Nationally significant? Major infrastructure projects, central-local relations and municipal statecraft and scalecraft in England

Keywords: Local government, England, planning, infrastructure, scalecraft
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

In England, the Planning Act 2008 altered the planning system for major (or ‘nationally significant’) infrastructure projects. There was some perception at the time that this was a rescaling which reduced the role of local government in the process under rhetoric of the need to remove delay and deliver development. The role of the local authorities was to undertake a local impact assessment and to approve the consultation undertaken at the pre-application stage only. However, as many of these major projects have moved from the consenting to the delivery phase, this role of local authorities has grown beyond initial expectations, with important work around dealing with scheme amendments and consenting, community concerns around construction and broader public engagement. As such, local authorities have played a larger than important role in helping deliver national infrastructure projects and mitigate potential local harms. We explore how this role is being played in some case study projects including a highway project and a power station project in the east of England and a super sewer tunnel in Greater London, considering the importance of the everyday actions of local government officials and considering what this tells us about evolving forms of municipal statecraft and scalecraft in the face of complex planning and governance challenges. We conclude that although operating within a constrained acting space, there is still capacity for local authorities in England to influence these ‘national’ projects in order to promote more just geographies.