Examining Participatory Governance in a Devolving UK: insights from national parks policy development in Northern Ireland

This paper provides a contemporary examination of policy making and participatory practice in the context of devolving governance in the UK. The paper takes Northern Ireland as its focus and is particularly timely considering the context of devolved governance, the ongoing transition from conflict to relative peace and the potential for rejuvenating democracy through participatory
governance. The paper concentrates on one particular policy process, namely the attempted designation of a national park in the Mournes Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. A thematic analysis of qualitative data is drawn upon to analyse the structural factors that framed the policymaking process, in particular the role of power in determining how consultation processes were 2 initiated, designed and undertaken. Using Lukes’ model) as an analytical framework, power is shown to manifest at multiple levels within the policy-making process to influence policy outcomes. The paper reveals how the persistence of a top-down approach to policy development combined with a highly parochial political outlook undermined attempts to designate a Mourne National Park. The paper concludes that, given the immaturity of recently devolved government in
Northern Ireland, in this instance, the democratising intentions of devolved governance have not been met. This has implications for Northern Ireland’s recent reform of public administration which devolves certain planning powers to local authority level and the management of the internationally significant Mournes landscape.

Is everybody happy? The politics and measurement of national wellbeing

This article explores the political and intellectual influences behind the growth of interest in happiness and the emergence of the new 'science of happiness'. It offers a critique of the use of subjective wellbeing indicators within indexes of social and economic progress, and argues that the proposed United Kingdom's National Well-being Index is over-reliant on subjective measures. We conclude by arguing that the mainstreaming of happiness indicators reflects and supports the emergence of 'behavioural social policy'.

European Cystic Fibrosis Society Standards of Care: Quality Management in cystic fibrosis

Since the earliest days of cystic fibrosis (CF) treatment, patient data have been recorded and reviewed in order to identify the factors that lead to more favourable outcomes. Large data repositories, such as the US Cystic Fibrosis Registry, which was established in the 1960s, enabled successful treatments and patient outcomes to be recognized and improvement programmes to be implemented in specialist CF centres. Over the past decades, the greater volumes of data becoming available through Centre databases and patient registries led to the possibility of making comparisons between different therapies, approaches to care and indeed data recording. The quality of care for individuals with CF has become a focus at several levels: patient, centre, regional, national and international. This paper reviews the quality management and improvement issues at each of these levels with particular reference to indicators of health, the role of CF Centres, regional networks, national health policy, and international data registration and comparisons. 

The Determinants of Brownfields Redevelopment in England

This paper uses discrete choice models, supported by GIS data, to analyse the National Land Use Database, a register of more than 21,000 English brownfields - previously used sites with or without contamination that are currently unused or underused. Using spatial discrete choice models, including the first application of a spatial probit latent class model with class-specific neighbourhood effects, we find evidence of large local differences in the determinants of brownfields redevelopment in England and that the reuse decisions of adjacent sites affect the reuse of a site. We also find that sites with a history of industrial activities, large sites, and sites that are located in the poorest and bleakest areas of cities and regions of England are more difficult to redevelop. In particular, we find that the probability of reusing a brownfield increases by up to 8.5% for a site privately owned compared to a site publicly owned and between 15% - 30% if a site is located in London compared to the North West of England. We suggest that local tailored policies are more suitable than regional or national policies to boost the reuse of brownfield sites.

Integrating Land Use Planning and Transportation: Policy formulation in the Belfast Metropolitan Area

Much of the interest in sustainable cities relates to the inexorable rise in the demand for car travel and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption. Indeed, this demand is fuelled more by increased spatial separation of homes and workplaces, shops and schools than by any rise in trip making. This paper evaluates recent efforts to integrate land-use planning and transportation policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area by reviewing the policy formulation process at both a regional and city scale. The paper suggests that considerable progress has been made in integrating these two areas of public policy, both institutionally and conceptually. However, concerns are expressed that the rhetoric of sustainability may prove difficult to translate into implementation, leading to a further dislocation of land-use and transportation.

Integrating Land-use Planning and Transportation in Belfast: A New Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development

Much of the interest in promoting sustainable development in planning for the city-region focuses on the apparently inexorable rise in the demand for car travel and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption. Within this context, policy prescription has increasingly favoured a compact city approach with increasing urban residential densities to address the physical separation of daily activities and the resultant dependency on the private car. This paper aims to outline and evaluate recent efforts to integrate land use and transport policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area in Northern Ireland. Although considerable progress has been made, this paper underlines the extent of existing car dependency in the metropolitan area and prevailing negative attitudes to public transport, and argues that although there is a rhetorical support for the principles of sustainability and the practice of land-use/transportation integration, this is combined with a selective reluctance to embrace local changes in residential environment or in lifestyle preferences which might facilitate such principles.

Sustainability and the Multifunctional Landscape: An Assessment of the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s Approach to Planning and Management in Upland Scotland.

Upland Scotland contains some of Britain’s most prized areas of natural heritage value. However, although such areas may appear both ‘wild’ and ‘remote’, these are typically working landscapes which symbolise the interdependence of nature and society. The complexity of this relationship means that management responses will need to address a multitude of potentially conflicting priorities whilst at the same time ensuring that sufficient social and institutional capital exists to allow for the promotion of landscape integrity. The introduction of national parks to Scotland in the form of the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 allows for a high-level of protection for designated areas in upland Scotland. Yet, whilst the recent Act outlines the statutory purpose and direction national parks should take, it allows a significant degree of flexibility in theway in which the Actmay be implemented. This level of discretion allows for significant local distinctiveness within the model but also raises questions about the potential effectiveness of chosen responses. In order to assess the potential implications of a model rooted in self-determination,we provide a case study review of the institutional basis of the Cairngorms National Park along with an assessment of the strategic character of the first National Park Plan. It is argued that whilst the Cairngorms National Park Authority has developed a significant level of stakeholder engagement, the authority may struggle to bridge the policy-implementation gap. Although a number of shortcomings are identified, particular concerns relate to the potential mismatch between strategic ambition and local level capacity.

From the Land to Sea and Back Again? Using Terrestrial Planning to Understand the Process of Marine Spatial Planning

Over the last 5–10 years, marine spatial planning (MSP) has emerged as a new management regime for national and international waters and has already attracted a substantial body of multi-disciplinary research on its goals and policy processes. This paper argues that this literature has generally lacked deeper reflexive engagement with the emerging system of governance for our seas that has meant that many of MSP’s core concepts, assumptions and institutional arrangements have not been subject rigorous intellectual debate. In an attempt to initiate such an approach, this article explores the relationship between MSP and its land-based cousin, terrestrial spatial planning (TSP). While it is recognized that there are inherent limitations to a comparison of these two systems, it is argued that the tradition of social science debate over the purpose and processes of TSP can be used as a useful stimulus for a more rigorous reflection of such issues as they relate to MSP. The article therefore explores some of the parallels between MSP and TSP and then discusses some of the key intellectual traditions that have shaped TSP and the implications these may have for future marine planning practice. The article concludes with a number of potentially useful new avenues that may form the basis of a critical research agenda for MSP.

Evolving national park models: The emergence of an economic imperative and its effect on the contested nature of the 'national' park concept in Northern Ireland.

National park models have evolved in tandem with the emergence of a multifunctional countryside. Sustainable development has been added to the traditional twin aims of conservation and recreation. This is typified by recent national park designations, such as the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. A proposed Mournes national park in Northern Ireland has evolved a stage further with a model of national park to deliver national economic goals envisaged by government. This seeks to commodify the natural landscape. This paper compares Cairngorm and Mourne stakeholders’ views on the principal features of both models: park aims, management structures and planning functions. While Cairngorm stakeholders were largely positive from the outset, the model of national park introduced is not without criticism. Conversely, Mourne stakeholders have adopted an anti-national park stance. Nevertheless, the model of national park proposed possessing a strong economic imperative, an absence of the Sandford Principle as a means to manage likely conflicts, and lacking any planning powers in its own right, may still be insufficient to bring about widespread support for a Mourne national park. Such a model is also likely to accelerate the degradation of the Mourne landscape. Competing national identities (British and Irish) provide an additional dimension to the national park debate in Northern Ireland. Deep ideological cleavages are capable of derailing the introduction of a national park irrespective of the model proposed. In Northern Ireland the national park debate is not only about reconciling environmental and economic interests but also political and ethno-national differences.