The LOGIMP Experiment: a collaborative exercise in the application of a new approach to local planning problems

Abstract

This set of conference papers describes an early action research project designed to test the value to local government planners of a new body of relatively ‘soft’ OR methods, which had been presented the previous year in the book Local Government and Strategic Choice by Friend and Jessop. The LOGIMP (LOcal Government IMPlementation) experiment was supported by a six-month grant from the UK government’s former Centre for Environmental Studies, which originally published this report in 1970 as Information paper CES IP25. The first section includes an account of the origins of the experiment; an introduction to the then untested Strategic Choice Approach and its core technique of Analysis of Interconnected Decision Areas (AIDA); and a report on the planning and progress of the project with a summary of the lessons learnt. A second section describes the six parallel applications in the words of the participating local planners, bringing out their experiences in starting to view planning issues from an analytical perspective of decision areas and categories of uncertainty, rather than their normal spatial design perspective. At that early stage in the development of the new approach, both the planners and the IOR support team were still feeling their way in adapting it to practical problems. The report ends with a summary of the results of a survey designed by members of the IOR team and completed by members of the six planning teams towards the end of the project.