The Localism Act 2011: What is ‘Local’ and How Do We (Legally) Construct it?

Abstract

The Localism Act 2011 (for England and Wales) is a complex piece of legislation. It addresses a wide range of planning, housing and local government concerns not all of which would conventionally be understood as localist interventions. Ostensibly it implements a political logic of localism, that local decision-making should be prioritised over other scales of governance. However, while the Act makes an explicitly political point, its provisions retain considerable national hegemony over local decision-making, both in what the Act requires and in those provisions and policies that it leaves untouched. It also contains different and overlapping formulations of both what is ‘local’ and who is ‘community’. As a result, while the political logic of localism is presented as unitary, in practice these initiatives are much more fragmented.

Keywords: localism, Localism Act, local, spatial justice, local government, juridification, neighbourhood planning, planning, scale