Welcome to Just Neighbourhoods?

Understanding under-representation in neighbourhood scale planning

Neighbourhood scale planning has the potential to help neighbourhoods shape the places they live, from the built environment to local green spaces. Yet across the UK and Northern Ireland, many communities are still under-represented in these processes, and the support offered to them is often uneven.

Just Neighbourhoods? was a 3 year (2023-2026) Nuffield Foundation–funded research project exploring why this happens, what communities themselves are doing to overcome it, and what more equitable, meaningful participation could look like in practice.

What this site offers

Here you’ll find:

Also, from across the website you will find:

  • Insights into neighbourhood scale planning activity across a wide range of neighbourhoods

  • Stories from communities who are navigating opportunities, barriers, and alternatives to formal planning tools

Our Focus

We took a broad view of neighbourhood scale planning,  looking not only at formal mechanisms but also the creative, informal, and often unrecognised ways that people work to improve their neighbourhoods.

Our central questions included:

  • What encourages or supports communities to shape their local environment?

  • Why are some neighbourhoods, especially those facing multiple forms of disadvantage, less present in these processes?

  • What happens when local energy and effort do not lead to the outcomes people hoped for?

  • How might planning systems, policy, and practice better align with the realities communities experience?

By learning from places where community-led activity is both flourishing and struggling, we illuminate how more just and inclusive approaches can be fostered.

Stay Connected

We would love to hear from you – visit our About page for details of the research team.