3 - Localism: the peccadillos of a panacea

Summary

Introduction

The final revisions to this book were drafted at the end of 2022, a year in which the UK had three different prime ministers, all from the same political party, inhabiting 10 Downing Street within a period of 45 days. In that context, it is almost surreal to remember the atmosphere in the Rose Garden of that premises on 12 May 2010. In a scene later described as ‘sick-inducing’ (Merrick, 2014), new Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg launched their agreed programme for government following the general election. In a very unusual outcome for the UK, that election had led to a coalition government between the Conservative Party of Cameron and Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. While fractures between them appeared quickly, their initial coalition agreement was full of inspirational rhetoric about the ‘common ground’ between the parties:

We share a conviction that the days of big government are over; that centralisation and top-down control have proved a failure. We believe that the time has come to disperse power more widely in Britain today; to recognise that we will only make progress if we help people to come together to make life better. In short, it is our ambition to distribute power and opportunity to people rather than hoarding authority within government. That way, we can build the free, fair and responsible society we want to see.

(HM Government, 2010: 7)

While the language about the ‘failure’ of ‘big government’ can, perhaps rightly, be seen as part of a continuum with neoliberal anti-state orthodoxy of the previous 30 years, the emphasis on dispersing power through what Cameron (2010) called the ‘Big Society’ is arguably different, ostensibly leaning more in the direction of social liberalism. What is certain is that the Coalition government embarked, through such legislation as the Localism Act 2011, on a programme of changes to governance, including planning, which had the potential to ‘disperse power more widely’ and certainly changed the planning system in fundamental ways.