‘Environment’ and Planning: A Tale of the Mundane and the Sublime

This paper contributes to the growing body of work on planning discourse. In the context of the current ‘greening’ of British land-use planning, it poses the question: “How is the term ‘environment’ articulated within planning discourse?” With the use of material from development plans and development-control decision letters, an analysis is made of the term ‘environment’ which distinguishes ‘mundane’ and ‘sublime’ interpretations. The function of the texts analysed is then related to the dominant meaning given to the term, This raises further questions concerning the current preoccupation with using the land-use planning system to implement environmental policy and identifies the problems of moving between strategic planning and detailed development-control levels, a problem reflected in and compounded by the distinct operation of planning discourse at the two levels.