Community Governance – Where did it all go Wrong?

Over the past decade there has been much debate challenging the approach that New Labour
took on tackling social and economic division across Britain. Coupled with this debate,
questioning the merit of community governance, British society in 2006 was described by the
then Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, as being ‘broken’, implying that New Labour’s
policies, which focused on local government, were seen as failing. When the new coalition
government was formed in May 2010 the ‘Big Society,’ an alternative style of community
governance was introduced. The introduction of the Big Society is creating a new discourse in
respect of local and regional planning and decision making, which challenges the notion of
community. Against this background this paper provides an analytical discussion on the
emerging new forms of community governance and in particular the re-democratisation of
communities in Britain.