In this timely and engaging book, Phil Allmendinger traces the relationship between New Labour and the statutory planning system in England. This was a period of hyperactive reform, and the book shines a light on New Labour's approach to governing. As such, the volume will be of interest not just to those interested in the specific reforms to the planning system – as usefully as they are detailed here – but to anyone seeking evidence of how the party acted in power from 1997 to 2010 and of how their reform proposals were enacted.

The period was marked by concerted attempts to reform the planning system through new systems for development plans, targets and incentives to speed-up planning decision making, and an overall desire for a ‘culture change’ to make planning more proactive, more enabling, more socially and economically responsive, and more inclusive (Shaw and Lord, Reference Shaw and Lord2009). Simultaneously, as a local authority service, planning was also heavily implicated by New Labour's drive to modernise the public sector. These reforms were wide-ranging, ambitious and decidedly more ‘pro-planning’ than the attitude of preceding Conservative governments.

It is therefore somewhat depressing to have to concur with the over-riding message in the book that there was disappointment with New Labour, with planning and with planners through this period. There was too much change, too quickly, based on the too little detailed understanding of planning by central government policy makers. At the same time, however, there was a real desire for planning to ‘deliver’ across a range of policy steams from an urban renaissance, to a more participatory governance, to delivering housing, to sustainability, and even to tackling obesity and terrorism through better designed communities. Whilst challenging, this was a real opportunity for a planning renaissance, for the profession to raise its status, but it is hard to disagree with Allmendinger's argument that planners failed to meet these expectations. The system was unable, perhaps ill-equipped, to deliver, and planners proved resistant to change. Leadership was lacking in the profession.

The book contains three background chapters, four chapters themed around different aspects of the New Labour reforms which impacted upon planning practice, and a conclusion. Chapter 1 provides the context of the shift ‘from New Right to New Left’ in UK government and its implications for planning. This includes a summary of the variety of narratives which can be applied to understanding planning under New Labour. Despite this conveyor belt of reform attempts, reflecting on the period shows that planning hasn't actually been radically altered. Allmendinger highlights the resilience of professionals, local autonomy and the co-dependence of the centre and local authorities in effecting changes. This leads him to suggest that we must explore both what Labour intended and how change was mediated through existing professional and governance arrangements, an argument I have made in my own research on the period.

Chapter 2 focuses in on New Labour and planning, employing a helpful analytical framework of ‘what New Labour?’, ‘which New Labour?’ and ‘when New Labour?’. Allmendinger highlights the difficulty of pinning down New Labour's ideology and the distinct periods which can be seen in New Labour's approach to planning. He also highlights competing discourses which circulated at the period, some of which were actually in direct tension. This was not unique to planning. Chapter 3 helpfully outlines new institutionalism, the approach adopted here to understanding planning under New Labour, focusing particularly the work of Vivien Lowndes and Vivien Schmidt.

Chapter 4 looks at Labour's urban policy and offers two case studies of King's Cross and Norton Radstock (near Bath), arguing there were good intentions but poor delivery due to a reliance on an out-dated planning system. Chapter 5 examines Spatial Planning, which Allmendinger calls ‘an enterprise of great pith and moment’ (p. 88). Somewhere between 2001 and 2004, an idea emerged – the book doesn't pin the source down – that development planning should be radically altered to become a new form of ‘governance glue’. The conclusion is that the concept is vague, undermined by the implementation failures of the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, and its failure to become a new paradigm for planning.

Chapter 6 turns to the obsession with speeding-up development control through targets, and incentives through the Planning Delivery Grant. The result, as elsewhere in the public sector, seems to have been strategic manipulation, which meant application processing was sped-up, but without improving customer satisfaction due to a series of negative consequences resulting from a focus on process over outputs. Chapter 7 considers the attempts for a ‘win-win-win’ solution to the longstanding issue of how to fund infrastructure and capture some of the uplift in land value that arises from planning permission being granted. Predictably, New Labour's proposed Planning Gain Supplement failed to meet any of its objectives.

Returning in his conclusion to the frameworks from Chapters 2 and 3, Allmendinger argues that planning policy during this period can best be understood as ‘neoliberal spatial governance’ which has paved the way for further reforms from the current Coalition Government. This is a compelling argument. Indeed, if I was to make any critique of this book, it would not be to dispute its central message, but to wish for more of it. At just 208 pages, this book could have easily held my attention for another 100 pages, and in doing so perhaps the author could have considered some of the topics related to the New Labour planning story which seem absent, or vastly under-considered here, particularly the attempts to make planning more participatory, the attempts for a general ‘culture change’ and the rescaling of planning (including the rise and fall of the regional level). I also came away feeling the author is too pessimistic about the potential of ‘Spatial Planning’ as a concept. Nevertheless, this is a fascinating, well written, and in places pleasingly provocative, read which tells us as much about contemporary governance as about planning.