The Impact of Local Agenda 21 in England

Local Agenda 21 (LA21) was a local level approach tosustainable development that involved localpeople in the creation of LA21 strategies. This PhD thesis reviews the success of LA21 in Englandwith two principal aims: to assess the success ofsuch an approach and to discuss this in relation torecent policy attempts to increase public trust inlocal government through public participation. Thisthesis asks and attempts to answer thefollowing research question: To what extent have theoriginal aims of Agenda 21 been achieved bythe introduction of Local Agenda 21 in to the Englishpolitical system and what are theimplications for New Labour's Local Government Act?The key findings of the thesis are twofold. Firstlythat the relationship between local people andlocal government cannot necessarily be improvedthrough public participation alone. Secondly thatthere is a tension between two aspects of sustainabledevelopment: the participatory element and the needto address current lifestyles attitudes andbehaviours. Overall this thesis concludes thatparticipatory approaches to local problems may notalways be the appropriate solution.