Siting, sustainable development and social priorities

It is usually assumed that large-scale facilities ‘have to go somewhere’. The problem of finding sites is frequently construed as meeting some national need whilst ensuring justice for local communities who bear the brunt of environmental hazards and costs. This paper explores the dynamics of siting controversies and their relationship with political and economic priorities. Drawing on evidence from the transport and minerals sectors in the UK, it challenges the dominant storyline in which conflicts over siting are represented in terms of ‘national need versus local interests’. Consequently it calls into question the concept of the policy ‘cascade’, whose advocates seek to restrict debate about generic issues at local inquiries. It is argued that local resistance both provides an institutional platform for, and is in turn reinforced by, a wider policy critique. Arrangements for consideration of specific projects therefore provide crucial apertures for debate about national priorities, and repeated controversy acts as an important longer-term stimulus to policy learning and change.