Creative Community

Planning in an Era
of Austerity
The Westfield International Planning Conference
Thursday 25 June 2015 Shortbrook Primary School, Westfield Northway,
Westfield, Sheffield S20 8FB

Town and Country planning should be about the creative ways in which communities can
come together to make the world a better place. This conference will explore the creative
ways in which people can come together to collectively respond to the pressing challenges
they face while making plans for a better future. It will debate the best responses to
austerity, exchange inspiring examples, and explore how we might learn to create places
in which everyone can thrive.
Confirmed speakers include Professor Heather Campbell (Department of Town and Regional
Planning, University of Sheffield), Dr Hugh Ellis (Head of Policy, TCPA), Professor Vanessa
Watson (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Pam Warhurst (Incredible Edible
Todmorden), Mandy Wilson (community development practitioner) and Chris Allen
(Liverpool John Moores University).
To register, please go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-communityplanning-in-an-era-of-austerity-the-westfield-international-planning-conferencetickets-16909273091

Creative Community Planning in an Era of Austerity:

the Westfield International Planning Conference
Thursday 25 June 2015 Shortbrook Primary School, Westfield Northway,
Westfield, Sheffield S20 8FB

Not a lot of people seem to realise it these days but planning should be about the creative ways in which
communities can come together to make the world a better place. As the TCPA argued in its 2014 report Planning
out Poverty, town planning in the UK seems to have lost its sense of social purpose, becoming increasingly narrow
in its focus and remote from the challenges people face. At the same time, inequality is growing and austerity is
cutting deeper. Many places around the country face new challenges as they battle to retain vital public services and
community assets. Many of the organisations who have previously been able to support these efforts are struggling
to resource their work.
This raises significant challenges for any effort to put social justice back at the heart of planning. If we are to
reimagine plannings social purpose we must reconnect the physical and the social, finding new ways to support
community planning efforts. In an era of austerity this means navigating the complex challenges posed by the
withdrawal of public funding while exploring creative ways in which communities can come together to make better
places. This requires reimagining the ways in which people interact with the agencies whose decisions shape their
lives empowering them to make demands of public and private organisations. It also requires professionals to
change the ways in which they work, both with one another and with communities. There is a need to share new
approaches to realising these goals, and also to build on important and often undervalued traditions of community
development, planning and action. Universities might play a role in these efforts, as locally situated assets with
resources that could be mobilised to provide support for communities but there are many other ways in which
local assets and resources might be reimagined to provide support for community planning efforts.
The conference will take place in Westfield, a township six miles south-east of Sheffield city centre, where an
ongoing partnership between local residents and staff and students from the University of Sheffields Department of
Town and Regional Planning has been exploring many of these questions for the last two years. Westfield, a
masterplanned estate that was built in the 1970s, is a place steeped in planning history where there is much to learn
about the need for new ways of planning with communities. With support from the Westfield Big Local partnership
and the TCPA, the conference will explore these questions through guided walks and opportunities to take part in
study group discussions on the challenges facing the area.

Programme
09.30
10.00-12.00
12.00-12.45
12.45-13.30
13.30-15.00
15.15-16.00
16.00- 16.45
16.45

Coffee and registration

Community Planning in Hard Times? Setting the scene
Walking tour of Westfield
Lunch
Provocations and Inspirations
Discussion Groups: 1. Bridging community development and social town planning; 2. The role
of university-community partnerships; 3. Ideas for the future of Westfield
Feedback and closing statements
Close and drinks