The author argues for a review of the principles upon which planning programmes are based. The paper is set in the context of British planning education in the 1980s, which was forced into preoccupations with cuts and rationalisation. This led to neglect of explicit discussion of the content of programmes. The context for such discussion is reviewed and the critique of the existence of a distinctive content for planning programmes is examined. It is proposed that there is a valuable and defensible ‘heartland’ of planning knowledge, skills, and values, and the author explores what this could mean in the development of a planning programme. It is argued that the key choices concern the languages within which knowledge and skills will be developed, rather than the subjects or practice fields of a programme.
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