State regulation of land financialisation: land promoters, planning risk and the land market in England

Abstract

The paper contributes to research that examines how state actors support the financialisation of land via the development process and how planning systems have facilitated the accumulation of privately-owned land-based wealth. The empirical focus is the specialist residential land promoter sector in England. This is a particularly appropriate case study because of how this sector of the land market has become integrated with the planning system via crisis-driven planning reform that has facilitated the commodification of planning risk and the financialisation of land. The paper examines the business models and strategies of land promoters to show how they have been shaped both by the politics of planning reform as well as the financial objectives of their funders. The research is in dialogue with international literature on the relationship between planning and the land market, how this relationship is shaped by risk and uncertainty, and the role of state regulation in reshaping the physical environment in accordance with financial logics.