Dr Tim Marshall

There have been discussions in a range of contexts of the links between spatial planning and actions on major infrastructure.  Here this relationship is framed by considering the political, ideological and geographical drivers of state policies and actions in the spatial planning and infrastructure fields.  The empirical focus is a study of current large scale spatial planning activities in the UK over the last decade or so, largely within England.  Analysis of these cases shows the importance of understanding planning and infrastructure together, given that  the emerging initiatives on infrastructure and in big spatial planning are very much connected.

This monograph investigates the place of macro-scale spatial planning in steering infrastructure development in Europe. It starts from an examination of the way in which changes in the form of infrastructure development are driven by neo-liberalisation and changes in the political and constitutional forms of states. Macro-spatial planning, within states and at supra-national levels, has some role in steering major infrastructure, a role which is affected by the spatial ideas which actors have of the territories for which policy is being made. One focus is on the nature of such spatial imaginaries, and how this affects the abilities of democratic polities to project and debate their territorial futures.
The paper examines four western European states as well as the reform of the European Union Trans-European Networks policy area. This analysis generates an understanding of the interplay of the material and ideational forces referred to above. This understanding is finally put to work to examine the possible scope to improve the working together of macro-spatial planning in one case, that of the UK, concentrating on England within this now plural jurisdiction. Efforts to promote a spatial framework for England have not been successful up to now, in part, it is suggested, because the neo-liberalising dynamics have constituted an almost insuperable barrier to even imagining spatially coherent futures for England. However this might be taken as a challenge by academics and practicising planners, amongst many others, to stretch the bounds of thinking, in part by drawing on current transition ideas and other story lines exploring and arguing for long term steered change.

The European Union (EU) has been involved in influencing major infrastructure in the fields of transport and energy mainly by means of the Trans-European Networks (TENs) programme begun in the 1990s. Other macro-planning and wider spatial planning exercises, including the European Spatial Development Perspective, made reference to such infrastructure systems, particularly in relation to the need for connectivity and mobility, but normally did not attempt to intervene in an area seen as one of the prerogatives of national states. Much more important have been the wider programmes of liberalization pressed by the EU since the 1980s, but these have had no specific geographical content. A revision of the TENs programmes since 2008 has led to proposals to increase the role of the EU, by drawing up continent wide schemas indicating needs for future investment in many fields of both transport and energy, and introducing new procedures to streamline decision-making by designating projects as of European interest. The initiatives in transport and energy are described here, including the two Regulations currently under discussion within the EU institutions. These include major proposals for cross-European multi-modal transport corridors within an EU core network, and regional schemas for energy drawn up primarily by energy industries and government counterparts. Both are likely to be of real significance for spatial planners throughout the continent, and have major impacts on the shapes of future infrastructure networks. These proposals are analysed, as cases of the rescaling and re-ordering of government, giving more force to the EU in these fields, and reinforcing sectoral- or silo-based decision-making. It is argued that somewhat different outcomes will result in the few areas, such as the Baltic, where long-term macro-regional collaboration has been present, from the rest of Europe, where these sectoral programmes may complicate further the mix of planning impacting on each region, making even more confused the accountability of governance. Suggestions are made for the careful assessment of these schemas by national and regional governments, and for the creation of some spatial planning analytical capability at the EU level, which could examine this type of proposals, with powerful spatial impacts.

The UK government passed the 2008 Planning Act in order to reform the process for decisions on major infrastructure projects. Previously, this had been dealt with under the main town and country planning system, with the use of public inquiries, alongside sectoral consenting procedures. Here, the reasons for this legislation are explored, including revisions made by the Localism Act 2011, embedding this within an understanding of the broadly business friendly drives of all UK governments in recent years. Detailed assessment is made of the two main instruments used in England: national policy statements (NPSs) and the Infrastructure Planning Commission/National Infrastructure Directorate. This suggests that detailed implementation has generated certain contradictory or unexpected effects. A comparison is made with a very different approach in Scotland. An assessment is made of the significance of the law, given the political economic realities in which the new system's early life will be evolving.

This paper examines some recent cases of spatial planning at the national level. Such planning may be comprehensive, in some rare cases, or sectoral and with a more fuzzy and complex character. The paper concentrates on how such planning at the national level relates to the planning of major infrastructure in three European states. This reveals the wide range of approaches to such national-level planning, with quite differing arrangements and recent trajectories. The political economic circumstances of recent decades are layered on top of more enduring constitutional and historical-geographical characteristics, to frame the paths taken in each case. It is suggested that current arrangements are not likely to be up to the challenges now facing planning at this level. More careful academic focus on this level could help to suggest improved approaches.

The 2008 Planning Act sought to give England, and to lesser extents other parts of the UK, a new planning process for deciding major infrastructure projects. The causes, gestation and politics of this measure are analysed in this paper. This shows how distinctive the UK context has become since the 1990s, with the new legislation emerging from the political economy of powerful infrastructure industries, interacting with the particular configuration of interests represented by the New Labour government. The post May 2010 government aims to keep the 2008 Act reforms, subject to some revised elements. At present the innovation stands out in European comparison, with no other state having taken this path.