The Sustainable Communities Plan was launched in 2003 and was a key policy of the

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific duti ...

in the Labour Government, guiding its regeneration and departmental objectives. It led to a range of policies and plans which were in effect a

spatial plan Spatial planning mediates between the respective claims on space of the state, market, and community. In so doing, three different mechanisms of involving stakeholders, integrating sectoral policies and promoting development projects mark the th ...

for the whole of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The plan interacted with a number of flagship regeneration policies such as

The Northern Way The Northern Way was a collaboration initiated in February 2004 between the three northern regional development agencies (RDAs), Northwest Development Agency, One NorthEast and Yorkshire Forward at the instigation of the then Deputy Prime Minist ...

Thames Gateway Thames Gateway is a term applied to an area around the Thames Estuary in the context of discourse around regeneration and further urbanisation. The term was first coined by the UK government and applies to an area of land stretching east from ...

and the

Academy for Sustainable Communities The Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) is a national skills initiative that has been set up by the Department of Communities and Local Government. In April 2004, Sir John Egan, a leading industrialist and past president of the Institute of ...

Definition

The government defined a sustainable community as: :Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all. Amongst other policies the Sustainable Communities Plan aimed to regenerate the industrial urban belt in northern England, stretching from Hull to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

and provide hundreds of thousands of homes in

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the ITL 1 statistical regions of England, first level of International Territorial Level, ITL for Statistics, statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of england, ...

centred on the key growth areas of the

, around

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

and

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

, Ashford (Kent), and the wider area around

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. The Sustainable Communities Plan was finally revoked almost 12 years later by the Conservative Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles MP, on 16 January 2015.

References

External links

Sustainable Communities section of ODPM homepage
Conservation in England Public policy in England Town and country planning in England {{UK-gov-stub

Definition

See also

References

External links