (formerly ODPM) in June 2005. The Spatial Plans in Practice Project (SPiP) was seen as a way of supporting the step change in local plan making by offering a valuable source of shared knowledge and experience gained by planners working on the ‘front-line’ of the new plan making system.

The intention of the Spatial Plans in Practice Project was to support local planning authorities during their transition and adjustment to the new system. This study was intended to provide evidence to help stakeholders involved in the planning process to better understand how inclusive and proactive plan making contributes to creating sustainable communities.

The findings of the study are published as a series of Lessons Reports, Thematic Studies and Literature Reviews. CUPS was involved in delivering a number of reports covering topics such as Achieving Successful Participation in Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Delivery.

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The persistence of large disparities between the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the rest of the country has prompted the government’s vision for the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal (NSNR) that within 10 to 20 years, no-one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live. In acknowledging that previous regeneration programmes have failed to reverse neighbourhood decline, NSNR aims to tackle the causes of deprivation in a more comprehensive way, focusing on the poorest neighbourhoods in the country and taking into account the interrelationships between the causes of deprivation. It aims to simultaneously improve education and skills, health, housing and reduce worklessness and crime.

The programme of work comprises of an assessment of progress in the areas targeted by NSNR through the development of quantitative indicators and a qualitative assessment of the effectiveness and appropriateness of the NSNR delivery mechanisms through previous evaluation research and a series of case-studies and interviews.

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The city-region is an important functional entity. This makes them increasingly appropriate for a range of strategic issues. Travel-to work flows identify a set of local districts that form the tributary areas for England’s major cities. For other types of flows, city ‘catchments’ are extremely wide. Flow data suggest that the geography of city-regions is fuzzy and varies depending on different functions but that, however defined, the tributary regions of the big cities are very extensive and have considerable significance for economic performance.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister commissioned CUPS and SURF to explore the concept of city regions in order to underpin any future national policy framework for city regions.

Brian Robson and Kitty Lymperopoulou developed an evidence base to give flesh to the city-region concept, looking both at national data on travel-to-work and at a variety of service-based and based-based flows in the two case study areas of Greater Manchester and Greater Bristol.

This work was subsequently followed up with a commission from the North West Development Agency to explore city-region flows in the North West and West Yorkshire.

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In order to develop a robust and systematic approach to monitoring, the DCLG (formerly ODPM) commissioned Cecilia Wong, Mark Baker and Sue Kidd (at the University of Liverpool) to develop a monitoring framework for the newly established Local Development Frameworks (LDF), including the preparation of annual monitoring reports.

The findings were published as a guidance document by the ODPM. The monitoring framework introduced in this guidance is based on the latest methodological developments in the monitoring of complex spatial strategies. Six core design components are included: the structure-performance model; the objectives-targets-indicators approach; a nested hierarchy of indicators; a framework of indicators; the use of analytical indicator bundles; and the analytical principles.

CUPS are continuing work in this area with the Spatial Plans in Practice project (see Research section) and a joint project with the University of Sheffield exploring the spatial outcomes of planning.

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As part of its wider commitment to promoting more effective national spatial planning, the Royal Town Planning Institute commissioned Cecilia Wong and her two doctoral researchers, Alasdair Rae and Andreas Schulze Bäing to establish the evidence base for better understanding of the spatial structure that underpins the development of different parts of the UK.

The analysis led to the conceptual derivation of 6 meaningful functional spatial clusters that may have policy implications for spatial planning: the London Supernova; the Central Constellation; the Tyne-Tees Cluster; the Central Belt of Scotland; the Belfast Cluster; and the South Wales and Bristol Channel Cluster. The findings of the study will help inform the Royal Town Planning Institute and its task group to further develop different policy scenarios in relation to the debate about the need for a UK Spatial Planning Framework.

This is a follow-up study to that carried out by Wong, Ravetz and Turner in 2000.

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While CUPS makes use of a range of advanced analytical methods, particularly using geographical information systems, many of these techniques can be difficult to apply by policymakers.

Recently, a number of bespoke software applications have been developed which can be easily used by policy makers to assess the impact of different policy scenarios.

Through the work of Richard Kingston, CUPS also has extensive expertise in the development and use of ICTs to enhance the planning and regeneration process particularly through the use of innovative Public Participation GIS.

The Micro-simulation Modelling and Predictive Policy Analysis System (Micro-MaPPAS) has been developed to analyse data at varying spatial scales on a quarterly basis and can model socio-economic scenarios up to 20 years in the future.

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