After more than 2,400 communities have started neighbourhood planning in England (United-Kingdom Government, 2022) and 10 years since its inception, neighbourhood plans (NPs) emerge as one of the most current issue in spatial planning (Brownill & Bradley, 2017). Introduced by the Localism Act (2011), they are defined as a plan that ‘sets out a vision, policies and proposals for the future development of an area.’ (Local Government Association, 2013). It gives communities a new right to produce statutory land, use plans and control development in their neighbourhood.
There are many steps involved in producing a NP, led by a responsible group such as a Parish or Town Council or, where none exists, a Neighbourhood Forum. This is followed by other stages such as designation of the area (Brownill & Bradley, 2017) and conformity with the existing planning hierarchy. Finally, the plan must receive more than half of the votes cast in a local referendum before it is adopted by the local planning authority (LPA). As new and well-intentioned as it is, this dimension of the English planning system is not without its loopholes. In fact, while NPs are based on volunteering, ‘personal interest’ remains one of the reasons for people to participate in the NPs process (Parker et al., 2020) – demonstrating a dichotomy that could be summed up as: volunteerism/self-interest. Another dichotomy that seems necessary to look at is the opposition made by the DCLG (2010) between ‘local people’ and ‘officials’ (such as town halls), which could be summarised in these words: power to local people/power away from town halls. These dichotomies provide a nuanced way of looking at NPs’ weaknesses and strengths and the extent to which they enable communities to achieve their goals.

Firstly, the dichotomy between volunteering and self-interest illustrates the weaknesses and strengths of the NP process. Volunteering appears to be a strength for NPs as it offers all people the opportunity to be part of the forum. It brings together a diversity of profiles and attempts to best represent the community.
However, at the same time, the process of volunteering could also represent a weakness. As the community in charge of the NPs did not reach this position through a formal election process, but through self-selection (Davoudi & Cowie, 2013), they may not be seen as legitimate representatives. Furthermore, as ‘personal interest’ is one of the reasons for volunteering (Parker et al., 2020), it could be a boast for NPs to represent and consider the ‘public good’ (Gallent & Robinson, 2013). In addition, it seems logical that people who might normally face barriers to participating in the planning process will again be less represented on the forum. This risk of lack of diversity could ‘reinforce existing power relations in planning policy in favour of those with a stronger presence and voice’ (Vigar et al., 2017). Ultimately, the legitimacy and representativeness of the Forum could be reassessed by community and official stakeholders.

Secondly, despite these weaknesses, the NPs find their strengths in empowering local people. Residents know their neighbourhood better and provide a new vision. In the case of NPs, the power to local people goes even further, as it is shown by research on new housing development (Brownill & Bradley, 2017). In fact, in practice, communities can become more positive about new housing development, as shown by the reduction in the number of planning appeals and legal challenges (Brownill & Bradley, 2017). They would even be quite supportive as illustrated by the number of sites allocated by NPs (Mountain, 2015 cited by Brownill & Bradley, 2017), as residents have more control over the process (Brownill & Bradley, 2017). It seems possible for them to achieve their goals.
Nevertheless, by giving power to local people, the NPs process is also based on a detachment from the stakeholders of the officials. Thus, the creation of a NP and its success relies on a handful of self-selected core volunteers (Parker et al., 2020). As they are not professionals, and the involvement of town halls (which have skills and knowledge in urban planning) is very limited, the community is left alone in the decision-making process about ‘a range of local (long-term) needs’ (Parker et al., 2020). This work requires ‘a significant commitment of both personal and community time and resources’ (Parker et al., 2020) and could represent a weakness in terms of the long-term issue (such as a future NPs review) and the community’s capacity to produce (Davoudi & Cowie, 2013). Finally, this dichotomy leads us to consider what power for which implementation? In fact, the power is given to the local people, but it is still limited because it only includes the control and regulation of the development decision, they can not bring investment. This limitation on the neighbourhood’s ability to bring about development could be a constraint for residents to engage in the NPs process.

Finally, even if NPs are one of the only tools that integrate the inhabitants on the urban planning prospective in Europe, weaknesses exist and should not be neglected. In fact, the uneven spatial distribution of the resources and social and cultural capital required for the creation of an NP causes an unequal access to it between areas. The benefits are currently largely confined to more affluent areas and allow privileged people in society (higher education, ethnicity, blue-collar vs. white-collar jobs and financial stability for example) to have the right to decide for others and, in the worst case, to affect the less privileged people by their decisions, despite not having been democratically elected.