| Abstract | Sustainability underpins planning within the United Kingdom and is applied to all scales of development management decisions, ranging from small-scale householder planning applications to major urban regeneration schemes. Although sustainability has long been a guiding principle in spatial planning, no academic research exists on how sustainability manifests across development scales within planning decisions in England. This research applies Davidson’s novel typology for an exploratory categorization of sustainability ideologies within 21 planning reports from three outer borough London local authorities. It aims to advance an understanding of how sustainability manifests across development scales and to contribute to the literature at the junction of sustainability and development management. The research finds that sustainability adopts different sociopolitical ideologies across development scales. In large schemes, planners adopt a neoliberal approach where technology and the substitutability of capital justify sustainable outcomes. While in smaller householder and minor schemes, planners adopt radical (micro) and social democratic (macro) approaches that insist on limits to growth and follow traditional authority-applicant power relationships when justifying sustainable outcomes. The paper argues that sustainability in planning practice is not a fixed concept but a fluid and negotiated discourse. This has significant implications for policy coherence, democratic accountability, and the legitimacy of planning decisions. By illuminating the interpretive flexibility of sustainability within planning decisions, the research provides an inroad to better governance for the practice-led sector and offers recommendations to improve outcomes for private and public sector planners in England. |
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