ABSTRACT
There is a widely held view that regional planning in Europe has evolved within five very distinct legal and administrative frameworks: British, Napoleonic, Germanic, Scandinavian and East European (Newman and Thornley, 1996). The British legal system derives from a combination of English Common Law (which operates in most of the United Kingdom and in Ireland, and is based on the empiricism of case by case decisions) and a hybrid mixture of local customary law, Roman Law and English Common Law in Scotland. Britain is also alone in Europe in having no written constitution, and hence no special protection in law has been granted to local government, while in Ireland (because of the legacy of British dominance) local authorities are likewise unprotected in law. Whereas in much of Continental Europe – particularly within the Federal states – there is an assumption that local and regional authorities ‘have a general power over the affairs of their communities’ (Newman and Thornley, 1996: 30), in the United Kingdom and Ireland – notwithstanding the need to provide public services on a local scale as agents of central government – responsibility so to do is subject to the concept of ultra-vires if the local authority exceeds the powers conferred upon it by the centre. Clearly, the administrative system of the United Kingdom and Ireland is a dual system (see Leemans, 1970; Bennett, 1993; Newman and Thornley, 1996). Local authority activity and finance are constrained by central government, while central government exercises a supervisory role. Duality is also manifested by little movement of politicians and professionals between local and central government (or vice versa) and there are very few instances of politicians holding office at more than one level of government – in contrast to practice in many other European countries. With the gradual devolution of government in the UK to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and possibly to the English regions, the dominance of Westminster and Whitehall might begin to break down as power and responsibility move closer to the electorate.
