Abstract/Summary

The paper contributes to existing research that examines how government policy and state actors support the financialisation of land via the development process and, as such, how planning systems have facilitated the accumulation of privately-owned land-based wealth. The empirical focus of the research is the specialist residential land promoter sector in England. This is a particularly appropriate case study because of the way in which 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, thus, the financialisation of land. The paper examines the diversity of business models, practices 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 therefore in dialogue with wider international literature on the relationship between planning and the land market, how this relationship may be conceptualised via risk and uncertainty, and the role of state regulation in reshaping the physical environment in accordance with financial logics.