The paper offers an analysis of recent and ongoing reform to English local planning through consideration of the structural contradictions of planning. It goes on to relate these to an understanding of the contradictions within New Labour's ‘Third Way’ ideology. Finally, at greater length, it positions the attempts to ‘modernize planning’ since 1997 within this contradiction-laden political context. In so doing, the paper seeks to understand the ambiguous nature of the relationship between New Labour and planning, and how it has been interpreted within planning's policy and professional communities. The argument suggests that there is a need for re-evaluation of the often derided political value of planners' roles as street-level regulators within the complexities of the neoliberal state.
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