The delivery of planning policy in Great Britain: explaining the implementation gap. New evidence from a case study in rural England

The authors outline the reasons why an implementation gap, between policy and practice, occurs and discuss three theoretical and methodological approaches to explaining and assessing the significance of this gap. From these approaches a participant-observation methodology is chosen to examine the policy-implementation process, with particular reference to the decisionmaking process over applications to erect agricultural dwellings in the local government district of North Devon in England. It is found that a few councillors with agricultural or rural connections were able to overturn policies and the recommendations of planning officers. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of the findings for the British planning system, which still treats each application for development on its own merits rather than in the more mechanistic zoning system practised elsewhere.