Cost-benefit analysis in planning: A critique of the Roskill Commission

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Lichfield N. (1971) Cost-benefit analysis in planning: A critique of the Roskill Commission, Reg. Studies 5, 157–183. The work of the (Roskill) Commission on the Third London Airport, and also that of its Research Team, was an outstanding contribution to the practice of decision-making in urban and regional planning. Nevertheless, at certain critical stages in their process the Commission was at serious fault. This paper examines these methodological weaknesses, and in particular, the Commission's unsatisfactory use of cost-benefit analysis and its inadequate treatment of issues of regional planning. Had the Commission made better use of the cost-benefit analysis as a framework for arriving at its decision, it is possible that an alternative conclusion would have been reached, namely the one subsequently reached by the Government, Foulness.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: