ABSTRACT
The (re-)emergence of the regional level of governance and planning within Britain has occurred partly by changes outside the UK, including the “hollowing out” of the nation state (Ohmae 1997), globalisation (Brenner 1999), changes in governance (Stoker 1990), resurgent national and regional identities (Keating 1997) and developments within the European Union. Policies aimed at creating a “Europe of the Regions” (Jonas and Ward 1999), together with proposals on spatial planning and the EU Structural Funds (Bachtler and Turok 1997) and inter-territorial cooperation at the regional level through the INTERREG III initiative and the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) (EC 1991, 1994, 1999), have directly and indirectly promoted the regional level. Within Britain, changes in regional policy and governance have been a priority of the New Labour government since its election in 1997. A mass of constitutional reforms, including devolution to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, the introduction of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and regional chambers, and the faltering introduction of elected regional assemblies within England, have all added an impetus to the more modest institutional changes towards enhanced regional planning introduced under the Major governments between 1990 and 1997, as explained in the previous chapter.
