Abstract :
Since 1979 the local state in Britain has experienced a period of considerable restructuring in which the power of elected local government has been severely diminished. As a new system of local governance, characterized by self-organising networks transcending the state, private and voluntary sectors, has emerged, so elected local government has had to re-imagine its role. This paper suggests that one strategy that has been adopted has been to re-position local councils as ‘pressure groups’, lobbying external actors on behalf of local interests. Furthermore, it is argued that in rural areas the restructuring of the local state has coincided with a wider social and economic restructuring and hence an intensified contesting of rurality. As such, it is argued that rural local government has become concerned not only with advocating local interests, but with advocating particular discourses of rurality. These assertions are discussed in the context of a case study concerning strategic planning for housing development in the district of Taunton Deane in Somerset.
