ENVIRONMENTAL-MANAGEMENT DECISIONS - A PARAMORPHIC ANALYSIS OF PLANNING PERMISSION FOR MINERAL DEVELOPMENT

Many decisions on the management of the environment are made within th e Town and Country Planning Acts by way of development control decisio ns. The cognitive continuum and lens models are used as frameworks for describing how people make judgements in practice. A logit decision m odel is developed to analyse the recommendation of the planning office r and the decision of the planning committee, with respect to applicat ions to develop mineral deposits. The problem of a ''gold standard'' a gainst which decisions can be judged is discussed. The logit model of planning decisions has a high hit rate in predicting development contr ol judgements. The results demonstrate that cue utilization by subject s using intuitive methods is poor. Planning officers and committee mem bers engage in differential dimension focus: whilst they believe in co mplexity, in reality their judgements depend on just a few major varia bles.