Collaborative action in local plan-making: planners' perceptions of 'planning through debate'

Community participation exercises in the development plan process in the United Kingdom have generally been undertaken by local authorities through a consultation process where planners draw up policies and strategies and then 'advertise' them to the public to seek legitimation. More innovative or democratic forms of participation in development planning (voluntarily entered into by local planning authorities) remain comparatively rare. But where they do exist, they can provide an effective means through which planners can fully engage with the communities they serve and generate more informed discourses on planning policy matters. In this paper we analyse an innovative community participation technique in the Brecon Beacons National Park (BBNP), a rural local planning authority in mid-Wales. It is argued that the planning officers were feeling their way towards a communicative or collaborative approach close to Healey's (1992) 'planning through debate'. An evaluation of their efforts and their opinions can shed light on the constraints facing democratising tendencies associated with communicative or collaborative local planning. Following an outline of the technique adopted by BBNP planners, we analyse the perceptions of the officers towards democratisation in relation to five key areas: planning regulation; the role of politicians; knowledge gaining; corporate approaches; and assessing the benefits of innovative participation. We conclude by suggesting that, although innovative participation exercises are worthwhile and can lead to closer working relationships between communities and professionals, the problems caused by the legal and policy constraints within the British planning system often mitigate against translating community discourses into policy development and can lead to public frustration.