Professor Malcolm Tait

School of Geography and Planning

Professor of Planning

m.tait@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 6919

Room D11b, Geography and Planning Building

Full contact details

Professor Malcolm Tait
School of Geography and Planning
Room D11b
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND

Profile

I studied Geography at Durham University and went on to do an MA in Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield in 1997. I completed my PhD in Town and Regional Planning at Sheffield in 2000.

I was appointed as Research Associate at Cardiff University on the ESRC-funded project ‘The Urban Village: A real or imagined contribution to sustainable development’. I returned to Sheffield in 2001 when I was made Lecturer in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2009, and Professor of Planning in January 2016.

Research interests

My research interests align around a critical understanding of the activity of planning. I am particularly interested in how planning is conceived politically and its relationship with other areas of societal concern, such as ecology, housing, and urban renewal. A key area of study is how professional planners work within complex political environments.

These interests have led me to engage extensively in interdisciplinary research, working alongside policymakers, designers, scientists, and humanities scholars to understand how planning interfaces with multiple aspects of urban lives. I have extensive experience of conducting research projects through a variety of methodological approaches, most notably through in-depth ethnographies of professional work. My principal areas of interest are:

Planning and its public purposes

I have a longstanding interest in the political and ideological question: what is the purpose of planning? I have sought to engage with this both theoretically and through engaged research that focuses on this question as pertinent to the practice of planning. In particular, I have explored the extent to which trust is an important dimension of planning work and whether a ‘crisis of trust’ exists in planning that undermines its public interest claims. More recently, I led a ESRC-funded project ‘Working in the Public Interest’ which examined the changing state of planning in the UK, looking at the professional work of planners in both the public and private sectors. This produced the first substantive ethnographic study of planners in the UK for over 40 years, published as ‘What Town Planners Do’.

Planning and the ecological crisis

I have an emerging interest in understanding the interface between biodiversity loss and the planning system. Whilst new policies are being adopted in the UK and elsewhere to integrate biodiversity into planning decisions, how these are balanced against other objectives of planning is less well understood. Working with ecologists and planners, I have engaged with questions of how the impact of planning on biodiversity might be assessed, and the democratic implications of using decision-making metrics in planning.

Understanding Urban Renewal

I have a wide interest in engaging with the politics of urban renewal. This stems from work on the concept of ‘urban villages’ as applied in UK planning, through theorisations of how urban models travel, and how practices of historic conservation are conceived. I have also explored how planning engages with an ageing population in urban areas, working with architects and policymakers to develop new guidance and policy. More recently, I have engaged with the politics of urban change, undertaking work to understand the impact of the Covid pandemic on the cultural sector, and more practically supporting a project that drew together academic insights from a range of disciplines to support a bid to diversify a key part of Sheffield’s city centre.

Current and Recent Research Projects

Bringing ecology and land use planning into dialogue (Natural Environment Research Council)
Responding to and modelling the impact of Covid-19 for Sheffield’s cultural ecology: A case study of impact and recovery (Arts and Humanities Research Council)
Working in the public interest (Economic & Social Research Council)
Designing for Wellbeing in Environments for Later Life (DWELL) (Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council)
SEEDS (INTERREG)

Other projects

Sheffield Future High Streets Project (Department for Levelling Up, Homes and Communities)

Publications

Books

Clifford B, Gunn S, Inch A, Schoneboom A, Slade J, Tait M & Vigar G (2024) The Future for Planners. Policy Press.
Clifford B, Gunn S, Inch A, Schoneboom A, Slade J, Tait M & Vigar G (2024) The future for planners: Commercialisation, professionalism and the public interest in the UK.
Schoneboom A, Slade J, Tait M & Vigar G (2022) What Town Planners Do Exploring Planning Practices and the Public Interest Through Workplace Ethnographies. Policy Press.

Journal articles

Inch A, Wargent M & Tait M (2022) Serving the public interest? Towards a history of private sector planning expertise in England. Planning Perspectives.
Slade J, Tait M & Inch A (2021) ‘We need to put what we do in my dad’s language, in pounds, shillings and pence’: Commercialisation and the reshaping of public-sector planning in England. Urban Studies. View this article in WRRO
Xiao J, Tait M & Kang J (2020) Understanding smellscapes: Sense-making of smell-triggered emotions in place. Emotion, Space and Society, 37, 100710-100710.
Xiao J, Tait M & Kang J (2018) A perceptual model of smellscape pleasantness. Cities, 76, 105-115. View this article in WRRO
Tait M (2016) Planning and the public interest: Still a relevant concept for planners?. Planning Theory, 15(4), 335-343.
Tait M & Inch A (2016) Putting Localism in Place: Conservative Images of the Good Community and the Contradictions of Planning Reform in England. Planning Practice and Research, 31(2), 174-194. View this article in WRRO
Campbell H, Tait M & Watkins C (2014) Is There Space forBetterPlanning in a Neoliberal World? Implications for Planning Practice and Theory. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 34(1), 45-59.
Valler D, Tait M & Marshall T (2013) Business and Planning: A Strategic-Relational Approach. International Planning Studies, 18(2), 143-167.
Tait M & Hansen C (2013) Trust and governance in regional planning. Town Planning Review, 84(3), 283-312.
Tait M (2012) Building trust in planning professionals: understanding the contested legitimacy of a planning decision. Town Planning Review, 83(5), 597-618.
Tait M (2011) Trust and the Public Interest in the Micropolitics of Planning Practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 31(2), 157-171.
Tait M & While A (2009) Ontology and the conservation of built heritage. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27(4), 721-737.
While A & Tait M (2009) Exeter and the question of Thomas Sharp's physical legacy. Planning Perspectives, 24(1), 77-97.
Chapman D, Nelson S, Higgins M, Tolbert LC, Steinfeld E, Biddulph M, Holyoak J, Tait M, Sinha A, Thomas G , Atkinson R et al (2007) Book Reviews. Journal of Urban Design, 12(2), 313-337.
Swain C & Tait M (2007) The Crisis of Trust and Planning. Planning Theory & Practice, 8(2), 229-247.
Tait M & Jensen OB (2007) Travelling Ideas, Power and Place: The Cases of Urban Villages and Business Improvement Districts. International Planning Studies, 12(2), 107-128.
Tait MA (2004) Moving the urban village from concept to reality. Open House International, 29(4), 48-56.
Tait M (2003) Urban villages as self-sufficient, integrated communities: A case study in London's Docklands. Urban Design International, 8(1), 37-52.
Biddulph M, Franklin B & Tait M (2003) From concept to completion: A critical analysis of the urban village. Town Planning Review, 74(2), 165-193.
Tait M (2002) Room for Manoeuvre? An Actor-network Study of Central-Local Relations in Development Plan Making. Planning Theory & Practice, 3(1), 69-85.
Franklin B & Tait M (2002) Constructing an Image: The Urban Village Concept in the UK. Planning Theory, 1(3), 250-272.
Tait M & Campbell H (2000) The Politics of Communication between Planning Officers and Politicians: The Exercise of Power through Discourse. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 32(3), 489-506.
Tait M () Planning for the Common Good. Planning Theory & Practice, 1-3.
Tait M & Chapman K () Theorizing the cynical professional: the public interest, urban planning, and the limits of ideology critique. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization.

Chapters

(2018) Handbook of Research on Perception-Driven Approaches to Urban Assessment and Design IGI Global
Xiao J, Tait M & Kang J (2018) THE DESIGN OF URBAN SMELLSCAPES WITH FRAGRANT PLANTS AND WATER FEATURES, DESIGNING WITH SMELL: PRACTICES, TECHNIQUES AND CHALLENGES (pp. 83-95).
Xiao J, Tait M & Kang J (2017) The design of urban smellscapes with fragrant plants and water features, Designing with Smell: Practices, Techniques and Challenges (pp. 83-95).
Tait MA & Chapman K (2016) 'A grand question of design': knowledge, space and difference in early and late Latour In Rydin Y & Tate L (Ed.), Actor Networks of Planning: Exploring the Influence of Actor Network Theory (pp. 231-244). Abingdon: Routledge.
Campbell H, Tait M & Watkins C () Is There Space forBetterPlanning in a Neoliberal World?, Readings in Planning Theory (pp. 187-213). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Book reviews

Tait M (2022) Planning and knowledge: how new forms of technocracy are shaping contemporary cities. Housing Studies, 37(1), 181-182.

Conference proceedings papers

Inch A, Wargent M & Tait M (2023) Serving the public interest? Towards a history of private sector planning expertise in England. JOURNAL OF PLANNING LITERATURE, Vol. 38(4) (pp 606-606)
Xiao J, Kang J, Tait M & Henshaw V (2015) Smellscapes in urban intermodal transit spaces: understanding pleasantness as a concept for design in an English context. Proceedings of the International Conference on Changing Cities 2: Spatial, Design, Landscape & Social-economic Dimensions

Reports

Robinson D, Archer T, Green S, Wilson I, Leather D, McCarthy L & Tait M (2018) Older People's Housing, Care and Support Needs in Greater Cambridge, 2017-2036

Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries

Biddulph M, Tait MA & Franklin B (2010) Urban Villages. In Encyclopedia of Urban Studies. California: Sage.

Research group

PhD Supervision

I am Primary supervisor for the following PhD student:

Helen Brown, Housing and ageing

Interested in PhD study?

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who have interests in:

the profession of planning, including its changing role in new (local authority) governance contexts;
the role and values of private sector planning professionals; and,
the politics of nature recovery and planning

Teaching interests

All my teaching seeks to link how we think about planning with how we act as planners. Understanding the concepts that underpin many planning programmes is crucial to realising the possibilities of creating better planning responses.

Much of my teaching involves project based work, opening space for students to respond to real life situations and to reflect on the actions that might be taken in response to these. This includes work with masters students to recreate the decision making situations of local government, and work to prepare plans and designs for areas in Sheffield.

Undergraduate teaching focuses on using real life examples of plans, documents, and policies to explore the broader questions that underpin the activity of planning.

Teaching activities

I currently teach the following modules:

Values in Planning, Spatial Planning Systems, Plan-making, Transport Planning, and Planning Law