Your Backyard, Your Rules? The Capitalization of Community Planning Power in England

Abstract

England's Localism Act 2011 empowered communities to create legally binding Neighbourhood Development Plans. I exploit the staggered adoption of these plans across 158 local authority districts between 2013 and 2023, using Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) difference-in-differences with Land Registry transaction data. Neighbourhood plan adoption has a positive but statistically insignificant effect on median house prices (2 percent, $p > 0.10$), while significantly increasing transaction volume by 32 percent ($p < 0.01$). Event studies show flat pre-trends. Randomization inference confirms the null price result ($p = 0.91$). The findings suggest neighbourhood plans facilitate market activity rather than restricting supply.