IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v34y2016i8p1843-1866.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Infrastructure, planning and the command of time

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Marshall
  • Richard Cowell

Abstract

Governments in many countries have sought to accelerate the time taken to make decisions on major infrastructure projects, citing problems of ‘delay’. Despite this, rarely has the time variable been given careful empirical or conceptual attention in decision-making generally, or in infrastructure decision-making specifically. This paper addresses this deficit by analysing decision-making on two categories of major infrastructure in the UK – transport and electricity generation – seeking both to generate better evidence of the changes to decision times in recent decades, and to generate insights from treating time as resource and tracking its (re)allocation. We find that reforms introduced since 2008 have done relatively little to alter overall decision times, but that there are marked and revealing changes to the allocation of time between decision-making stages. While public planning processes have their time frames tightly regulated, aspects led by developers (e.g. pre-application discussion) are not; arranging finance can have a bigger effect on project time frames, and central government retains much flexibility to manage the flow of time. Speed-up reforms are also sectorally uneven in their reach. This indicates how arguments for time discipline falter in the face of infrastructure projects that remain profoundly politicised.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Marshall & Richard Cowell, 2016. "Infrastructure, planning and the command of time," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1843-1866, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:34:y:2016:i:8:p:1843-1866
    DOI: 10.1177/0263774X16642768
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0263774X16642768
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0263774X16642768?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gibson, Emma & Howsam, Peter, 2010. "The legal framework for offshore wind farms: A critical analysis of the consents process," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4692-4702, August.
    2. Kitschelt, Herbert P., 1986. "Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 57-85, January.
    3. Unruh, Gregory C., 2000. "Understanding carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 817-830, October.
    4. Flyvbjerg,Bent & Bruzelius,Nils & Rothengatter,Werner, 2003. "Megaprojects and Risk," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521009461, October.
    5. Benjamin K. Sovacool & Christopher J. Cooper, 2013. "The Governance of Energy Megaprojects," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15106.
    6. Richard Cowell & Jonathan Murdoch, 1999. "Land Use and the Limits to (Regional) Governance: Some Lessons from Planning for Housing and Minerals in England," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 654-669, December.
    7. Susan Owens, 2004. "Siting, sustainable development and social priorities," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 101-114, March.
    8. Bachrach, Peter & Baratz, Morton S., 1962. "Two Faces of Power1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 947-952, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Natarajan, L. & Rydin, Y. & Lock, S.J. & Lee, M., 2018. "Navigating the participatory processes of renewable energy infrastructure regulation: A ‘local participant perspective’ on the NSIPs regime in England and Wales," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 201-210.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard Cowell & Susan Owens, 2006. "Governing Space: Planning Reform and the Politics of Sustainability," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 24(3), pages 403-421, June.
    2. Brookes, Naomi J. & Locatelli, Giorgio, 2015. "Power plants as megaprojects: Using empirics to shape policy, planning, and construction management," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 57-66.
    3. Geels, Frank W., 2010. "Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the multi-level perspective," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 495-510, May.
    4. Ansar, Atif & Flyvbjerg, Bent & Budzier, Alexander & Lunn, Daniel, 2014. "Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-56.
    5. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Saunders, Harry, 2014. "Competing policy packages and the complexity of energy security," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 641-651.
    6. Van de Graaf, Thijs & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2014. "Thinking big: Politics, progress, and security in the management of Asian and European energy megaprojects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 16-27.
    7. Gregory, Julian, 2020. "Governance, scale, scope: A review of six South African electricity generation infrastructure megaprojects," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    8. Foxon, T. J. & Gross, R. & Chase, A. & Howes, J. & Arnall, A. & Anderson, D., 2005. "UK innovation systems for new and renewable energy technologies: drivers, barriers and systems failures," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(16), pages 2123-2137, November.
    9. Ahsan Nawaz & Xing Su & Qaiser Mohi Ud Din & Muhammad Irslan Khalid & Muhammad Bilal & Syyed Adnan Raheel Shah, 2020. "Identification of the H&S (Health and Safety Factors) Involved in Infrastructure Projects in Developing Countries-A Sequential Mixed Method Approach of OLMT-Project," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-18, January.
    10. Cantarelli, C.C. & Flyvbjerg, B. & Buhl, S.L., 2012. "Geographical variation in project cost performance: the Netherlands versus worldwide," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 324-331.
    11. Wustenhagen, Rolf & Wolsink, Maarten & Burer, Mary Jean, 2007. "Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation: An introduction to the concept," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2683-2691, May.
    12. Curci, Ylenia & Mongeau Ospina, Christian A., 2016. "Investigating biofuels through network analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 60-72.
    13. Zhang, Hui & Cao, Libin & Zhang, Bing, 2017. "Emissions trading and technology adoption: An adaptive agent-based analysis of thermal power plants in China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 23-32.
    14. Gregory, Julian & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2019. "Rethinking the governance of energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: Reviewing three academic perspectives on electricity infrastructure investment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 344-354.
    15. Hellsmark, Hans & Hansen, Teis, 2020. "A new dawn for (oil) incumbents within the bioeconomy? Trade-offs and lessons for policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    16. Zhao, Na, 2019. "Managing interactive collaborative mega project supply chains under infectious risks," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 275-286.
    17. Leurent, Martin & Jasserand, Frédéric & Locatelli, Giorgio & Palm, Jenny & Rämä, Miika & Trianni, Andrea, 2017. "Driving forces and obstacles to nuclear cogeneration in Europe: Lessons learnt from Finland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 138-150.
    18. Mareike Kleine, 2013. "Daniel Finke, Thomas König, Sven-Oliver Proksch and George Tsebelis. 2012. Reforming the European Union: Realizing the Impossible (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press)," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 111-115, March.
    19. Leheis, Stéphanie, 2012. "High-speed train planning in France: Lessons from the Mediterranean TGV-line," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 37-44.
    20. Monica Santillan Vera & Lilia Garcia Manrique & Isabel Rodriguez Pena & Angel de la Vega Navarro, 2021. "Drivers of Electricity GHG Emissions and the Role of Natural Gas in Mexican Energy Transition," Working Paper Series 1021, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:34:y:2016:i:8:p:1843-1866. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.