Abstract:
In the 21st century, societies are increasingly multi-sided with secular interests, making urban issues
complex, dynamic and unable to be solved by a single institution. In this context, communicative
planning propagates that the pathway to finding sustainable solutions for complex social problems would
come from stakeholder participation and the identification of shared interests among such secular
interests (consensus building). Rooted to Habermasian communicative rationality, communicative
planning argues, stakeholder participation can ponder not only the scientific knowledge but also emotive
and moral knowledge of lay actors such as local communities to inform planning better. In this respect,
the paper explores the extent to which communicative planning works for the housing estate delivery
process in England. With key pieces of planning legislation, mandating community engagement in all
forms of physical development, England is considered one of the highest forms of legal backing for
communicative planning. Meanwhile, housing provision is one of the complex and critical planning
concerns of all cities. Dickens Heath New Settlement (DHNS) - a large scale housing estate development
in the West Midlands of England, has been selected as the case study here to investigate this
communicative planning potential in the context of housing estate development. Following qualitative
methods, data were collected through sixty in-depth interviews with DHNS residents, community groups,
master planners and local authority planners, and documentary evidence such as the DHNS master plan
and local planning documents. The findings highlighted that communicative planning had a negligible
effect at the conceptual planning stage of DHNS, but accrued relatively positive outcomes at the mature
design, development and management phases of the estate development. These are valuable insights for
housing development practice, communicative planning theory and practice, and reflect on Sustainable
Development Goal (SDG) 11 - sustainable cities and communities in the context of England.
