Policy to reality: evaluating the evidence trajectory for English eco-towns

Abstract

and elanor@mchardy.netCan evidence reconcile idealized policy formation processes with the messy reality of large-scale sustainable projects? Was the main driver of the UK eco-towns project the national housing need or a local version of sustainability? To answer, this paper traces the progress of the eco-town policy: from a government-funded initiative to start a cohort of new towns, via the first pilot sites, to the delivery of a single eco-town. It maps the national policy intent, which incorporated industry and academic expertise into a strategic policy vision. Then the local interpretation of this generic eco-town definition is reviewed, along with how the authoritative knowledge on innovative eco-planning is distilled into guidance. By revisiting the original eco-town objectives, comparing them with the recently published garden cities prospectus, the limitations for intra-national implementation of national policy frameworks are considered, asking whether any lessons have been incorporated in the current round of policy formation. The success or failure of such policy implementation is found to be more of a socio-political exercise than an empirical or rationalist process. The eco-towns were less an attempt to establish new forms of sustainable habitations than a political attempt to use eco-planning to justify new large-scale housing settlements.

Policy movement in housing research: a critical interpretative synthesis

“…Chang, 2017) but those who do resonate with weak social-constructionism (e.g. Abram & Cowell, 2004;Akers, 2013;Murphy, 2014;Warwick, 2015) or institutional realism (e.g. Hodges & Grubnic, 2005;Pawson & Gilmour, 2010).…”

“…Transfer processes may well be recursive, such that the source country continues to adapt its policy implementation (Pawson & Hulse, 2011, p.130). Warwick's (2015) PT study is exceptional in advancing pragmatic policy recommendations, which spring from the case study of planning eco-towns in England but have wider relevance. She calls for genuine collaborations between levels of governance; building policy resilience to economic and political changes; and a need for policymakers to establish exemplar projects, offer practical advice and avoid both too rapid policy change and the involvement of too many agencies.…”

Constructing policy success for UK energy feedback

“…work on the production of energy use data for policy evidence by Cooper, Shipworth and Humphreys, 2014). Note that there have been efforts to incorporate some parts of the policy evidence research literatures into studies on UK policies relating to, for example, zero carbon homes (Schweber, Lees, & Torriti, 2015), eco-towns (Warwick, 2015) and the built environment (Simmons, 2015). There remains however potential to examine how these different feedbackfocussed research agendas may work together in shedding further light on issues such as how evidence on energy feedback policies is treated and presented by policymakers.…”

Constraints on evidence-based policy: insights from government practices

“…As Warwick (2015) observes, built environment policy-making can be 'messy'. Expediency, emotion or ideology play a role as often as the systematic and rational application of evidence.…”

“…Schweber et al (2015), and to a lesser extent Warwick (2015), offer a useful review of the relevant literature, so it would be redundant to repeat it here. It will be apparent that the examples given do not fall into the 'rationalist, linear depiction of policy-making as a technocratic exercise' which Schweber et al describe as the 'touchstone of most work on evidence and policy'.…”