‘The object is to change the heart and soul’: Financial incentives, planning and opposition to new housebuilding in England

Inch, Andy, Dunning, Richard ORCID: 0000-0003-0397-679X, While, Aidan, Hickman, Hannah and Payne, Sarah (2020) ‘The object is to change the heart and soul’: Financial incentives, planning and opposition to new housebuilding in England. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 38 (4). pp. 713-732.

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Abstract

In 2014 the UK government announced plans to reduce opposition to housing development by making a direct payment to households in England.1 This was part of a wider experiment with behavioural economics and financial inducements in planning policy. In this paper, we explore this proposal, named ‘Development Benefits’, arguing it offers important insights into how the governing rationality of neoliberalism attempts to govern both planning and opposition to development by replacing political debate with a depoliticised economic rationality. Drawing on householder and key player responses to the Development Benefits proposal we highlight significant levels of principled objection to the replacement of traditional forms of planning reason with financial logics. The paper therefore contributes to understandings of planning as a site of ongoing resistance to neoliberal rationalities. We conclude by questioning whether Development Benefits represent a particular strand of ‘late neoliberal’ governmentality, exploring the potential for an alternative planning rationality to contest the narrow marketisation of planning ideas and practices.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	opposition to development, planning for housing, neoliberalism, financial incentives, conflict
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2020 09:03
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 00:06
DOI:	10.1177/2399654420902149
Open Access URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/239965442...
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3072292

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• ‘The object is to change the heart and soul’: Financial incentives, planning and opposition to new housebuilding in England. (deposited 28 Jan 2020 08:42)
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