
The philosopher of Localism
Yesterday’s Guardian Live discussion brought out an issue long discussed in hushed tones since Open Source Planning was published.
Liam Sankey – Policy Manager – CIH
We are …concerned about the strategic leadership role of local authorities. …But …there is a cultural shift regarding localism that needs to occur – however, the de-professionalising of planning is a concern, as is the extent to which communities will actually be ‘in control’ or have power. The idea that neighbourhoods have the resources and time commitment is questionable and the difference between the aspirations and expectations of communities and the reality is going to be a fundamental problem in some areas.
Richard Blyth – RTPI
Interested that you think Sian that planning is being deprofessionalised. We have been concerned that last year at any rate ministers seemed to think that if you made planning policy short enough, then you wouldnt need any planners because it would be simple enough for anyone to do.
This Steve Hilton/John Howells Philosophy misses that planning is hard, and that shortening national planning policy doesnt do a lot to make it less hard. Indeed the less formal and procedural it becomes, and the more it requires creative positive use of a’toolkit’ of policies – the road we have gone down – the MORE it needs expertise to make it work.
Neighbourhood planning is needing a huge resource input from planning aid volunteers, so it is perverse as Kirkwalls is right to be outraged at today to cut back on Planning Aid and those groups supporting neighbourhood planning. Almost all LPA efforts are going into getting local plans in place and up to shape, so their is a great risk in four months time that the pathfinder exercise will founder. Expectations will have been raised and dashed.
Im going to bring in an unexpected witness (from the 19th C) in support of the thesis that localism needs professionalism – The Anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin in his 1882 Essay ‘What is Authority’
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch…
I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed on me by my own reason. I am conscious of my own inability to grasp, in all its detail, and positive development, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labour. I receive and I give – such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination.
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