Abstract
This thesis examines citizen engagement in neighbourhood planning. The research offers first-hand experience of participation, through a 20-month community placement volunteer role as the Communications Officer, with an area neighbourhood development forum (NDF) known as Knowle West Future (KWF), in the attempt to produce a neighbourhood plan for an area of south Bristol known as Knowle West.Employing participant observation as method, the research findings were also facilitated by including layers of data from semi-structured interview data. This enables an understanding of policy enactment in the context of community history, with a sense of the emotional geographies told through the marginalised voice around societal loss.
The overall aim of the thesis is to present rich, nuanced empirical data to facilitate a rounded and in-depth understanding of one attempt at neighbourhood planning. This research offers an analysis of some of the complexities surrounding this decentred model of governance. The thesis examines how entanglements of power and trust around loss and community context can impact policy implementation.
This study develops a critique of the policy of neighbourhood planning, in terms of examining the ‘empowerment’ promised by the government. However, several constraints affected Knowle West residents’ ability to fully operationalise the policy and KWF did not make a neighbourhood plan. Resource issues including relational agency, trust, and multi-dimensional levels of socio-economic disadvantage within the locale are analysed and presented as part of the web of complications faced by this group of novice volunteer citizen planners.
Date of Award | 25 Jan 2022 |
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Original language | English |
Awarding Institution |
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Supervisor | Helen Manchester (Supervisor), Morag A McDermont (Supervisor) & Rosamund J Sutherland (Supervisor) |
Keywords
- neighbourhood planning
- localism
- spatiality of power
- emotional geographies
- coproduction
- loss
- trust
- literacy
- levelling up
- planning
- England
- social inclusion
- protecting green space