John Sturzaker has been out and about presenting at two academic conferences in the few weeks. Last week he spoke at the Royal Geographical Society’s annual conference in Edinburgh, presenting a paper co-authored with Alex Lord entitled 'Neighbourhood Planning: Who’s Planning and Whose Plans?'. This paper captured some findings from research Drs Sturzaker and Lord are carrying out at the moment, looking at how a number of communities in the North West are getting on with the new powers available to them under the Government’s 2011 Localism Act.
Back in June John took a different paper to the Planning Theory conference in Bristol. This paper set out some new ideas on the role of fear in planners’ decision-making, based in part on his experience as a planning practitioner, under the title of 'Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile'.
Both presentations are in the process of being worked up into full papers for publication.