Caring for Place: Community Development in Rural England

241 Pages·2022·5.422 MB·English

by  Patsy Healey

CARING FOR PLACE
This book draws on preeminent planning theorist Patsy Healey’s personal
experiences as a resident of a small rural town in England, to explore what
place and community mean in a particular context, and how different initiatives
struggle to get a stake in the wider governance relations while maintaining their
own focus and ways of working. Throughout the book, Healey assesses the
public value generated by community initiatives and the impact of such activity
on wider governance dynamics.
H ealey explores the power which small communities are able to mobilise
through self-organisation and grassroots activism. Through the lens of Wooler and
Glendale as a micro-society, the book centres on a community experiencing an
economic and demographic transition. It focuses on three initiatives developed and
led by local people – a small community development trust, an informal attention-
mobilising network, and a Neighbourhood Plan project which uses an opportunity
provided within the formal planning system. It examines how, in such civil society
activism, people came together to promote local development in a place and
community neglected by the dominant political economy.
The book details the power and force of community initiative and its potential
for transforming both the future possibilities for the place and community itself,
as well as wider governance relations. Overall, it seeks to enrich academic and
policy discussion about how the relations between formal government and civil
society energy could evolve in more productive and progressive directions.
Patsy Healey is a retired planning professor who has recently been involved
in community development activity in the rural area where she lives. She is
well known in planning academia and she is still connected to the School of
Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University, United Kingdom.
The RTPI Library Series
Editors: Akira Drake Rodriguez, Weitzman School of Design, University of
Pennsylvania
Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis,
University College London
Belinda Yuen, Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore
University of Technology and Design
Published by Routledge in conjunction with The Royal Town Planning Insti-
tute, this series of leading-edge texts looks at all aspects of spatial planning the-
ory and practice from a comparative and international perspective.
P ublic Norms and Aspirations
The Turn to Institutions in Action
W illem Salet
P lanning, Law and Economics
The Rules We Make for Using Land, second edition
B arrie Needham, Edwin Buitelaar and Thomas Hartmann
A Future for Planning
Taking Responsibility for Twenty-First Century Challenges
Michael Harris
Digital Participatory Planning
Citizen Engagement, Democracy, and Design
Alexander Wilson and Mark Tewdwr-Jones
Planning and the Common Good
Mick Lennon
Caring for Place
Community Development in Rural England
Patsy Healey
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
RTPI-Library-Series/book-series/RTPI
CARING FOR PLACE
Community Development
in Rural England
Patsy Healey
C over image: Jim Bird
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Patsy Healey
The right of Patsy Healey to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Healey, Patsy, author.
Title: Caring for place : community development in rural England /
Patsy Healey.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022003562 (print) | LCCN 2022003563 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367632038 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367632014 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003112501 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: City planning—Great Britain. | Rural development—
Great Britain.
Classification: LCC HT169.G7 H428 2022 (print) | LCC HT169.G7
(ebook) | DDC 307.1/2120941—dc23/eng/20220128
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003562
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003563
ISBN: 978-0-367-63203-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-63201-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-11250-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003112501
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To my neighbours in our place-community

CONTENTS
List of figures, tables and boxes ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xiv
1 Civil society caring for place futures 1
2 Caring for place: three initiatives in an English
rural area 19
3 Placing Wooler and Glendale: where and
what is ‘here’? 44
4 Experiencing community – asserting community 63
5 Engaging with the agency world 83
6 Power relations: navigating in a dynamic forcefield 120
7 Framing the future: knowledge and narrative in Wooler
and Glendale 143
8 Creating public value through civil society activism 166
viii Contents
9 Can we shape our future? The transformative potential
of civil society initiative 188
10 Epilogue: our locality in lockdown 208
I ndex 219
FIGURES, TABLES AND BOXES
Figures
2.1 The North Northumberland area 22
3 .1 Integrating dimensions of life for young people in Glendale 52
4 .1 A word map of Wooler’s assets 64
4 .2 Transforming a derelict site into a distillery: a local landowner
initiative 75
5 .1 Who has a stake in Wooler and its future? 90
5 .2 The MICROPOL pods 92
6 .1 Five lines of tension for probing power dynamics 127
6.2 The Old Co-Op building, enhanced with an attractive poster 130
1 0.1 The writing on the wall 215
Tables
2.1 Trustees of Glendale Gateway Trust, 1996 and 2019 28
2.2 The three initiatives compared 39
5.1 Non-governmental agencies and networks with presence
in Wooler/Glendale 87
5.2 Statutory stakeholders for the Wooler Neighbourhood Plan 100
7.1 Narratives of local development in Wooler/Glendale 148
8.1 ‘Public value’ created by the three initiatives 178
Boxes
1.1 Our unknown neighbours 6
1.2 Wooler Neighbourhood Plan Vision Statement 9