Cluster policy in the UK, pursued by the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), has readily adopted a simplistic definition based upon industrial sectors and location quotients. Evidence drawn from a study of the operating behaviour of SMEs belonging to two traditional manufacturing industries within the West Midlands—automotive components and clothing—provides a critique of this approach. Whilst the automotive components industry has been designated part of a key, high priority cluster, the clothing industry has not. Using case studies from both industries, this paper shows firms both within and outside RDA cluster definitions display a remarkably similar range of behavioural characteristics. Yet, based on weakly defined cluster policy, one industry enjoys considerably more policy support than the other. The paper begins to question the logic of RDA cluster policy and to ask whether a more sophisticated and locally sympathetic manner of visualising clusters and business behaviour rather than an emphasis on employment numbers would have a greater impact for policy.

In the UK the formal land-use planning system is once more at a crossroads with the unprecedented levels of public comment on the recent Governmental Green Paper on Planning. A recent international report on the planning process in Westernised countries highlighted a dearth of public participation in the UK planning system this is despite an obvious undercurrent of concern on environmental issues and the like. The paper sets out to gauge the extent of public interest in the Planning system, in the light of current proposals to revise it. The paper concentrates on the nature of public participation in Planning and to consider whether the public are more satisfied with process, seeing it as fair and robust, if they are more actively involved in the process of consultation. Other aspects to consider are the need to seek consultation from the wider public, not just individuals and special interest groups. There are several forgotten frontiers of the past effort to promote public participation. Theory dating from the 1970s exposed differences between sociological approaches in Planning and solutions tended to be lost in complexity of Local Development Plans. Subsequent theory (Healey 1997) has argued for the need to reconcile plural interests across localities. What is neglected in the research is the fuller appreciation of the actual public interest by those in the Planning system. A recent international report by Heriott-Watt University, Edinburgh and DePaul University, Chicago called for the notion of ‘public participation’ to be turned on its head and instead encourage the practice of ‘participatory planning’- the use of third parties to pre-mediate conflicts between stakeholders before and during the process of an open consultation as opposed to seeking public opinions after the plans have been drawn. This paper aims to review the modernising agenda and set out the case for shifting public participation to participatory planning within the context of the UK. Particularly pertinent due to recent recommendations to increase sustainability communities. It uses several qualitative case studies drawn from urban planning authorities and rural districts from the UK, which reveal Local Planning Authorities may be as yet unprepared to fully grasp the concepts underpinning the notion of participatory planning.

To many old hands in regional science it might seem that the present emphasis, in international circles, on sector-based cluster policies is missing many points over which familiar old 'growth pole' policies were found wanting in the past. There are however, points to be made for a cluster approach over new IT sectors, biotechnology and their value in marketing regions and their exports. In the UK, transatlantic and business influences have kept a cluster policy well up the agendas and strategies of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). Yet at the same time, many experienced analysts see very few 'true' clusters in UK geography. It was found for example that computer services worked across the greater South East as a whole. Other, officially sponsored work found that the proportion of a region's employment accounted for by clusters ranged from 43 per cent in London to 15 per cent in the North West, and could be declining. There is confusion over the relative roles of sectors and space in the definition of clusters, and many attempts at developing typologies have been developed in the face of this confusion, placing emphasis on networking, innovative capabilities and institutional structure. However, recent development in cluster work in the UK has tended to ignore these subtleties and pursued a 'less complicated' or simplistic Porter (1990) definition, based on industrial sectors. Most recently cluster policy has been accused of being a 're-badged' existing sector policy. For example, the West Midlands can be regarded as having a clustering of automotive component and clothing companies. A recent study revealed that these sectors have more similarities than differences, in the issues and competitive pressures they are facing as companies, rather than as a sector. Therefore, in essence building clusters should not be solely centred around a sectoral base, but around 'inter-related industries' which have well founded roots in the region's skills and capability base. This begins to question the logic of using 'sector' as means to compartmentalize RDA cluster policy.