Charles Edward Goode’s research while affiliated with University of Birmingham and other places

This article examines the spatial implications of flexible working post-Covid through the concepts of third space and the flexible work model. Whilst research to date has largely focused on city centres, this article draws on a case study of a new settlement, Worcestershire Parkway, and the views of planning/property professionals to investigate the emerging implications for planning theory and practice. In particular, it highlights and critically evaluates the importance of flexibility and future-proofing, strong private sector partnership to develop employment strategies and design codes to set parameters for development as the cardinal features of post-Covid strategic planning practice. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

The Green Belt is one of the most widely known and popular regional growth management policies having been adopted around the world. Drawing upon the regional spatial imaginary and historical institutionalist literature alongside a case study of the West Midlands, this paper conceptualizes the Green Belt as an enduring, regionalizing concept in the spatial vision of planners and professional campaigners. It underscores the continuing importance of planning history and critical junctures in ‘framing’ the perspectives and aspirations of practicing planners regarding strategic planning. The paper charts the emergence, embedding, and adaptability of the Green Belt as an institution before exploring how strategic vision has continued to be vitally important to planners and campaigners despite the abolition of statutory strategic planning in England in 2010.

With many countries around the world facing deepening housing crises and searching for ways of increasing the public acceptability of new house building, academics, planners, and policy makers have generally focused on the material, economic motivations of campaigners and the public in opposing development. This article, which focuses on the green belt planning policy in England, but with wider relevance for house building internationally, argues that whilst considerations of material ‘property’ are sometimes a poignant motivation for campaigners, planners identified more normative concerns surrounding the ‘fear of change’ as equally important. Alongside campaigners themselves, planners stressed the importance of general planning ‘principles’, especially protection of the countryside and green belt, as well as local, ‘place’ concerns about development ‘changing the character’ of an area and its effects on local facilities/services. The article reflects on the need for planners and policy makers to pay more attention to principles and place attachment in policy formulation regarding house building, whilst more effective integration of different aspects of the planning system is needed to address campaigners’ more materialistic concerns about the effects of development on local services.