ABSTRACT
Whilst proposals for changes to policies during the process of drafting a development plan can give rise to significant levels of local debate, it is the decisions on individual development projects that tend to generate greater levels of engagement and polarise opinion amongst those affected. The ‘policy on the page’ of a development plan is in many ways an abstract concept, whilst a ‘real’ development outlined in a planning application more easily allows those who are affected to start to form views on how the development, once completed, will positively or negatively impact their lives: ‘it is often only when a major project gets underway that citizens and other people come to realise its implications and what is at stake’ (Healey 2010: 67). Maybe the public will not be considering the matter in quite the same apocalyptic way that the quote from the Audit Commission above implies, but often concerns are keenly felt. According to Booth (2002: 321), the transition from the plan to an individual project highlights a problem for planning systems throughout the developed world – that of finding the best means of resolving disputes over the future use of land – but there are some differences between the British system and those systems which rely on some form of zoning which confers rights on owners and developers.
