English to Greek Other Government / Politics public participation in town planning projects

Participation is also depending on the extent to which a country’s planning system is centralised or decentralised. For example, Belgium and the UK have more decentralised systems, which favour in particular the local level, thus creating better conditions for participation; while Greece and Hungary have more centralised systems, which allow limited planning responsibility at the local level, although efforts have been made towards decentralisation at the regional level.
Professionals interviewed in the PICT countries have suggested that the *Central State* should indeed promote decentralisation and help local authorities by taking up a supervisory and coordinative role in planning and at the same time give enough space to local authorities and their communities to look at solutions that serve them best. The major barrier to this process, though, revealed in the PICT countries and particularly those with a weak civil society and a legal framework that does not provide for effective ways of public participation, is the nervousness of authorities to involve citizens, on the one hand, and the centralised planning system on the other. On the one hand, final decisions are usually fund-driven, so it is fundamental that regional and local authorities are given both human and financial resources and be allowed the discretion to decide on allocation of funds. On the other hand, authorities seem reluctant to involve people in potentially “dangerous” fields by taking a stand of authority-provider rather than of authority-enabler. It was stressed by many of the interviewed planners that the state can also play an important role by including education on planning and environmental issues in the primary/secondary schools and University curricula.

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